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. Friendly then asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot Landon agreed on the condition that he may also play Charles Ingalls. 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.
The show is an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books. Charles, Laura, Caroline, Mary, and Carrie Ingalls are respectively portrayed by Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert, Karen Grassle, Melissa Sue Anderson, and twins Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush. 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. Little House on the Prairie: A Look Back to Yesterday.
