Lucas Tanner is an NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 television drama that aired during the 1974-75 season. The title character, played by David Hartman

David Hartman (TV personality)

David Downs Hartman is an American journalist and media host who began his media career as an actor. He currently anchors and hosts documentary programs on cable TV's History and on PBS. Hartman is best known as the first host of ABC's Good Morning America, from 1975 to 1987. As an actor, he...

, was a former baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 player and sportswriter who became an english teacher at the fictional Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

 High School in Webster Groves, Missouri

Webster Groves, Missouri

Webster Groves is an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 22,995 at the 2010 census. The city is named after New England politician Daniel Webster....

, a suburb of St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

. Episodes often dealt with the resistance of traditional teachers to Tanner's unorthodox teaching style.

Regular co-stars included Rosemary Murphy

Rosemary Murphy

Rosemary Murphy is an American actress of stage, film, and television.Murphy was born in Munich, Germany, the daughter of American parents Mildred and Robert D. Murphy, a diplomat...

, Kimberly Beck

Kimberly Beck

Kimberly Beck is an American actress with over sixty television and film roles to her credit.-Biography:...

, and ten-year-old Robbie Rist

Robbie Rist

Robert Anthony Rist is an American actor and musician.-Acting and voiceover work:As a child, Rist played Cousin Oliver in the final six episodes of The Brady Bunch. With the regular children all getting older, his inclusion was intended to reintroduce cute younger children to the series...

. Unusually, the show was actually filmed in Webster Groves, rather than on a Hollywood backlot. That gave it a somewhat unusual "look" for a prime-time TV series.

A 90-minute pilot film

Television pilot

A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 of the series aired on NBC the week of May 4, 1974; the pilot also starred Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Quinlan

Kathleen Denise Quinlan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, mostly seen on television and in motion pictures.-Personal life:...

 and Joe Garagiola

Joe Garagiola

Joseph Henry "Joe" Garagiola, Sr. is an American former catcher in Major League Baseball who later became an announcer and television host, popular for his colorful personality. He was well known for being one of the regular panelists of The Today Show on NBC for many years.-Early life:Garagiola...

.

This series was Hartman's last television series as an actor—in November 1975, he began a long-running stint as co-host of ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

's Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

.