Little House on the Prairie (later known as Little House: A New Beginning in its final season) is an American Western historical drama television 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. 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 could also play Charles Ingalls.