Little Big Shots

"America’s Got Talent," NBC’s No. 1 summer show, returns in May with fresh new faces and familiar favorites, along with the excitement, thrills and feel-good performances that viewers have come to love each season.  

A long-running drama based on the "Little House" book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder follows the lives of the simple, farming Ingalls family: Charles, Caroline, Mary, Laura, Carrie, 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, Minnesota 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 on the "Little House" book series (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 town 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, Garveys, and Carters, who, in the final season, move into the Ingalls' little house.

A group of aliens has come to Earth to learn about its population, customs, et cetera. To avoid detection, they have taken on human form, which gives them human emotions, physical needs, et cetera, without the understanding of what they mean nor the inhibitions normally present in humans. Their leader takes the position of a college professor, their military expert as his sister, their intelligence expert, supposedly the oldest of group, takes the form of his teenage son. The uninhibited reactions turn everyday events into unusual situations.

Wheel of Fortune features a competition in which contestants solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a giant carnival wheel.

Captain Tony Nelson is an astronaut. While on a mission, he discovered a mysterious bottle. Opening it, he released Jeannie (a Genie) who was so overjoyed at her release she promised to serve Captain Nelson. Nelson is unsure what to make of Jeannie, especially given that his work is highly secret and his superiors tend to keep a close eye on him.

"From out of the clear blue of the western sky comes Sky King" was the familiar opening to television's premier aviation program. Operating from his Flying Crown Ranch in Arizona, Sky King, his niece Penny and their Cessna 310 airplane "Songbird" were constantly involved in one adventure after another.