Little House on the Prairie (TV series)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Little House on the Prairie" TV series – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Little House on the Prairie
Also known as	Little House: A New Beginning
Genre	Western Historical drama
Based on	Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Developed by	Blanche Hanalis
Directed by	William F. Claxton Maury Dexter Victor French Michael Landon Leo Penn
Starring	Michael Landon Karen Grassle Melissa Gilbert Melissa Sue Anderson Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush Matthew Labyorteaux Richard Bull Katherine MacGregor Alison Arngrim Jonathan Gilbert Charlotte Stewart Dean Butler Lucy Lee Flippin Linwood Boomer Kevin Hagen Dabbs Greer Victor French Bonnie Bartlett Kyle Richards Merlin Olsen Hersha Parady Patrick Labyorteaux Ketty Lester Jason Bateman Shannen Doherty
Theme music composer	David Rose
Composer	David Rose
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	9
No. of episodes	204 (+ 4 specials) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Michael Landon Ed Friendly
Producers	John Hawkins William F. Claxton
Running time	48‒49 minutes
Production companies	Ed Friendly Productions NBC Productions
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	September 11, 1974 (1974-09-11) – March 21, 1983 (1983-03-21)
Related
Little House on the Prairie (film) Little House on the Prairie: A Look Back to Yesterday Father Murphy
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Little House on the Prairie (Little House: A New Beginning in its ninth and final season) is an American Western historical drama television series about the Ingalls family, who live on a farm on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s–90s. Charles, Caroline, Laura, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls are respectively portrayed by Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson, and twins Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush. The show is loosely based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books.

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.

During the 1982–83 television season, with the departure of Landon and Grassle, a sequel series, generally considered Season Nine for syndicated packages, was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning.