An American Comedy-Drama that has follows the lives of a garbageman (Charles S. Dutton) and his wife (Ella Joyce), a nurse, as they balance their jobs and their family.
The show also starred Rocky Carroll, Carl Gordon, Garrett Morris, Clifton Powell, Heavy D, Tone Lōc, and Jamie Foxx.
It aired for three seasons on Fox.
Has nothing to do with Roc Birds.
List Your Tropes Today:
- Dumpster Dive: Charles "Roc" Emerson is a garbageman and uses his job to supply the house with much of the things it needs. In the pilot he's shown with a day-old newspaper ("Hey, this isn't USA Today, it's USA Yesterday.") and he picks up a broken VCR which his friend Wiz fixes for him - but the user has to hold the play button down at all times in order to watch a video. This ends up paying off in one cold open when a burglar breaks in, looks around, and then simply leaves in disgust.
- Even Beggars Won't Choose It: Or thieves. As one episode showcases, Roc does not needs worry about anybody breaking into his home because they would just storm off after seeing the worthlessness of everything he owns.
- Humble Goal: Roc's dream is to someday live in a semi-detached house. He knows he'll never have enough money for a full free-standing home, but he'd be happy having at least one wall with nothing on the other side.
- Live Episode: The modern-day Trope Codifier. After presenting one episode live in the first season, the entire second season was broadcast live. It went back to taped for its third (and last) season.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: This happens to Roc in one episode. Eleanor is trying to comfort him, but her southern accent makes it come out wrong.Eleanor: "Now honey, what happened last night is not that impo'tant (Roc storms out of the room) I mean imPORtant! IMPORTANT!".
- One-Word Title:
- Pilot.
- Unforgiven.
- R.E.S.P.E.C.T..
- Brothers.
- Pun-Based Title: Some titles were pun's on Roc's name:
- "What's Up Roc"
- "Roc-A-Bye-Baby"
- "The Hand that Rocs the Cradle", etc.
- Serious Business: Roc takes his job as a garbageman very seriously. When there's a strike going on, he can't stand the sight of un-picked -up trash.
- Mood Whiplash:
- Done in progressive stages in "The Roc That Dreams Are Made Of." Eleanor has a terrible nightmare, and the others try to comfort her by telling her about their worst dreams. First there's Joey's mostly-comedic-but-still-kind-of-dark-at-the-end nightmare where he gives up on his musical dreams and becomes a garbageman. Then there's Andrew's starts-out-kind-of-funny-but-quickly-turns-really-depressing nightmare where he's become a helpless invalid trapped in his own body with his family about to put him in a home. Then it's Roc's dark-all-the-way-through nightmare where everyone else is dead, they all tell him what a disappointment and failure he is, and he's dead too. And then finally we get to Eleanor's pitch black nightmare that turns out to be memories of her being molested by a supposed family friend as a child.
- Played straighter in "The Hand That Rocs the Cradle." A pregnant homeless woman goes into labor in the Emerson house, there's lots of wacky shenanigans involving people fainting at the sight of the contractions and everyone trying to get Eleanor to help when she's just taken sleeping pills, and it's stillborn.
- Racist Grandpa: A race-flipped example; Andrew is not terribly fond of white people.
- Where da White Women At?: A long lost relative gets engaged, and carefully breaks it to Roc's racist black father that his fiance is white, though forgets to mention it's a man.