When Folks Weren't Afraid to Go in the Water

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I remember when "Jaws" was the hottest bestseller I had ever seen — in the spring of 1974.

Everywhere one looked, a copy of the book could be seen — even in my small Arkansas hometown. I know there were bestsellers that swept over the landscape before, but I had never noticed one. Of course, I was a boy at the time. I didn't have much firsthand knowledge stored away in my mental files.

I have seen similar phenomena since, but I still don't think I have seen anything truly comparable to "Jaws."

It was first published in February of 1974; the movie rights were purchased before that happened so there was a lot of anticipation long before the book hit the shelves. It was on the hardback bestseller list for nearly a year.

The next year, everyone in my school seemed to be reading the paperback. Teachers tried for awhile to conceal their fascination with the book, but their cover was blown. Too many copies of "Jaws" had been spotted clumsily hidden in desks and purses, under jackets, even in the teachers' cars in the parking lot.

Students carried copies with their textbooks, and I was no exception. It was a real page turner, and I raced through it. I looked forward to the movie, which was scheduled to be released that summer. The movie is remembered now as the original summer blockbuster — although I never understood why savvy marketers never figured out before that summer was a great time to tap into the youth market.

There were several differences between the book and the movie. Most of those differences were minor, I suppose, although I thought there was one aspect of the novel — an affair between Sheriff Brody's wife and the young shark enthusiast, Matt Hooper — that was significant. There was no such affair in the movie, which changed a lot of other things about the story.

In the book, the sheriff suspected the affair and the thought gnawed at him even though he could not prove it. He bickered with Hooper when they were on the boat that went out in search of the shark. Frankly, when I read the book, I felt more empathy for the shark than I felt for the humans in the story.

The shark in the book finally died of injuries it had sustained in its battles with Brody, Hooper and the captain of the boat, Quint. It wasn't blown up in the Hollywoodesque way that Roy Scheider accomplished it in the movie.

In the novel, Hooper didn't survive his underwater encounter with the shark the way he did in the movie. It was Brody who made his way back to shore alone.

I don't remember people being hesitant to go in the water at the beach in the summer of '74. I remember when my family went to the beach in the summer of '74 and we all went in the water, but I do remember that anxiety in '75. Maybe I just imagined it based on media reports I read or saw. Isn't it funny how the visual influences us?

The 'Roots' Phenomenon

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On this night in 1977, a television phenomenon, unlike any other in my lifetime, began.

I am referring to the TV miniseries that was based on the hugely successful novel "Roots" that dominated bestseller lists and water–fountain conversations the year before.

There had been other miniseries that were based on modestly successful books, but none had the kind of impact of Roots.

For eight nights, it was a national event.

Video recorders were still too expensive to be in most homes so it was not yet possible for most people to record programs and watch them later. You had to watch something when it was on, or you didn't see it at all.

And, since just about everyone was engrossed in the series, my memory is that regularly scheduled meetings of city councils, school boards, etc., were postponed or severely abbreviated so that people could see the latest installment.

There have been a few comparable attempts to galvanize the viewing public in the 35 years that have passed since Roots was first televised — and some have succeeded, at least to the extent it was still possible to do so.

But that is the real problem. In 1977, television viewing was confined to the three major networks (plus a public broadcasting station if your area had one at that time — and many did not).

The proliferation of cable and satellite service — not to mention the overall population growth — makes it virtually impossible for anything on television to receive the share of the viewership that Roots achieved with its somewhat captive audience. After the series gathered momentum from its early episodes, the later episodes set ratings records that still stand today.

America's population has grown considerably in 35 years so it is probably possible for something to attract as many viewers as Roots — if not more — but the ratings are something else.

Super Bowls have surpassed most Roots episodes in ratings almost routinely, and a couple of programs from the early '80s — the M*A*S*H finale and the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas — exceeded Roots' eighth and final installment, which aired on Jan. 30, 1977.

But, otherwise, shared TV experiences just don't happen anymore. Great numbers of people may experience major news events together via television, but they don't watch the same network coverage — and, thus, do not share precisely the same experience.

On Sept. 11, 2001, for example, it is likely that the sum total of people watching TV coverage of the terrorist attacks matched or exceeded the number of people who ever witnessed the same thing at the same time — but some saw it on CNN, others saw it on Fox, still others saw it on extended broadcasts of network morning news shows.

In January 1977, it was as if all the conditions had merged to make Roots a huge success.

Roots had only a handful of competitors in 1977, and it had an all–star cast, with that cast constantly changing as the story went through the generations of Alex Haley's family.

It also dramatized an already compelling story that had been a runaway bestseller less than a year before.

Even without cable to lure away viewers, I think it would be very difficult to re–create the circumstances that made the Roots phenomenon possible.