Dallas is a highly popular, long-running American primetime television soap opera that originally ran from 1978 to 1991. It is centred around the Ewing family, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching businesses. The show debuted in April 1978 as a five-part miniseries on the CBS network, then was broadcast on that network for 13 seasons, from Saturday, September 23, 1978, to Friday, May 4, 1991.
The show's central character is John Ross "J.R." Ewing, Jr., a greedy, scheming oil baron played by Fort Worth native Larry Hagman throughout the show's entire run. The series was a hybrid of Romeo and Juliet (Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes as star-crossed lovers whose families were sworn enemies) and Bonanza (an affluent western patriarch with three sons).
Creator David Jacobs originally created and pitched an idea for the series Knots Landing, but CBS wanted a glitzy "saga-like" show. Jacobs therefore created Dallas, a series about a wealthy family in the oil business. When Dallas proved to be a hit, CBS reconsidered Jacobs' original idea and turned Knots Landing into a spin-off of Dallas in late 1979.
The Dallas miniseries that started in April 1978 was shot entirely on location in Dallas, Texas. Later, most interiors for the show were shot at the MGM studios in Hollywood.