| Little House on the Prairie | |
|---|---|
Main title card |
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| Genre | Family Drama Western |
| Developed by | Blanche Hanalis |
| Directed by | William F. Claxton Maury Dexter Victor French Michael Landon Leo Penn |
| Starring | Michael Landon Melissa Gilbert Karen Grassle Melissa Sue Anderson Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush Matthew Laborteaux Richard Bull Katherine MacGregor Alison Arngrim Jonathan Gilbert Kevin Hagen Dabbs Greer Victor French Merlin Olsen Dean Butler Linwood Boomer Shannen Doherty Allison Balson Missy Francis Jason Bateman |
| Theme music composer | David Rose |
| Composer(s) | David Rose |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 9[1] |
| No. of episodes | 203 (plus 5 specials) (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Michael Landon Ed Friendly |
| Producer(s) | John Hawkins William F. Claxton |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Ed Friendly Productions NBC Productions |
| Distributor | Worldvision Enterprises CBS Television Distribution (USA) NBCUniversal International Television Distribution (non-USA) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Picture format | NTSC |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | September 11, 1974 – March 21, 1983 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Little House on the Prairie (film) |
| Followed by | Little House: Look Back to Yesterday |
| Related shows | Father Murphy |
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books. Television producer and NBC executive Ed Friendly became aware of this endearing story in the early 1970s. He asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot movie, who agreed on the condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls.
The regular series was preceded by a two-hour pilot movie that first aired on March 30, 1974. The series began on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and ended on May 10, 1982. During the 1982-83 television season, with the departure of Michael Landon and Karen Grassle, the series was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning.
In 1997, TV Guide ranked the two-part episode "I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away" #97 on its 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[2]
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Although it differed from the original books and many new characters and situations were added, this television series was one of the few long-running successful dramatic family shows (and it is still in syndication). Although predominantly a drama, the program did have some comedic moments, thanks to supporting cast members Mr. Edwards (played by Victor French) and the Oleson family: Nels Oleson (Richard Bull), Harriet Oleson (Katherine MacGregor), Willie Oleson (Jonathan Gilbert), Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim), and their adopted child, Nancy Oleson (Allison Balson).
The show's central characters are Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon), farmer and patriarch, with his wife, Caroline (Karen Grassle), and four daughters, Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), Laura (Melissa Gilbert), Carrie (Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush) and Grace (Wendi and Brenda Turnbaugh), later adding adopted children Albert (Matthew Laborteaux), Cassandra (Missy Francis) and James (Jason Bateman).
Other essential characters included the friendly Nels Oleson, proprietor of the town's general store, Oleson's Mercantile; his malicious, gossiping wife, Harriet; and their two spoiled children, Nellie and Willie; and later, their adopted child, Nancy (Allison Balson). Also appearing in the series are former professional football player Merlin Olsen (as Jonathan Garvey), Dabbs Greer (as Reverend Robert Alden), Karl Swenson (as Lars Hanson, the town's founder and proprietor of the town's mill), and Kevin Hagen (as Dr. Hiram Baker, the town's physician). Malcolm in the Middle creator Linwood Boomer appears as Mary Ingalls's teacher-turned-husband, Adam Kendall, who she meets at the school for the blind in the 1978-1979 season. In the sixth season, Dean Butler joined the cast as Almanzo Wilder, and he and Laura are married in the seventh season premiere.
Michael Landon directed the largest number of episodes (87); producer William F. Claxton handled the majority of the remaining shows (68). Co-star Victor French helmed 19 episodes, and Maury Dexter directed a handful.
The series theme song was titled The Little House and was written and conducted by David Rose. The ending theme music, also written by Rose, originally appeared as a piece of incidental music in a later-season episode of Bonanza.
As with most TV series set in a distant time or place, historical inaccuracies and errors do appear. At the end of the episode "Country Girls" an airplane can be heard flying overhead. Little House on the Prairie was largely filmed on Big Sky Ranch at Simi Valley, California, and as a result camera vistas sometimes pick up rugged chaparral terrain, far too mountainous and scrubby for Minnesota. One episode even depicted Laura running away and climbing up a mountain. California's oak savannas appears in many of the scenes and are considered to be representative of the real Walnut Grove. Dr. Baker's telephone was an anachronism since the telephone only existed in large cities in the 1880s. Also during the series run, several married women take teaching jobs during an era when only single women could teach. Several episodes mentioned peanut butter sandwiches, which were not introduced until the early 1900s. Another episode ("Wave Of The Future", from season eight) shows an elderly man, ostensibly Colonel Harland Sanders, attempting to sell his restaurant franchise to Mrs. Oleson. Sanders was actually born in 1890. In the episode titled "A Wiser Heart" Laura Ingalls Wilder attends an 1885 lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Emerson actually died in 1882.
Little House explored many themes, and every episode was filled with family values, love, friendship, and faith. Adoption, alcoholism, racism and blindness were portrayed in the scripts. Some plots also included subjects such as drug addiction (i.e. morphine), leukemia, prejudice, and even rape.
Several of the episodes written by Michael Landon were recycled storylines from ones that he had written for Bonanza. Season two's "A Matter of Faith" was based on the Bonanza episode "A Matter of Circumstance"; season five's "Someone Please Love Me" was based on the Bonanza episode "A Dream To Dream"; season seven's "The Silent Cry" was based on the Bonanza episode "The Sound of Sadness"; season eight's "He Was Only Twelve" was based on the Bonanza episode "He Was Only Seven"; and season nine's "Little Lou" was based on the Bonanza episode "It's A Small World."
Melissa Gilbert appeared in the majority of Little House episodes and stayed throughout the entire run. She was absent for thirteen episodes, for a total of 190 of the 203 episodes. Michael Landon appeared in every episode except four for the first eight seasons then departed from the cast (when the show was retooled as Little House: A New Beginning), for a total of 179 episodes.
During its nine-season run, many actors who guest-starred on the show went on to greater fame; among those appearing in Little House episodes are: Hill Street Blues stars Michael Conrad and James B. Sikking; Landon's ex-Bonanza co-star Mitch Vogel; two of Landon's real-life children Michael Landon, Jr. and Leslie Landon. Other actors include: Willie Aames, Anne Archer, Parley Baer, Jonathan Banks, Billy Barty, Richard Basehart, Ralph Bellamy, Lucille Benson, Ray Bolger, Ernest Borgnine, Todd Bridges, Joshua Bryant, Red Buttons, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Tom Clancy, Matt Clark, Jeff Corey, Nicolas Coster, Johnny Crawford, James Cromwell, David Faustino, Gil Gerard, Louis Gossett, Jr., Mariette Hartley, Eileen Heckart, John Hillerman, Rance Howard, Ernie Hudson, Rick Hurst, John Ireland, Burl Ives, Richard Jaeckel, Celia Kaye, Tom Lester, Robert Loggia, Mike Lookinland, Chuck McCann, Jan Merlin, Richard Mulligan, Patricia Neal, Sean Penn (uncredited), Chris Petersen, Bill Quinn, Anne Ramsey, Madeleine Stowe, Ford Rainey, Kim Richards, Bing Russell, William Schallert, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Ronnie Scribner, Paula Shaw, Eric Shea, Raymond St. Jacques, Liam Sullivan, and Dolph Sweet
When Michael Landon decided to leave the show (though he stayed on as executive producer and occasional writer and director), season nine is renamed, the focus is put on the characters of Laura and Almanzo, and more characters are added to the cast. A new family, the Carters (Stan Ivar as John, Pamela Roylance as Sarah, Lindsay Kennedy as older son Jeb, and David Friedman as younger son Jason), move into the Ingalls' home. Meanwhile, Almanzo and Laura take in their niece, Jenny Wilder (Shannen Doherty), when Almanzo's brother dies (presumably his two sons are also deceased) and raise her alongside their daughter, Rose. The Wilders appear prominently in some episodes, while in others they appear only in early scenes used to introduce the story or its characters. The explanation given for the original characters' absence was that they moved to Burr Oak, Iowa, to build a much better life. The show lost viewers, thus this version of the series was canceled after nineteen episodes. However, the show lived on for a couple more years in movie format.
Three made-for-television movie sequels followed: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (1983), Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (1983), and Little House: The Last Farewell (1984).
In The Last Farewell, Charles and Caroline decide to visit Walnut Grove. They learn that a railroad tycoon actually holds the deed to the township, and he wants to take it over for his own financial gain. Despite their best efforts, the townspeople are unable to drive the businessman away. At a town meeting, one of the residents offers a supply of explosives that he has. Each man takes turn blowing up his own building.[3] When asked why the set was blown up, the show's producer, Kent McCray, said that when the series started, he made an agreement with the property owners that at the end of the series he would put the acreage back to its original state. When the production crew were estimating the cost of dismantling all the buildings, Michael Landon thought for awhile and said, "What if we blow up the town? That would get the buildings all in pieces and you can bring in your equipment to pick up the debris and cart it away." He then said that he would write it where they blow up all the buildings, except for the little house and the church. Both McCray and Landon wept as the town blew up.[4]
Two other Little House movies were made in conjunction with the Landon series: the 1974 pilot for the program and Little House Years (1979), a Thanksgiving special/clip show that aired in the middle of season six.
Little House on the Prairie was one of several hit shows on NBC primetime throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. For the first two seasons, the show was aired on Wednesday nights at 8pm ET/7pm CT, to moderate ratings. In 1976, the series became a Monday night staple on NBC; after the move, it remained in the top 30 for the rest of its run.
| Season | Ratings Rank |
| 1974–1975 | #13[5] |
| 1976–1977 | #16[6] |
| 1977–1978 | #07[7] |
| 1978–1979 | #14[8] |
| 1979–1980 | #16[9] |
| 1980–1981 | #10[10] |
| 1981–1982 | #25[11] |
| 1982–1983 | #29[12] |
The show is popular in reruns in syndication. In the U.S., it currently airs on Hallmark Channel and INSP.
Because of its historical context and its connection to the book series, it is deemed acceptable for use by the FCC to meet federal E/I programming guidelines.
In Canada, reruns of the series began airing weeknights on CTS, a Christian-based network, as of September 1, 2008.
In the US, television syndication rights are currently owned by CBS Television Distribution. Originally, NBC licensed these rights to Worldvision Enterprises, since networks could not own syndication arms at the time. As a result of corporate changes, Paramount Domestic Television and CBS Paramount Domestic Television would inherit the rights, finally passing to CTD in 2007.
NBC owns ancillary rights and thus is the worldwide licensor for DVD rights as well. Sister company NBC Universal International Television distributes the series internationally.
The entire series has been released on DVD. The North American DVD sets include exclusive interviews by Little House historian Patrick Labyorteaux and actors Alison Arngrim, Dabbs Greer and Dean Butler.
A majority of the episodes in the North American DVD versions have scenes cut from the episodes—these are derived from the syndicated television versions by Worldvision Enterprises, the series former distributor (in fact, their various logos still appear at the end of most episodes—but before the NBC Universal Television Distribution logo). Other episodes are time-compressed; these are NTSC-converted video prints from UK PAL masters. Only a handful of episodes in the DVD sets are in their original uncut versions (for example, many season one episodes on DVD contain scenes not in current syndication prints). Many episodes on the DVD versions contain tracking lines and audio problems.
The DVD sets sold in the U.S. and Canada were released under license from NBC Universal by Imavision Distribution, a company based in Quebec. Imavision has also released a French-language version of the DVD set. Both versions are in NTSC color and coded for all regions. Later copies were distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment following their acquisition of Imavision. The DVD sets sold in the United Kingdom were released by Universal Playback (a Universal Studios Home Entertainment label); this version is in PAL color and coded for region 2.
Some time earlier, some single Little House episodes were released on both DVD and VHS by GoodTimes Entertainment. Before retail DVDs were available, the Little House episodes were available through a Columbia House club subscription. These VHS tapes contained two episodes per tape and were only available at a club price. The episodes on these VHS tapes, unlike the current DVDs, were not edited and remain the only commercially available uncut episodes.
In November 2008, the Finnish Board of Film Classification rated the DVD release of the Little House on the Prairie series as suitable for adults only—requiring a sticker to be affixed to all DVDs saying "Banned for under-18s". This was because of Universal Pictures' decision not to submit the series to state review to avoid the state review fee of approximately USD $27,500.[13]
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