Little House on the Prairie was an American one-hour dramatic television program that aired on the NBC network from September 11, 1974, to March 21, 1983, bumping the long-running Adam-12 series to Tuesday nights. During the 1982-83 television season, with the departure of Michael Landon, the series was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning. A three-hour compilation special called The Little House Years was aired in 1979.

The show was a loose adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series of Little House on the Prairie books. Readers of the books will notice huge discrepancies between the book series and the shows.

The series was produced in-house by NBC. As of 2007, current corporate sibling Universal Media Studios owns the underlying rights; however, it is distributed in syndication in the United States by CBS Television Distribution, the syndication arm of CBS Paramount Television (holders of the library of Worldvision Enterprises, the original syndicated distributors).

Shortly after the Civil War, a young pioneer family tries to re-build their lives by moving to the prairies of Minnesota, with disastrous consequences. Pilot film to the long-running TV series. Written by

Pilot movie to the legendary TV series of the same name, about the life of pioneer girl Laura Ingalls and her family. Laura (who is 9 years old) and her family - which includes her Pa, Charles; her Ma, Caroline; and her sisters, 11-year-old Mary and 2-year-old Carrie - move from the Little House in the Big Woods of Wisconsin to the prairies of Kansas. Settling about 50 miles west of Independence, Kan., the Ingalls set up home. It's there where the Ingalls meet Mr. Edwards, a bachelor who quickly becomes Laura's cherished friend. While on the prairie, the Ingalls must endure many hardships and life-threatening challenges, ranging from Indians to wild fires. Written by Brian Rathjen

Based on the popular "Little House" book series by Laura Ingalls-Wilder, this hour long dramatic series followed the frontier lives of Charles and Caroline Ingalls, and their three young daughters: Mary, Laura and Carrie. Written by Phil Fernando

A long-running drama based upon the "Little House" series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, "Little House on the Prairie" follows the lives of the simple, farming Ingalls family: Charles, Caroline, Mary, Laura, Carrie and then Grace and the later adopted Albert, James and Cassandra, who settle into a quaint little house on the banks of Plum Creek near the small town of Walnut Grove during the late 1800s. Often narrated by Laura, the series follows her simple farm upbringing from her childhood until her adulthood with Almanzo Wilder with whom she starts a family of her own. While the series is based upon the Little House books (and thus the real life of author Laura Ingalls Wilder), it is a very loose adaptation, with mostly only key events and elements of fact surviving the transition from book to TV series, the most important being Mary's eventual blindness, and Laura's future. Several other fictitious (some factual) characters make up the friendly community of Walnut Grove, including teacher Miss Beadle (succeeded by two other teachers, then Laura, then Etta Plum), Dr. Hiram Baker, Rev. Robert Alden, Mr. Hanson (of the Hanson lumber mill), and the well-to-do Olesons, owners of the local mercantile, and also the primary rivals of the Ingalls family (except the Oleson patriarch). Family friends include the Edwards family, the Garvey family and the Carters, who, in the final season, move into the Ingalls' little house. Written by Ondre Lombard