Omoro Kinte:
Kunta Kinte, behold the only thing greater than yourself!
Roots was a
Mini Series presenting a dramatized account about author Alex Haley's family line and their struggles coping with slavery from ancestor Kunta Kinte's enslavement to his Civil War descendants' liberation. Based on a novel by Haley.
First broadcast in late January and early February 1977, the series was a tremendous success, prompting new public interest in genealogy and, in regard to television, established the
Mini Series as a high profile prestige format for prime time.
The first
Roots, the generally better received one, went only up through the
Civil War, while a 1979
Sequel,
Roots: The Next Generations, picked up in 1865 and went through to Alex Haley himself, culminating in Haley visiting Kunte Kinte's home village in the 1970s.
1988 brought a third (fictional) entry:
Roots: The Gift. This was a single two-hour side story, bringing back LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte. As a piece of trivia, this film features a few actors who would be in
Star Trek productions, just as Burton was. Avery Brooks (
Captain Benjamin Sisko), Kate Mulgrew (
Captain Kathryn Janeway), and Tim Russ (
Lieutenant Tuvok).
This show provides examples of:
- Adult Fear: Being powerless to stop your children from being abducted, or from being raped by your superiors.
- All-Star Cast: The mini series featured many famous black celebrities of the time.
- Arc Words: "(Name), behold! The only thing greater than yourself!"; in the later episodes, the story each generation of Kunta Kinte's family tells about their family tree.
- Artistic License - History: Though the series is (rightly) praised for its unflinching depiction of the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade, its depiction of White "slave catchers" is a bit historically inaccurate. In Real Life, though the slave trade itself was facilitated by European and American traders, most African slaves were physically captured by other Africans who took them as prisoners in intertribal battles and sold them for profit—not by Whites who travelled into the interior of Africa to quietly ambush slaves one by one.
- All There in the Manual: There is a somewhat obscure special called: Roots: The Gift that takes place between Parts 2 and 3 of the series that explains how Kunta and Fiddler moved to Reynolds's plantation.
- Beastly Bloodsports: The cockfight.
- Big "NO!"/Say My Name: KUNTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
- Changed My Mind, Kid: Pettijohn refusing to stick his neck out again for Simon Haley and help save Ab Dekker.
- Family Drama: Extended multigenerational.
- Generational Saga
- Hey, It's That Guy!: OJ Simpson is one of the random tribesmen in the first episode who Kunta runs into on his bird hunt.
- Maya Angelou cameoed as Kunta's grandmother.
- I Die Free
- Inspired By: The earlier parts, before Chicken George are all fiction. There was a Kunta Kinte and a Lord Ligonier, but neither have a proven connection to Haley. The rest may have been altered here or there for the sake of drama.
- Large Ham: George "Chicken George" Moore
- Made a Slave: Kunta Kinte.
- Mini Series
- The Man Is Keeping Us Down: And how! There are a couple of sympathetic whites, though, particularly George Johnson and his wife.
- My Name Is Not Durwood: The Tear Jerker variety - it's Kunta Kinte, not Toby.
- Pet the Dog: Some of the masters have a couple of moments that could count — even Tom Moore.
- Playing Gertrude: The actress playing Kizzy was 3 years older than the guy who played her son, Chicken George. (necessary though, since she also played a younger version of Kizzy.)
- Rite of Passage: During the first episode, the adolescent boys of the village are taken out to a remote area and subjected to several rites of passage.
- Stock Subtitle: Roots the Next Generations.
- 2 + Torture = 5: "Your name is TOBY!"
- You Can't Go Home Again: Kunta Kinte/Toby
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