In 1972, with the encouragement of his wife and daughter, television producer and former NBC executive Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights to Wilder's novels from Roger Lea MacBride and engaged Blanche Hanalis to write the teleplay for a two-hour motion picture pilot.[1][2] Friendly then asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot; Landon agreed on the condition that he may also play Charles Ingalls. The pilot, which first aired on March 30, 1974, was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's third Little House book, Little House on the Prairie. The rest of the regular series premiered on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and last aired on May 10, 1982.
In the show's ninth and final season, with the departure of Michael Landon, the title was changed to Little House: A New Beginning.[3][4]
Cast and characters
Laura Ingalls (played by Melissa Gilbert) with her dog Jack (played by Barney), 1975
Following the cancellation of Bonanza, Michael Landon was given an exclusive with NBC to develop new projects.[6] Former television executive and producer of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in, Ed Friendly, purchased the television rights to Little House on the Prairie. After difficulty finding interest for a series, he partnered with Michael Landon. Although initially hesitant to commit to the series, Landon discovered his daughter had been reading the book series and that his wife had also read them. Landon saw the opportunity for a family-oriented series that would also encourage children to read. NBC was hesitant, but trusted Landon's intuition and committed to a two-hour pilot movie and a series to follow if ratings warranted.[7]
Although they agreed that the series should look authentic, Friendly and Landon had different visions of what that meant. Among other differences, Friendly wanted the Charles Ingalls character to have a full beard, while Landon thought it would be bad for his image.[8] Eventually, Friendly wanted Landon removed. NBC, however, backed Landon, and Friendly ultimately ended up being a silent partner.[9]
Of the 204 episodes, Michael Landon directed 87 episodes; producer William F. Claxton directed 68 episodes, while co-star Victor French helmed 18 episodes. Maury Dexter (who was often an assistant director) directed 21 episodes, and Leo Penn directed the remaining three episodes.
Casting
Following NBC's commitment to the series, Landon put his effort into casting. Forty-seven actresses were auditioned for the role of Caroline Ingalls before Landon settled on Karen Grassle. Grassle had university training and a number of repertory theater credits, but minimal television experience.[8]
Landon's most difficult task was casting the children. He did not want "professional daughters with stage mothers".[8]
Writing
Some of the material for the series was taken directly from the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, as well as from the actual lives of the Ingalls family. While many of the stories were pure fabrications, each was meant to be true to the character of the book series.[10]
Filming
Initially, two sound stages at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles were used for the interior shots.[11] In 1978, filming moved to stage 15 at MGM Studios. This was the biggest soundstage at MGM, having been the set for The Wizard of Oz.[12]
Exterior shots were primarily filmed at the nearby Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley.[13] The arid desert land of Ventura county was watered by a series of underground pipes to convert the California desert into a more green Minnesota.[11]
Many other filming locations were also used during the course of the series, including Old Tucson Studios and Sonora, California. Many of the exterior shots of Walnut Grove and the other Minnesota towns shown in the series include noticeable mountainous terrain in the background scenery. In reality, however, the southern Minnesota landscape where the show is supposed to take place does not include tall mountains.[citation needed]
Music
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 Michael Landon's previous long-running series, Bonanza.
Cancellation
As ratings declined in the final season, Michael Landon felt that the series had run its course, noting, "[W]hen we started this show, we never imagined it would last this long".[14]
Themes
Opinions vary on whether the series is considered a Western, with critics generally split on this point. Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present suggest that the series is "not a Western in the usual sense".[4] Most television critics have classified it as a "pioneer drama" or a "family Western".[15] In the Western genre, the series hit several themes that place it in the category, including "cowboys and Indians" (pilot and "Freedom Flight"), its west of the Mississippi setting, as well as gunplay and violence.[15] It is also characterized as a "prairie soap opera", having been compared to The Waltons in a different setting.[10]
Little House explored themes involving many social issues including adoption, alcoholism, faith, poverty, blindness, and prejudice of all types, including racism. Some plots also include subjects such as drug addiction, leukemia, child abuse, premarital sex, menopause, and rape.[16]
Some 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".
Release
Broadcast
Little House on the Prairie ran on NBC from September 11, 1974 to March 21, 1983. From September 1974 to September 1976, it was aired on Wednesday nights from 8:00-9:00 EST. Beginning September 27, 1976, it was moved to Monday nights in the same time slot.[17]
In syndicated reruns, the show has been on the air in the U.S. continuously since its network screenings.[citation needed] In Canada, reruns of the series began airing weeknights on CTS, a Christian-based network, as of September 1, 2008. A free streaming digital channel airing the series, using the mostly uncut video masters provided by Lionsgate, has been available on Amazon Prime Video's Freevee, Pluto TV and The Roku Channel.[19][20]
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. The show is typically stripped (run five days a week) in syndication, which is enough to completely cover a TV station's E/I requirements and more.[citation needed]
NBC owns ancillary rights and thus is the worldwide licensor for home entertainment rights as well. Sister company NBCUniversal Syndication Studios also distributes the series internationally with MGM Television handling international distribution sales.[citation needed]
Home media
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The entire series has been released on standard-definition DVD, high-definition Blu-ray, and on both standard and high-definition Digital Copy. In addition, some individual episodes have been released on DVD and VHS. Starting with Season 7, the Blu-rays are available exclusively through Amazon.com.
There are multiple DVD sets which are noticeably different from one another. The original DVD sets sold in the U.S. and Canada were released in conjunction with NBC Enterprises (later NBC Universal in 2004) by Imavision Distribution, a company based in Quebec. A majority of the episodes in the original North American DVD versions had scenes cut from the episodes—these were derived from the syndicated television versions by Worldvision Enterprises, the series' former distributor. Other episodes (especially in Season Eight) were time compressed and are NTSC-converted video prints from UK PAL masters, while others were derived from 16MM syndication prints, also from Worldvision. Only a handful of episodes in the original sets were in their original uncut versions. The episodes in these original sets are also known to have relatively poor video quality, such as tracking lines, as well as audio problems, though the quality issues are not as pronounced in the first few seasons as they are in the later seasons. The first three seasons of the old sets notably are also missing closed captioning.
These original North American DVD sets included interviews with former cast members Alison Arngrim, Dabbs Greer and Dean Butler. For the original movies & complete series sets, Imavision provided numerous additional special features, including additional interviews with many of the cast members such as Melissa Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson, as well as specials highlighting Michael Landon, the casting of the show, and more. Imavision also released a French-language version of the series. Both versions are in NTSC color and are coded for all regions. Later copies of these original sets were distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment following their acquisition of Imavision, but these should not be confused with the Lionsgate re-releases described below. 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. Unlike the original North American DVD sets, the UK version contains mostly uncut episodes.
In 2014, Lionsgate Home Entertainment began re-releasing the series in North America on DVD, and also for the first time, in high definition on Blu-ray, as well as Digital Copy through providers such as Vudu and Amazon Video. These new releases, which are stated to come direct from the original broadcast masters, contain mostly uncut episodes and are remastered to have superior picture and sound. The Blu-rays, with their high bitrate, high definition 1080p picture (as opposed to standard definition picture on the DVDs) currently provide the best viewing experience of the show that is commercially available. The first six seasons on Blu-ray notably also contain lossless audio as opposed to the compressed audio on the DVDs. Starting with Season 7, Lionsgate chose to only release the remaining Blu-rays exclusively through Amazon.com. In the process, they made several other changes to the Blu-rays including compressing the audio (though with a relatively high bitrate), simplifying the on-screen disc menus, and eliminating the slipcovers and included Digital Copy codes that had been present for the previous seasons.
The newer Lionsgate remastered sets all contain English, French, and Spanish audio as well as English subtitles. They do not include the special features present on the earlier non-remastered releases, but rather seasons 1 through 6 each contain a roughly 15 minute segment of a special called "The Little House Phenomenon". Season 1 also contains the original Pilot movie. Season 7 contains no special features. Seasons 8 & 9 contain the three post-series movie specials as extras, with "Look Back to Yesterday" and "The Last Farewell" appearing on Season 8, and "Bless All The Dear Children" appearing on Season 9. Some fans of the show have been perplexed as to why Lionsgate did this, both because all of the movies take place after the Season 9 timeline, and also because they included "The Last Farewell" on Season 8 when that is considered by fans to be the end to the show given its significant and memorable ending. Lionsgate's decision as to which movies to include on which season appears to have been based on broadcast order rather than production order, since "Bless All The Dear Children" was the last episode broadcast even though "The Last Farewell" was the last one produced. None of the available releases of the series contain "The Little House Years", which was a three-hour Thanksgiving special aired during Season 6 that largely consisted of flashback clips.
While the re-releases are substantially better than what was previously available, there are a handful of episodes that still were released in edited form or contain other problems. The most significant of these, affecting all formats of the remastered releases, include over 3 minutes missing from the Season 7 episode, "Divorce, Walnut Grove Style," almost 4 minutes missing from Season 9's "Home Again," and extremely low volume of the townspeople's singing on the English audio of the last scene of the final movie, "The Last Farewell."[21]
The pilot movie beat the competition with a 26.2 rating, representing roughly 45% of all television sets in operation at the time. The New York Times television critic John J. O'Connor gave the film mixed reviews, but also noted that it "contained enough family warmth and struggle to make The Waltons look like a pack of pampered snobs".[22] With the success of the pilot, the series was scheduled into the fall line-up for Wednesday nights at 8pm.[22]
Season 1 had moderate ratings, while season 2 was the lowest ranked season of the series. In 1976, the series was moved to a Monday night time slot. From season three through season seven it was one of NBC's highest rated scripted series, though it lost this title after season eight as ratings began to decline.
1982: Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore), David Rose, episode "He Was Only Twelve" (Part 2)
When Michael Landon decided to leave the show, the series was retitled Little House: A New Beginning with the focus now placed on the characters of Laura and Almanzo, and more characters were added to the cast. Charles is forced to sell the house and move to Burr Oak, Iowa, to pursue new work. Laura and Almanzo remain and become the central characters. 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 house. Meanwhile, Almanzo and Laura take in their niece, Jenny Wilder (played by Shannen Doherty), when Almanzo's brother dies and raise her alongside their daughter, Rose.[3][4] The show continued to lose viewers, and the retitled version lasted one season.[4]
Movie specials
Three made-for-television post-series movies followed during the 1983–84 television season: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (1983), Little House: The Last Farewell (1984), and Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (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, John Carter offers a supply of explosives that he has. Each man takes a turn blowing up his own building in an emotional farewell to the town.[33]
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 a while 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.[34]
Bless All the Dear Children was filmed prior to The Last Farewell, but ended up being the last of the three movies to air.[35] Given its Christmas-related content, NBC made a last-minute decision to change the broadcast order, airing it during the Christmas season. A voice-over was added explaining the events occurred prior to the destruction of the town to resolve the continuity problem.[14]
Two other Little House movies were made in conjunction with the Landon series: the 1974 pilot for the program and The Little House Years (1979), a Thanksgiving special/clip show that aired in the middle of season six.
Film adaptation
In October 2012, Sony Pictures announced that a film adaptation of the Little House on the Prairie novel was under development.[36] In early 2016, it was widely reported that Paramount Pictures had picked up the project in turnaround, but an agreement was never reached.[37][38][39] In December 2020, it was announced that Paramount Television Studios and Anonymous Content were developing a reboot as a one-hour dramatic series adaptation.[40]
^Friendly, Natalie (1998). The Friendly Family: The Descendants of the Freundlichs of Bavaria. Boston, Massachusetts: Newbury Street Press. pp. 197–210. ISBN0-88082-079-9.
