(Little House: A New Beginning in its ninth and final season)
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. 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.