Little House on the Prairie, The Complete DVD Box Set (Classic) ( 2020) – Family Drama, Michael Landon

What’s it about

Little House on the Prairie (known as Little House: A New Beginning in its final season) is an American western historical drama series, starring Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert, Karen Grassle, and Melissa Sue Anderson, about a family living on a farm in Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The show is an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series of Little House books. Television producer and NBC executive Ed Friendly became aware of the story in the early 1970s.[1] He asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot movie; Landon agreed on the condition that he could also play Charles Ingalls.

The regular series was preceded by a two-hour pilot movie, which first aired on March 30, 1974. The pilot was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s third Little House book in the series, “Little House On The Prairie”. The series premiered on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and last aired on May 10, 1982. During the 1982¨C83 television season, with the departure of Landon and Grassle, the series was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning.

Based on the autobiographical “Little House” series, episodes of Little House on the Prairie usually concern members of the Ingalls family, who live on a small farm near the village of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Many episodes concern the maturation of the family’s second daughter, Laura. However, episodes also focus on other family and community members, providing a depiction of life in a small agrarian community in late nineteenth-century America. The show’s central characters are Charles Ingalls (farmer and mill worker), his wife Caroline, and their three daughters, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, though the family expands with the birth of daughter Grace and adoption of son Albert in season five, as well as the adoption of birth siblings Cassandra and James at the end of season seven (a son, Charles “Freddy” Jr., was also born, but died as an infant).

Other essential characters include the Oleson family: Nels, proprietor of the town’s general store, Oleson’s Mercantile as well as Nellie’s Restaurant and Hotel; his malicious, gossiping wife, Harriet, who runs the Mercantile and Restaurant with him and serves as the show’s principal antagonist; and their three children, biologically Nellie and Willie, and adopted Nancy; Isaiah Edwards, Grace Snider Edwards and their three adopted children; the Garvey family, Jonathan, Alice, and Andy; Rev. Robert Alden; Lars Hanson, the town’s founder and proprietor of the town’s mill; and Dr. Hiram Baker, the town’s physician and veterinarian. Teacher-turned-lawyer Adam Kendall is introduced at the end of season four and later weds Mary Ingalls, and Almanzo Wilder is introduced in season six and later weds Laura Ingalls.