Roots - The Complete Original Series

LeVar Burton was an unknown, 18-year-old USC sophomore when he was cast as a 1790 Mandinka warrior-turned-slave Kunte Kinte for the groundbreaking original 1977 series slug>"Roots," now out on Blu-ray as the History Channel presents an updated version.

One of television's first mini-series, ABC's risky weeklong stunt at the end of January changed the world, garnering 37 Emmy awards (winning 9), making genealogy research the third most popular US hobby, launching a wave of family reunions, babies being named Kunte and Kizzy, introducing Black studies programs to universities, and Black people choosing to be called African-Americans.

Alex Haley, who began the research in 1967 that would eventually lead him to his Gambian homeland, wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning book that discovered seven generations of his family at the same time white men wrote the screenplay. Most network execs, especially upper management and the sales departments, predicted failure. But the eight-part series took the lessons from the Civil Rights Movement, and put the nearly unvarnished brutality of slavery, and the subtitle, "The Saga of An American Family," in front of 130 million US viewers (followed by print and TV translations in many languages).

In addition to the entire original program, the four-disc set includes eight additional features, some filmed in 1978 and 2007, with some more recently. The surviving all-star cast reflects on the original filming in Georgia (for the African scenes) then in California (for Virginia locations), plus the aftermath of what remains one of the most watched shows in history.

Haley's friends, actor/activists Rudy Dee and Ossie Davis, introduced the idea to producer David L. Wolper.

Burton links emancipation to the Civil Rights movement to Obama via the consciousness-raising Roots created in America, as "one of those milestone markers in American history." He also notes that when locked in chains during filming, he was "acutely aware that the physical, emotional, psychological feelings were a drop in the bucket compared to what my ancestors suffered." (The ship scenes were shot over three days, and he says he barely recalls that time, that his forebears came to him to mediate the pain).

Ben Vereen, who plays Chicken George, says he finally got to tell "HIS-story, about his Holocaust." It changed his career too, and he felt "euphoria when filming because it was told from the slaves' point of view."

Sandy Duncan reflects on her cruel, racist southern belle character "as important today as then because racism continues," and the empathetic feeling of being a white minority on set.

Playing Kunte's mother, Cicely Tyson said the network was originally shocked; they wanted to "get it on then get it off."

John Amos, the grown Kunte, integrated his New Jersey elementary school as a child. He also recognizes that "slavery has been replaced by penal institutions, where a disproportionate amount of incarcerated African-Americans are forced to work for free."

America basically shut down between January 23-30; restaurants, theaters and Vegas shows were closed, and bar TVs tuned into "Roots" instead of sports. The audience grew every night, and seven out of ten televisions were tuned to the show.

Edward Asner, as the reluctant Middle Passage ship captain, praised his cast mates, "a treasure trove of Black talent," and aptly notes that the seminal series was the first installment of #BlackLivesMatter.

Another notes that people "must see this series again. Every child needs to know we're standing on the backs of greatness."

"Roots"
Blu-ray set
$34.99
http://www.tv.com/shows/roots-the-complete-miniseries/