| Roots | |
|---|---|
25th Anniversary DVD cover, 2001 |
|
| Genre | Historical novel-based period piece |
| Produced by | Stan Margulies |
| Written by | Alex Haley |
| Starring | Olivia Cole Ben Vereen LeVar Burton John Amos Louis Gossett, Jr. Leslie Uggams Georg Stanford Brown |
| Music by | Gerald Fried Quincy Jones (ep. 1) |
| Budget | US$6 million |
| Country | United States |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | January 23, 1977 – January 30, 1977 |
| Running time | 570 minutes (90 minutes each) |
| No. of episodes | 8 (re-edited for VHS and DVD to 6) |
| Followed by | Roots: The Next Generations |
Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award.[1] It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still standing as the third-highest rated U.S. television program ever.[2] It was shot on a budget of $6 million.[3][4]
The series introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte, Haley's maternal fourth great-grandfather. A sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, was broadcast in 1979, and a second sequel, Roots: The Gift, was produced as a Christmas movie which starred LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett, Jr.
Following the success of the original novel and the miniseries, Haley was sued by author Harold Courlander, who asserted that Roots was plagiarized from his own novel The African, published nine years prior to Roots in 1967. The resulting trial ended with an out-of-court settlement and Haley's admission that some passages within Roots had been copied from Courlander's work.[5] Separately, researchers refuted Haley's claims that, as the basis for Roots, he had successfully traced his own ancestry back through slavery to a specific individual and village in Africa.[6] [7]
Contents |
In the Gambia, West Africa, in 1750, Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) is born to Muslim Mandinka warrior Omoro Kinte (Thalmus Rasulala) and his wife Binta (Cicely Tyson). When their son reaches the age of 15, he and a group of other adolescent males take part in a tribal "coming of manhood" ceremony, after which they officially become Mandinka warriors. While trying to find wood outside his village to make a drum for his brother, Kunta is captured by contentious tribe members and sold to slave traders and is put on a slave ship commanded by Captain Davies (Edward Asner) and his third mate Slater (Ralph Waite) for a three-month journey to Colonial America. During the course of their forced journey, a group of African rebels try but fail to take over the ship. Kunta inadvertently kills Slater in the process.
The ship lands months later in Annapolis, Maryland, where the captured Africans are sold at auction as slaves. Kunta Kinte is sold to plantation owner John Reynolds (Lorne Greene) and is given the slave name of Toby. An older slave named Fiddler (Louis Gossett Jr) is charged with teaching Toby the ways of being a chattel slave, including learning English. In a desperate struggle to be free and to preserve his Mandinka heritage, he makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape. Kunta doesn't want to give up his Mandinka roots and is reluctant to change his name to Toby and give up his Muslim faith. An overseer named Ames (Vic Morrow) has Kunta Kinte severely whipped, until he submits to his slave name.
The adult Kunta Kinte/Toby (John Amos) eventually learns what it means to be a chattel slave but is haunted by his Mandinka roots and his memories of being free. He submits to the harsh life, but only after having half of his foot severed to keep him from attempting further escapes. He is sold to John Reynolds' brother William (Robert Reed), eventually marrying another slave named Belle (Madge Sinclair), who treats his severed foot. Toby and Belle have a daughter named Kizzy (Leslie Uggams). Kizzy is secretly taught to read and write by Missy Anne (Sandy Duncan), the product of an adulterous affair between John Reynold's wife and Dr. Reynolds. When Kizzy is in her late teens, she is caught writing a fake travel pass for a boy she is in love with, Noah (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). Missy Anne turns her back on Kizzy when Kizzy needs her the most, which makes Kizzy think white people aren't to be trusted. She is then sold away to Tom Moore (Chuck Connors) in North Carolina. Kizzy is raped by Moore when she arrives at his plantation and, as a result, gives birth to a son named George.
The adult George (Ben Vereen) becomes an expert in cockfighting, earning him the moniker "Chicken George", which eventually gives him the opportunity in the 1840s to be sent into servitude in England. He returns to America a free man 14 years later in 1861. George's son Tom Harvey (Georg Stanford Brown) becomes a blacksmith - and a slave for George Harvey - whose slave labor is used by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. After the war, racists led by Evan Brent (Lloyd Bridges) give birth to an early form of the Ku Klux Klan, and begin to frequently harass Tom, his family and other blacks — exploiting them economically by day and terrorizing them by night wearing the infamous white hoods. The problem escalates when Tom reports the issues to authorities and Brent finds out about it. However, Chicken George returns after the news of blacks being freed, and tells his family of land he bought that they may live in. Afraid of the Ku Klux Klan, especially after receiving a whipping from one of them, Tom and his family move to George's land in Tennessee to begin a new life. And as the series ends in 1867, Chicken George tells his grandson about his grandfather, the African who went to find some wood for a drum, and was captured by a contentious tribe of Africans and sold to the slave traders.
Alex Haley narrates the last few minutes of the miniseries: a montage of photos of family members connecting Tom's daughter Cynthia, the great-great-granddaughter of Kunta Kinte, to Haley himself.
The miniseries was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene and Gilbert Moses. It was produced by Stan Margulies. David L. Wolper was executive producer. The score was composed by Gerald Fried and Quincy Jones.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications recounts the apprehensions that Roots would flop, and how this made ABC prepare the format:
| “ | Familiar television actors like American (sic) actor Lorne Greene were chosen for the white, secondary roles, to reassure audiences. The white actors were featured disproportionately in network previews. For the first episode, the writers created a conscience-stricken slave captain (Ed Asner), a figure who did not appear in Haley's novel but was intended to make white audiences feel better about their historical role in the slave trade. Even the show's consecutive-night format allegedly resulted from network apprehensions. ABC programming chief Fred Silverman hoped that the unusual schedule would cut his network's imminent losses—and get Roots off the air before sweeps week.[8] | ” |
Roots originally aired on ABC for eight consecutive nights from January 23 to January 30, 1977. In the United Kingdom, the BBC screened the miniseries from April 8 to April 20, 1977.
| Original run # | Re-edited version # | Approximate time period | Featured Kinte descendant(s) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kunta Kinte | Kizzy | Chicken George | Tom Harvey | |||
| Part I (90m) | 1750 – 1767 | Yes | ||||
| Part II (90m) | 1767 | Yes | ||||
| Part III (45m) | Part III (90m) | 1776 | Yes | |||
| Part IV (45m) | 1780 – 1790 | Yes | ||||
| Part V (45m) | Part IV (90m) | 1806 | Yes | Yes | ||
| Part VI (90m) | 1824 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Part V (90m) | 1841 – 1847 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Part VII (45m) | 1861 – 1865 | Yes | Yes | |||
| Part VIII (90m) | Part VI (90m) | 1865 – 1870 | Yes | Yes | ||
The miniseries was watched by an estimated 130[9][10][11] and 140[12][13] million viewers total and averaged a 44.9 rating[12] 66% share[12] of the audience. The final episode was watched by 100 million viewers and an average of 80 million viewers watched each of the last seven episodes.[8] 85% of all television homes saw all or part of the mini-series.[8]
The ratings for all episodes were found here. All episodes rank within the top 100 rated TV shows of all time.[14]
| Episode | All-time Ratings Ranking |
Number of Households |
Rating | Share | Date | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roots Part I | #82 | 28.84 million | 40.5% | 61% | January 23, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part II | #32 | 31.40 million | 44.1% | 62% | January 24, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part III | #27 | 31.90 million | 44.8% | 68% | January 25, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part IV | #35 | 31.19 million | 43.8% | 66% | January 26, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part V | #21 | 32.54 million | 45.7% | 71% | January 27, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part VI | #18 | 32.68 million | 45.9% | 66% | January 28, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part VII | #50 | 30.12 million | 42.3% | 65% | January 29, 1977 | ABC |
| Roots Part VIII | #3 | 36.38 million | 51.1% | 71% | January 30, 1977 | ABC |
Warner Home Video, which released a 25th-anniversary 3-disc DVD edition of the series in 2002, released a four-disc (three double-sided, one single-sided) 30th-anniversary set on May 22, 2007. Bonus features include a new audio commentary by LeVar Burton, Cicely Tyson and Ed Asner among other key cast members, "Remembering Roots" behind-the-scenes documentary, "Crossing Over: How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation" featurette, new interviews with key cast members and the DVD-ROM "Roots Family Tree" feature.[15]
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||