After the show moved to MGM studios from Paramount, the production moved onto Stage 15, the largest soundstage on the lot. When Ray Bolger guest appeared in season five he removed flooring from part of the studio where an old, defunct oil heater had been torn out and uncovered part of the Yellow Brick Road from The Wizard of Oz (1939), (in which he famously played the Scarecrow,) which was still intact. the children and cast were extremely excited when Bolger showed it to them.
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 didn't give the audience any sense of the speed and movement 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 for covering live sporting and stadium events.
According to Alison Arngrim's autobiography "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch," Katherine MacGregor was a nice person, but a disruptive element on set. She would argue with the directors and try to give other actors and actresses direction. Even her onscreen husband, Richard Bull, had to put his foot down about it. Michael Landon seriously considered firing her, but her performance as the show's villain was just too perfect to let her go.
About her working relationship with Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert said, "He was very much like a 'second father' to me. My own father passed away when I was 11, so, without really officially announcing it, Michael really stepped in." When not working on set, Gilbert spent most the weekends visiting Landon's real-life family. She once said, "The house was huge. We ran like banshees through that house, and Mike would hide behind doorways and jump out and scare us." In a 2015 interview, Gilbert said "He gave me so much advice...the overall idea that he pounded into me, from a little girl, into my brain was that nothing's more important than home and family; no success, no career, no achievements, no accomplishments, nothing's more important than loving the people you love and contributing to a community. Though we were working, really, really hard, we were 'Not Saving The World,' one episode of television at a time, we're just entertaining people and there are more important things to do.... and have fun; no matter what."