Roc hopes one day to buy his dream home (a semi-detached one) and so he routinely scrimps and saves by reading free copies of yesterday’s paper, frugally furnishing his home with stuff he finds along his route and always shopping for sale items. To earn extra money Roc has worked as an orderly at Eleanor's hospital (during a garbage strike) and earned extra cash painting a luxury condominium in an all-white neighborhood (where he was arrested by the police for just standing around). When Roc needs to relax, he enjoys a cup of coffee at The Depot Cafe and when he needs a little something stronger to drink, he hangs out at Charlaine’s Bar with his buddy Wiz (so named for a bladder problem). Roc's catchphrase is "I ain't worked that out yet!"

Living with his father and brother can be challenging, but Roc loves them and does what he can to keep the family together. Roc's father Andrew worked as a railroad porter for thirty six years. He likes to reminisce about the Civil Rights movement, adores Malcolm X and never does anything wrong. In other words, he's always right.

When his son Joey began dating a white girl, Andrew in no uncertain terms told him that he should respect his own race and only date black women. But, much to his chagrin, Andrew's belief was overturned by his own brother Russell, who married a gay Caucasian lover and then moved to Paris. If that wasn't bad enough, Andrew also learned that Frankie, an old friend admitted on his death bed that he had an affair with his wife, Loretta and that he may be the father of one of his boys. Unfortunately, Frankie died before Andrew learned which one.

Joey Emerson is a musician with commitment and gambling problems. He is constantly unemployed and hitting up Roc for money to bail him out of debt. But Roc isn't an easy touch. He wants his brother to learn responsibility and so there were usually conditions behind any loan, like having to work two weeks at a job before Roc would pay off a gambling debt.

When Roc's landlord wanted to sell all of his rental properties, Roc and Eleanor pooled their life savings to become the new landlords. Roc allowed Joey to move back in with them, if he'd work as Roc's new building superintendent. Roc's offer was very kind indeed especially after Joey admitted (while drunk) that he was actually the one responsible for wrecking their father's car in their youth. Roc got blamed for the accident, even though it was Joey who released the brake which caused the car to roll down a hill and crash.

Roc & Eleanor Emerson all cuddly and lovey-dovey.

As for Eleanor, she dearly loves Roc, despite his parsimonious ways. And while Roc is careful with his money, he is very generous with his affection for his wife. Unfortunately, the frequency of their lovemaking could sometimes be a problem with Eleanor on nightshift and Roc working days, but they tried their best to get together. When Eleanor found it difficult to conceive a child, both she and Roc took medical examines. Consequently, Eleanor discovers that Roc has a low sperm count. Eventually, though, she became pregnant and had a child on November 23, 1993. She and Roc named their baby boy Marcus. For a time, Eleanor had nightmares that turned out to be repressed childhood memories about being molested by an adult caregiver.

About the same time that Eleanor was expecting a baby, a local man named Calvin Hendricks took it up himself to shoot and kill a vicious local drug dealer in an effort to take back his neighborhood. Sentenced to prison, Calvin asked if Roc would take care of his daughter while he served time. And so the Emerson's adopted 11-year-old Sheila Hendricks into their family. The young girl presented the normal problems of any child that age and so Roc and Eleanor made sure Sheila obeyed curfews and didn't hang out with the wrong crowd.

In an effort to continue Calvin's campaign to rid the neighborhood of drugs, Roc ran for city council (and lost) but continued his war on drugs on the local level by organizing a non-violent protest movement to scare away drug dealers. For his troubles, Roc was falsely accused and arrested for shooting of a local drug dealer named André Thompson. Even through all of that, Roc found the time to study for his GED Test to help improve his chances of getting a management job with the Sanitation Department (District 36).

Other people to enter into the Emerson family included Joey's musician friends, Miles Taylor, a pianist; and Curtis Vincent, a bass player; Crazy George Stevens, a regular at Charlaine's Bar who gets a job with Roc at the Department of Sanitation; Eleanor's social climbing mother, Margaret Carter who is ashamed of Roc's profession and tells her family that he is a doctor; Eleanor's brother, David. and Ruben Stiles, a popular actor who uses Roc as the model for film role. He mimicked Roc's mannerisms and voice and showcased them in a movie that aired six months later.

The tribulations of love often interfered into the life of the Emerson's. Here is a list of some of their more interesting bouts with it.

• To help her win a promotion at the hospital, Eleanor asks Andrew to romance the head nurse, Matty.  Andrew also dated a women that was dead ringer for his deceased wife.

• Roc is distracted at work by a beautiful new worker named Angela Kimbro who admits she is attracted to Roc, despite his married status.

• Andrew Emerson wakes up one morning and finds the woman he was dating dead in his bed. Shocked, he interprets this as an omen from his long-departed wife, Loretta (a waitress) warning him to stay away from other women.

• Janet, Roc's former girlfriend reveals that she rejected Roc's marriage proposal only three months before he married Eleanor.

• Against Andrew's objections, his goddaughter Nina seduces Joey.

TRIVIA NOTE: The second season of the series was done live! (a.k.a. ROC LIVE). A contest was held to choose the name of the Emerson's baby boy. The viewers voted by a 900 phone number and chose the name Marcus (in honor of Jamaican-born Dr. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a black nationalist who founded the United Negro Improvement Association in 1914, a group  similar to the NAACP).

CHARLES S. DUTTON: Born January 30, 1951 in Maryland, Dutton grew up in the Latrobe Housing Project on Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore where he dropped out of school, and adopted a life of crime. His only sister was a recovering cocaine addict.  His only brother, who died of AIDS in 1993 at age 44, had been a heroin addict for nearly 25 years. Allegedly, Dutton earned his street name "Roc" because he liked to put "rocks" inside snow balls before he tossed them. In 1967, Roc was jailed for manslaughter for stabbing a man to death in a street fight at 17. Consequently, he spent 7.5 years in jail  Initially, he served two years but, then he was sent back for weapons possession and fighting with a white guard which extended his sentence. During a stint in solitary confinement, Roc read an anthology of plays by black writers which inspired him to turned his energy from delinquency to drama. Consequently, he started a prison theater club and earned a high school equivalency. Upon his release in 1976, he enrolled at Baltimore's Towson State University and then pursued his passion for theatre by enrolling in Yale School of Drama at Yale University (going from "jail to Yale."). There he studied under playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards. Upon graduation, he appeared off-Broadway in the play Richard III and then earned a Tony nomination for his role as progressive trumpeter Levee in August Wilson's Broadway production Ma Rainey's Black Bottom as well as an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television movie The Piano Lesson. Dutton's screen credits include No Mercy, Crocodile Dundee 2; Rudy, Alien 3 and Nick of Time. As of 1997, Dutton has turned his interest to directing. In 2000, he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing of The Corner, a six-part HBO miniseries. And he has completed the upcoming biopic Against the Ropes about Jackie Kallen, a female boxing manager played by Meg Ryan. Dutton, who won an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in 1993 has become an outspoken critic of racism in Hollywood. 

ELLA JOYCE: Born 1954 as Cherron Hoye in Chicago and raised in Detroit, Ella Joyce attended Eastern Michigan University after graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High School (Class of 1972) where she was cheerleader). Her stage name (Ella Joyce) is a composite of the first names of her grandmother (Ella) and her mother (Joyce). Her other credits include the movies Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992); Set It Off (1996), The Old Settler (2001),Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) and Salvation (2003). Currently she has a recurring role as Vanessa's mother, Jasmine Scott on the ABC sitcom MY WIFE & KIDS. Joyce has also been the recipient of the prestigious NAACP Image Award.