Room 222: Season 1
26 Original Half-Hour Episodes
When Room 222 premiered on ABC in 1969, it quickly made Friday nights worth staying home for. A compelling half-hour series about life at a multiracial Los Angeles high school, it left an indelible mark on popular culture by using the platform to explore socially relevant issues (more than a year before All In The Family) and by starting the still-popular trend of high school television series. Created by the now-legendary James L. Brooks (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Simpsons and Rhoda), the program was praised for dealing realistically with such subjects as prejudice and drugs.
Pete Dixon (Lloyd Haynes) is a dedicated and popular history teacher who fights the good fight on the side of his students. Joining him in this idealistix approach to education are guidance counselor Liz McIntyre (Denise Nicholas) and student teacher Alice Johnson (Karen Valentine). Experienced and slightly world-weary principal Seymour Kaufman (Michael Constantine) provides a balance to the youthful idealism of the '60s cultural revolution - but at the end of the day everyone is on the side of the students.
Member Reviews
Classic 60's TV Drama - newdaysof
I watched Room 222 as a young boy in the late 60's and it provided me with an early view of high-school life, American history, politics, social issues, race and gender issues, the generation gap and so much more.
Every episode deals with some realistic social, moral or political issue which leads to conflict inside and outside the classroom, and is finally resolved with some moral lesson learned. The stories and script are superb, the acting is excellent and the opening jingle and introduction are memorable.
The young, good-looking and charismatic Lloyd Hanes plays the lead role as a popular black-American history teacher Pete Dixon. Denise Nicholas is the young, attractive and hip social worker who is also the love-interest for Pete. The iconic Michael Constantine plays the hard-nosed but reasonable principal Seymour Kaufman and Karen Valentine plays the cute, young and naive junior teacher Alice Johnson.
The students are played by a set of talented and hip, up-and-coming actors whose characters wrestle with adolescence and high-school life.
Room 222 was ground-breaking in its time for having two black-American actors in the lead roles and for dealing frankly with the many social frictions of a rapidly changing society of 1960's Los Angeles: especially womens rights, racial equality, poverty and sexual liberation.
Member Reviews
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Classic 60's TV Drama - newdaysof
I watched Room 222 as a young boy in the late 60's and it provided me with an early view of high-school life, American history, politics, social issues, race and gender issues, the generation gap and so much more.
Every episode deals with some realistic ...