On Friday, 4th of May, 2024, Africa Magic aired the final episode of its popular, multiple award winning comedy series, The Johnsons. With over 2000 episodes to its credit and millions of entertained audiences across Africa, let’s delve into why this TV series was hugely successful.
1 – RELATABLE CHARACTERS
One of the key success markers of The Johnsons was that it could boast of relatable, well-rounded characters. It featured family members depicting everyday Nigerian family in Lagos with varied personalities – Father (Lucky), mother (Emu), children (Jennifer, Efe, Tari, Blessing), adopted child (Spiff). And the other extended family and friends – Pablo, Suzanne, Mr Goodluck, Abulu, Prince, Mohamed. Whether it’s Lucky wanting a career breakthrough, or Jennifer’s encounter with boys as she became a young adult, we saw these characters go through familiar challenges most humans go through. It also helped a great deal that some of these characters were brought to life by industry heavyweights who delivered on their role such as Charles Inojie, Ada Ameh, Chinedu Ikedieze, Samuel Afolabi, Seun Osigbesan, Kunle Bamtefa to mention a few
2 – ENGAGING STORY & DIALOGUE
The stories were simple yet engaging.
The beginning sets up the issue, and you feel the tension rising in the middle with the various obstacles till it gets resolved/addressed at the end. The Johnsons drove narratives that most members of the family can identify with. The storytelling was also skillfully done with ample moments of laughter per story act.
Also, each character had a unique dialogue pattern. The father was learned and as such, more eloquent. Efe too. Emu was your typical African mother with limited education who would always want to “feel among”, not to be brushed aside. The dialogue also didn’t shy away from pidgin and other Nigerian languages, local nuances and street slangs.
3 – IMPRESSIVE PRODUCTION VALUE
Clean pictures, crisp audio with a decent production design.
For the locations featured in the series, you could see the constant improvements in the set, the bright colours of the house, the addition/upgrade of locations tied to story (e.g Jennifer moving to her own home after she got married).
The series also didn’t shy infusing indigenous elements in the production design. From the traditional outfits adorned by the matriarch (Emu) to the traditional wedding ceremony featured on the show, indigenous foods and other props, Oga Pablo’s local herbs shop…the list goes on.
4- CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
With Rogers Ofime as the Executive Producer of the series, one didn’t expect anything less than stellar. Rogers had in the past contributed to the success of Tinsel (another Africa Magic content which has now become one of the longest running series in Africa). After that, he went on to produce several other engaging series such as Hotel Majestic, Hush and most recently Wura and Chronicles.
Supporting Rogers were also Eric Ossai and Preye Odibo in Supervising and Series Producer roles respectively. These two have enough production credits and previous experience that proved to be a game changer for running The Johnsons and making it the successful series that it is.
5 – SUSTAINED INVESTMENT
Running a series is not a cheap endeavor. It involves investing heavily in location and props, technical and post production gear, cast, crew and other elements needed for a successful production. Africa Magic’s consistent investment in The Johnsons meant that the team could focus on creating a content we all can be proud of.
Africa Magic is no doubt one of the biggest investors in the film and TV ecosystem, whether it is through the commissioning pathway, co-production deals or acquisition models. The investment in The Johnsons ensured that the content was available for over a decade, with well over 2000 episodes to show for it. Now, that’s a feat worth celebrating.
