After MGM acquired the show from Paramount, the crew tore up old sets that were used for MGM productions to make room for the new sets that were needed for the show. When Michael Landon removed flooring from one of the old sets, he uncovered the Yellow Brick Road from The Wizard of Oz (1939), which was still intact. Melissa Gilbert and the other kids got extremely excited when they recognised it.
While working on an episode of the show, Garett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam, chatted with former NFL player Merlin Olsen between scenes. Olsen mentioned how limited he thought television coverage of football was, because the static cameras couldn't give the audience any sense of the speed and flow of the game. With that in mind, Brown eventually designed what he called Skycam, (now also known as Cablecam or Spidercam) the floating hydraulic camera system that flies around the stadium above the players, with a 360 degree viewing angle. It has since become an essential tool in the coverage of live sporting and stadium events.
Karen Grassle (Ma/Caroline Ingalls) has talked in interviews about Michael Landon's decision to blow up the Walnut Grove set as a spiteful show of protest against NBC; who decided to cancel the show. She has said Landon's blowing up the set was very "sad"; and she "wishes he hadn't done that."
Back in the 1800s, one of the main evening meals was beef stew. Throughout the series, when the Ingalls sat down to eat, they were eating Dinty Moore Beef Stew, and on the nights they would have fried chicken for dinner, they were eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.