Something in the Roseanne series I always found puzzling and dishonest about the show

He expected Darleen to have a life. She was smarter than breeder sister.

Becky was a whore, what else did he expect.. He was just grateful she wanted the pill

Darlene was the ugly one. No one wanted her so she must've been using sex to get something else.

They were living together in Chicago and lied to Dan about David moving back with his mother.

Dan thought David put Darlene up to doing this but realized it was Darlene’s plan and David just went along with it which is why he calmed down.

He didn't speak to Becky for some time after she eloped with Mark.

Becky had disappointed him, so he didn't want Darlene to make the same mistakes. It doesn't seem puzzling or dishonest.

Really, it’s creepy that a father should have any such involvement in his adult daughter’s sex life.

It’s one thing if she’s 15/16 or below living under his roof; quite another if she’s 18 or over and moved away from the childhood home.

How old was Darlene supposed to be when she moved to Chicago? I don't think she graduated from high school either.

You don't have kids, do you, R6?

Do you honestly expect that most parents simply disconnect from their children when they turn 18? That's ludicrous.

R8 no, I don’t have children, and no, I don’t expect that parents ought ever to cut off totally from their children when it comes to general well-being and safety. Try not to put words in the mouths of others.

Being a daughter myself, however, I do expect that healthy boundaries are always in place between parents & children, especially when said children are grown. I do not report or account to my parents about my love or sex life in any way, and would not wish or expect to.

Because Darlene was a lesbian and Dan didn’t want David to be sad. Duh.

R9 you are/were middle class aren't you?

That show was disappointing in that it hooked the girls up with boyfriends as soon as they hit their teen years and turned them into part of male/female duo who were going to make the same mistakes their parents made. Becky was a straight A student and looking forward to college, but she elopes with a loser. Darleen had street smarts but she hooked up and practically couldn’t be in a scene by herself after she met David.

R11 no, lower-middle🤷‍♀️

R9, in most stable, upwardly mobile, American families, an 18-year-old choosing to live out of wedlock with a partner would be a considerable cause of consternation to parents. 18 might be the legal definition of an adult - though 18-year-olds still can't legally drink - but in terms of emotional maturity, there's still a long way to go.

It makes perfect sense that Dan Conner would be furious that his single 18-year-old daughter was living with a man and lying to her parents about it. Nothing remotely creepy about it.

Because he was afraid that he would get a grandchild with a head of hair like Slash!

R13 In my experience, the more middle class you are the less likely your parents are to care about your sex life.

Darlene turned 16 in October 1992 and David was living with her in Chicago a little over a year later, so she wasn't 18.

How was Darlene supporting herself? Her parents were broke.

Maybe she was a teen prostitute, R18.

Darlene left for art school at age 16 on a scholarship. The storyline was cobbled together to explain Sara Gilbert's absences and parts of it didn't feel organic, though it seemed realistic that Darlene and David would lie to be together.

Roseanne wanted to make DJ homosexual but the actor playing him refused.

That's too bad. It would have made him interesting for the first time.

Cocaine makes you inconsistent.

One of the cooler things about the reboot involved DJ's personal life. The woman he married had been the girl he didn't want to share an interracial kiss with in a school play when they were kids. The reboot didn't make it explicit but super-fans recognized her name and Roseanne later confirmed the connection.

A reference was later made to their relationship beginning in middle school, so the original Conner kids were 3 for 3 in not exploring their options. A gay DJ subplot would've been more interesting than the attempt in the forgotten season to hook him up with Heather Matarazzo.

Maybe the answer is in this suspiciously similar Reddit thread.

"Darlene left for art school at age 16 on a scholarship."

This is another thing I don't understand. Why would she leave hs early to attend art college?

[quote]Really, it’s creepy that a father should have any such involvement in his adult daughter’s sex life.

no, its not, not at all. He was probably concerned she might get pregnant, and his concern was justified, because that is exactly what happened. He probably didn't worry much about Becky getting pregnant because she had the sense to use birth control. For some reason Darlene seemed to be adverse to contract And she and David were teenagers and teenagers are notoriously stupid when it comes to using birth control. I'd say Dan had plenty of reason to be concerned.

R26 We had a girl did that in high school. She wasn't academically gifted, but she was in art. To me it is no different than a genius kid getting to go to a regular university as a young teen.

R26, the writers needed something to write about and Sara Gilbert needed some time off.

Dan had a shrew of a wife who constantly emasculated him in his own home. Being in that situation, it’s surprising that he wasn’t more angry and that he never killed anyone or himself.

R30 I'm convinced there really are men who actually prefer a shrew.

R12, I was actually thinking that while watching old reruns of ODAAT. A show mostly before my time, but they went the same route. Both daughters dropped out of college and married by 20. Wasn’t that a redo of the mom’ life? Plus, as in Roseanne, it ruined the dynamics.

I guess they need to get the daughter characters to stay in sitcoms by having them drop out of college, add a boyfriend and stay at home. It provides drama and increases foils for jokes (husbands).

I mean, Becky actually did go off to college in Roseanne, but in order to prolong the drama of parents fighting with children they had to introduce a new actress to play the non-college-attending, fighting-with-parents daughter.

If you start a show having parents arguing with their adolescent children as a major plot device you’ll have to come up with some plot twist in a few years in order to keep the argumentative plot alive. They couldve just let Lacey Goransan go off to college for 4 years & write Becky out as being away at college. But that would leave only 2 characters to argue with. That wouldn’t have been good unless they replaced the DJ character, because the actor who played him was horrible. Nobody wanted to see (or hear) more of him. So Becky had to be replaced for 4 years in order for the Vassar educated actress to come back and play a working class schmoe who couldn’t live without dick.

"That show was disappointing in that it hooked the girls up with boyfriends as soon as they hit their teen years and turned them into part of male/female duo who were going to make the same mistakes their parents made"

No, that was deliberate, and realistic, because that's what straight people do.

Under all the laughs, the show was meant to take a dark look at the hard lives of blue-collar people - the spotty employment, the failed small businesses, the kids that repeat their parents' mistakes, each new generation being unplanned, and absolutely positively, the wasted human potential. Homosexuality is a GIFT, it spares us from so much of this crap!

[quote] Homosexuality is a GIFT, it spares us from so much of this crap!

So you think there are no dysfunctional gays? Boy, are you a kook. Or some silly troll.

Never realized that Roseanne wanted DJ to be gay. They made the mother of Roseanne gay. There was a big lead-up to the big reveal of a gay character and it turned out to be the mother (Estelle Parsons). Boring.

The obvious gay people: Darlene, Jackie, and David.

R35 have you not met Aunt Ida?

In the original series finale, Roseanne, who has been writing in her basement office, "corrects" things that happened on the show. Most famously, she revealed that Dan died of a heart attack and they never won the lottery. She also said Jackie was gay, not Bev. The dumbest reversal was that Darlene had ended up with Mark, and Becky with David.

Damn it, now I want a Loose Meat Sandwich.

[quote] The dumbest reversal was that Darlene had ended up with Mark, and Becky with David.

Yeah, Darlene and Mark would not have been a believable couple. Not sure why Roseanne was so obsessed in her kids being in long-term relationships so young, as mentioned above.

Roseanne was always obsessed with men cheating.

I thought the whole Darlene/David relationship ran its course after the sixth season. I don't know why Roseanne was so intent on focusing so much time on them. Both Mark and David were better in smaller doses.

And then to have Darlene get pregnant was just stupid. The whole point of Darlene's character was that she was intent on getting out of Lanford and making it. The last thing she wanted was to be tied down in Lanford.

At some point, it was like the show went out of its way to keep its characters mired in poverty, despite the circumstances surrounding them. Darlene was going to art school and being offered well-paying jobs and Dan was working for the city which paid really well. Becky was looking into going back to school. What the show could have done (which would have been believable) was show how the Clinton years provided a bit of an upswing for poor and middle-class families. A bit of a reprieve from the harsh policies of the Republicans.

Instead we got them winning the lottery.

[quote] The obvious gay people: Darlene, Jackie, and David.

I thought the only character who should have come out as gay was Darlene. She had lesbian written all over her. Sara Gilbert had and has no chemistry whatsoever with any male actor she's paired with. It's excruciating to watch her kiss a male actor; she's so unenthused that she might as well be kissing a block of wood.. Darlene needed to be gay. I wonder why Roseanne Barr didn't do that, instead of making the grandmother character gay. That was just so ridiculous.

[quote] At some point, it was like the show went out of its way to keep its characters mired in poverty ... Instead we got them winning the lottery.

I think Roseanne, as a person is probably very insecure about her looks and about having a man. The marriage to Tom Arnold seemed like she was trying to prove that a man could be attracted to her.

At some point, she got major plastic surgery that completely changed her looks, on par with Sharon Osbourne's transformation.

The lottery plot, in retrospect, was not only stupid, but it showed the limitations of Roseanne's imagination for her characters.

Becky could have, at least, become an R.N. and made a decent living for herself. I think Roseanne wanted everyone dependent on the Roseanne character.

Puzzling and dishonest -- well, Roseanne is insane. I love this bit about one (of many) of her lunacy spells (wikipedia):

"In 1994, Roseanne announced she suffers from Dissociative identity disorder caused by childhood abuse. She had personalities named Baby, Cindy, Evangeline, Fucker, Heather, Joey, Kevin, Nobody, Somebody, and Susan as well as her main personality, Roseanne."

But... if this is true, it would explain everything:

"At 16, Barr was hit by a car; the incident left her with a traumatic brain injury.[8] Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital"

Oh, for God's sake, Roseanne Barr never had MPD. I think her problem has always been brain damage. That would certainly account for her bizarre, atrocious behavior.

[quote]And then to have Darlene get pregnant was just stupid. The whole point of Darlene's character was that she was intent on getting out of Lanford and making it. The last thing she wanted was to be tied down in Lanford.

Shit happens. Stuff like this happening in real life is so common I'm actually surprised you are surprised they went there with this character. America is no longer the land of class mobility. Early Roseanne was right on the nose about a lot of working and lower middle class things.

I never understood why Becky, who had been the stick in the mud straight A student council member child suddenly became the butt of the "how stupid Becky is" plot lines and jokes. She was always shown as smarter than Darlene in the first seasons. And, it wasn't Mark showing it. It happened before he was on the scene.

Yeah, to me Becky was more the one who wanted to get the hell out of Lanford. Darlene was kind of a weird, loser kid. They flipped the script with them. I honestly think it was awful how they wrote Becky out. Roseanne and Dan were irresponsible buying a motorcycle shop and using her college money, then turn it around on her. She definitely could’ve gotten financial aid to go, even if she had to live at home. It was just an all around terrible way of writing her out and painted D & R in a negative light. The new show is just depressing to watch.

R48 - Leci was leaving the show. I think Leci’s departure was kind of an abrupt decision, so they probably needed a way to tie off her storyline without frequently revisiting it, and making her married was one way. It made some sense since Becky was in love with Mark, and didn’t see a future at home. It didn’t entirely fit since she could have gotten loans or scholarships, but it did fit with the show’s overall blue collar theme.

Becky had the brains, but she had the weakness for bad boys. That was established as far back as the first season with the episode where she snubs Chip to be with that biker. When she started dating Mark, the show made several pararells to Roseanne and Dan's relationship. Then having her work at the Buy and Bag. It wasn't surprising that she wound up in a similar situation. If you go back and watch the earlier seasons, the way the shows lays that all out was brilliant. Becky was more like Roseanne than she was willing to admit. Having Sarah Chalke step in and play a different variation was a huge mistake though.

Darlene was the outsider who got shit grades, but she had the drive and determination, and she was gifted in a certain area. Again, something else that they had established in the early seasons. It made no sense that she would want to be tied down in Lanford, given how much the show made of her hating it. Ditto a relationship.

Becky assured Dan she was going to college when she began dating Mark and wanted to. It was impulsive that she married him, but more than anything Dan and Roseanne looked like shit for using the money. That was more my issue. I never really found Mark and Becky that realistic as a long term couple. She would have eventually dumped Mark once she was exposed to the outside world. He would’ve cheated on her multiple times too. This show really stuck to teen pairings, which also got stale.

A teen liking bad boys and working a part time job is normal. Becky’s biggest fear was ending up like Roseanne, so I don’t agree R50.

Uh…. They were constantly short of money…. How much college money do you think there would have been saved? Families like that don’t have college funds for their kids. They rely on loans and scholarships. I know. - I come from one of those families.

R52, that was the reasoning they used, she couldn’t go to college because they used her money. I don’t think it was realistic due to financial aid. That’s my point, none of it made sense. They should’ve written her out as going off to college and too busy to ever visit them. Eventually coming back. The SC recast actually would’ve made more sense because she had more of an air about her than LG. I do totally get they wanted to keep the blue collar vibe going, but the road they took was disappointing.

What are you talking about with using Becky's money?

Ziggy left them a bunch of money to use to open the bike shop. To cover the rest, they remortgaged the house. There was no college fund that they dipped into for it.

Like R52 said, they worked shit jobs and were constantly broke. There wouldn't be some huge stash of money hidden somewhere for a college fund.

Maybe she just didn't want to go to college.

Like I said, R53, I think there were circumstances around Leci’s departure that made her exit abrupt, so it would have been hard to just have Becky up and leave for college amidst Dan losing the bike shop. It might have not been the best Becky storyline, but it certainly fit the storyline going on. I’m not disagreeing with you in that it would have been nice to see Becky have a better future, but I don’t think having her running off to get married was so off the wall. It was established that Becky was smart, but that she was impulsive and made stupid decisions.

[quote] Sara Gilbert had and has no chemistry whatsoever with any male actor she's paired with.

Not entirely true, on the Big Bang Theory she was great with Leonard and Howard, as the distant yet man hungry female.

R54, there was a college fund that they either dipped into or weren’t paying much into. Think it starts somewhere after the 15:00 mark. Becky not ending up like Roseanne is also mentioned.

Dan is often a pissy big ol’ queen on a lot of occasions even in this reboot.

I think he was jealous of Becky getting all that good D from gorgeous Mark, especially after he worked with him in such close quarters at the bike shop. That and being married to Roseanne would make one extremely bitter.

You can also assume Bev would've been able to offer Becky some amount of tuition assistance. She had cash to spare for years after the divorce, and was repeatedly shown to help relatives (especially when doing so twisted the knife in interpersonal conflicts). She even held onto some assets (real estate) as recently as the reboot.

But I understand why they had Becky run off to get married. One of the few interesting episodes of the Chalke era was after Becky and Mark moved into the trailer and Becky was secretly on birth control while considering a return to school. And one of the best episodes of the reboot was when Dan was brutally honest about her wasted potential and his feelings about Mark.

That’s what I hated. Dan and Roseanne were hypocritical. For 4 seasons they pushed her to go to college. Hated Mark because they thought he would prevent her from achieving that, then when the time came and she was doing exactly what the wanted, they dropped the bomb. Waiting until she’s filling out applications to inform her it wasn’t possible. Also the very cavalier attitude and not even looking into any other options made them look like assholes. Basically they told her you’re shit out of luck. I get LG was leaving, but I do think there was a better way to write her off that didn’t make them look so bad. maybe have her go to college and then run off and marry Mark. This way it’s not on them as much.

In reality, Dan and Roseanne would have had at least one daughter, out of two, who was overweight. (Dan and Roseanne both being obese.) It was already a stretch to have Darlene and Becky #1 be the sizes they were. Then Becky #1 left and they brought in Becky #2, Sarah Chalke, who was unbelievable, lookswise and temperament-wise, as the daughter of Dan and Roseanne.

Becky # 1 did have a blue collar feel to her and had a hot temper underneath; Becky # 2 was totally wrong for the part.

Roseanne Barr refused to cast someone close to a physical match for her and John Goodman.

At the time Roseanne was made, the scenarios that happened to both Becky and Darlene were depressingly common. Unplanned pregnancy that happens from a combination of teenagers (even smart, art school ones) being idiots, lack of sex ed, and lack of parental support. Mom gets hitched and keeps the baby because she’s familiar with this pattern from her own parents, who did the exact same. Achieving girl gets good grades but abandons college plans because of lack of financial support and confusion about it from parents who don’t have college backgrounds. Etc etc.

It’s becoming less common than it was, which is a great thing. But even though some of these choices seemed crazy on the show, they were happening all over the country in the 90s.

Yes, I agree that Becky and Darlene, despite all potential, would have realistically fallen into the early pregnancy / early motherhood trap.

However, it seemed like Roseanne Barr wanted to do something different with the show. And all her pea brain could come up with was them winning a lottery. The only way that plotline would have made sense is if they each descended into some type of private hell. Shopping addiction, meth, boytoys. I can't remember whether Dan & Roseanne got divorced after the lottery, but that would have been realistic.

David was also different than the family, so Darlene shacking up with him felt more rebellious/rejecting of her background (and men like Dan). Like Meadow’s college boyfriends in the Sopranos.

Those of you on here talking about this supposed college fund and how there's no way it is realistic that Darlene would end up having to stick around Landford have no clue what you are talking about. I was exactly the age of Darlene's character at exactly the same time as the show was going on and living a shockingly similar life. I was the straight A student who worked her ass off in school only to have my parents make just a little too much for any good financial aid while actually having nothing but debt for multiple reasons, including taking care of other family members.

I did end up going to community college for free due to my grades but that was a far cry below the level of universities where I had been accepted and where my peers with more money ended up being able to go and that has affected my life to this day just like it did with Becky and Darlene. Yes, I could have gone horribly into debt with loans and attended one o those universities but another aspect that people who don't experience it don't understand about growing up in that situation is that after watching your parents and relatives struggle with debt and have it basically ruin their lives, you don't want any part of it. I've never been in debt because of that relationship I grew to have with the idea of debt from seeing its horrible effects as a kid. Roseanne really got working/lower middle class right. Even the episode where they have the electricity turned off for a bit because they got too far behind in the bills. It all really hit home watching it originally and catching the reruns now.

There was no college fund, R58. Roseanne's "well, there was..." was talking about that dreamed of college fund that a whole lot of working/lower middle class parents start when their kid is born with big dreams. Dreams that disappear about five minutes later when the cost of diapers takes over. Every kid in these situations had that college fund in the sky until they were about a month old. Like the poster above said, the bike shop was started with Ziggy's money and bank loans where they put the house up for collateral. That's the reality of living like this in America.

This thread has been somewhat sad because so many of you, even on this board where we're probably a bit more enlightened on such things (ie. we're not fucking Repug assholes), still have no fucking clue about the reality of being poor in America.

I always wanted to sit on David’s face and fuck that tight, velvety hole of his.

R66, it's a win for you that you didn't go into debt like your parents did. I went to community college as well.

Back to the Roseanne plot: I also don't think they had a college fund for any of their kids.

I think they would have probably used that magical college fund to pay the light bill! Did those of you who think there is any possible way there was a college fund all have college funds yourselves? Did you even have any friends who didn't?

So how exactly did Dan and Roseanne expect her to attend college all the years leading up it?

To it^

That was the only thing you found puzzling and dishonest about the show?

R70, hope. They hope things will get better. They hope some miracle will happen. In reality, like they said in that linked episode, there's always community college. Or, she coud possibly get an academic scholarship. Last resort, she would have to go into debt with loans but, like I mentioned above, a lot of kids who grew up in that situation don't want to repeat it, especially the smarter kids who were observant and watched the impact of debt their entire lives.

Thanks R68. I learned to not go into debt but I probably learned it too well because I have huge issues with all kinds of debt, even something like grad school that might actually make me more upwardly mobile...although I'm getting a bit old for those dreams at this point. My brother never learned his lesson, so, like my parents before me, I've had to help out my nieces and nephew with clothes and food over the years. Growing up surrounded by financial instability and debt really did a job on me and on most other people who grew up that way.

R73, maybe get someone to help you to crunch the numbers, cost / benefit for going into debt for grad school. How long would it take to pay off, how much would it increase your earned income, etc. I'm not sure how old you are, but you'd also factor in how many years you'd end up working with the benefit of the grad degree.

Good luck!

I grew up and graduated in the 70s and worked hard to get good grades and could get into a prestigious college because of financial aid. My parents worked and also were able to help out, I didn't know any kids who got good grades who had to go to community college. State schools were pretty inexpensive at that time in New England where I lived (though I went to a private liberal arts university). Anyway my cousins in California went to state schools for very little (they had free tuition, pre-Reagan, but were still relatively inexpensive in the 70s). One reason I believe in free public college - it's good for citizens, and good for the country to have an educated work force.

* I should have added, my parents were working class and we didn't have much money. But me being an only child probably helped some.

*I could not afford grad school, however.

[quote] So how exactly did Dan and Roseanne expect her to attend college all the years leading up it?

They didn’t have the same expectations and plans as an upper-middle class, college graduate couple would. They may have assumed there would be some way to do it and figure it out when the time came. A good number of my classmates’ parents were college educated and middle-class and had no college funds—the kids were expected to pay by taking out student loans for themselves.

R75, that was all different by the 90s when Roseanne took place. Today, I see my nieces and nephews reaching college age and fuck me if even community college is really expensive now. Since I went there 20 years ago the price of tuition per hour has increased six-fold. And, don't even get me started on the fees. They are going to have to go into debt to go to fucking community college. It's ridiculous.

R78 I would also add that many working class parents of gifted kids are under the wrong assumption that they will just be handed scholarships. The poor have a reputation for being anti-intellectual, but the belief that people get rich through being smart and that intelligence is rewarded and celebrate, is very strong among the working class.

Which, in a way, is how it used to work. The cotton mills my grandparents spent their lives toiling in, would pick a few gifted working class kids and give them scholarships. It was considered part of the social bargain. But, that went out the window once the company became owned by hedge funds and corporate raiders. The scholarship lives on, in name, but is now just given to any kid in the geographic area, so it is now dominated by middle class kids. Or sometimes, churches would pick one poor gifted kid and send them to college.

I hate to say it but making college something that everyone is just expected to do, hurt poor gifted kids more than anyone. There is more opportunity but it is also much too expensive.

They should’ve had Becky join the Air Force or maybe Navy. She could’ve married mark and then be stationed elsewhere so Lecy could go to college.

Sarah Chalke was an awful Becky. Too Barbie doll like

I think that would've worked for Darlene, but I can't picture Becky in the military.

He said to Darlene in one episode: “Maybe I expected a little more out of you.”

R79 Of course, yet many people will not vote for the candidates who believe in free public college, which is not outrageous and used to happen in many states in this country. People only ask, "How are we going to pay for that?" when it's social programs - not wars, supporting foreign countries, or the defense budget. We can pay for it. We choose not to.

The point of the show was to show how people like Roseanne’s family make bad life decisions and how it then affects them. Having Becky do the right and reasonable thing of dumping Mark and focusing on college doesn’t fit the show’s purpose and so could never happen. Hopefully, the show got similarly situated people who watched it to think about what they were doing wrong and inspire them not to make the same mistakes that the TV family made.

R84 Because they don't really want "free" public college, where everybody goes and spend their time and our money studying nothing of importance. They want free college to be a reward for the ones who are truly intelligent and deserving. Wide swaths of the poor still believe in meritocracy.

R70 - the same way my parents did - student loans and by me working. A lot of us middle class kids held jobs as we went to college. My parents made enough that I couldn’t qualify for huge loans - just enough for tuition and books, really. I paid for my living expenses by working, with a bit of financial help from my folks, but mostly stuff like food hampers. I would move home for the summers to work and save for the new fall semester. Most young people I know did it that way. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone who had a “college fund” that their parents saved for.

R87, there's no way you went to college at any time in the last 20 years if you think working a part-time job during school and then saving up over the summer would cover anything.

[quote]The point of the show was to show how people like Roseanne’s family make bad life decisions and how it then affects them.

Fuck off, R85. You're an idiot and an asshole. Probably also a Repug. We don't live in a "your own boot straps" society anymore. In case you haven't been paying attention, the class divide in this country has done nothing but expand since fucking Reagan with the rich getting richer and the poor getting so poor that they can't even hold onto the one thing they used to have, hope that hard work could make a difference. In America, there's a 95% chance that you will die in the social class you were born in (or go down a rung). We are no longer a society with any possible social mobility and ignorant fucks like you are a huge part of the problem.

R88 - Sherlock - yes, I went to college in the 80s/90s, which is the timeframe we’re talking about.

All of those children have been major disappointments to him . Hell no he last one didn’t even come home when his mom croaked

I knew a "Becky" in real life, or new of her, the daughter of a co-worker. Good girl, worked hard in school and got stellar grades, and applied to all the top colleges, and since both her divorced parents were making good money, when she got accepted to the college of her dreams she must have thought she was on her way.

But like Dan and Roseanne, then her parents dropped the bomb - they didn't have a cent to contribute to her education because they needed their money to send younger half-siblings to "good" schools and to fun a parent's upcoming wedding (to someone who'd be divorced in two years), and because her parents made good money she wouldn't qualify for any of the financial aid available to poor kids. The girl was devastated to find out that her parents didn't give a rat's ass about her or her hard work, so guess what, she got pregnant and married her high school boyfriend almost immediately, just to get away from the parents. Last I heard, she was planning to train for her mother's job, and was straight on track to end up just like the mother she wanted so badly to get away from.

So yes, shit like this happens in real life, and Roseanne and the showrunners absolutely wanted to put the ugly realities of blue-collar life in between the laughs.

[quote] and because her parents made good money she wouldn't qualify for any of the financial aid available to poor kids.

That is the worst thing, when they tell you your parents are too rich, and you know that is not reality.

In this case, the parents absolutely could have afforded to send the girl to the school of her dreams, which actually had reasonable tuition costs (state university) and which was within commuting distance of one parent's home.

It was just that neither parent could be bothered to lift a finger for the child of their first marriage. They'd married too young themselves, and at the time both were in their thirties ,and trying to settle down and raise young families for real... when the kid from their ill-advised first marriage wanted college money. So because they couldn't be bothered about that, she made them grandparents in their mid-thirties. This is what happens, in real blue-collar families, even upwardly mobile families, with promising and high-achieving kids. Maybe the kids of the second and third marriages will actually make it to college...

From what I recall, the Becky storyline seemed pretty realistic. I don't remember Dan and Roseanne squandering Becky's college fund, I don't think there was one. I recall Becky making a comment in the vein of, "If there was never any money why the hell was I working so hard all these years? You should have told me and I wouldn't have bothered."

She felt betrayed and out of options and Mark felt like the only thing she could count on.

For some reason I thought the topic of financial aid did come up and they ironically made, "too much money," for Becky to qualify for any. If it didn't, it still would have been realistic that Becky didn't know anything about applying for Financial Aid if there was no one to guide her through the process. Her family obviously had no experience with college and from what I can gather, schools weren't really teaching kids back then the ins and outs of financing college.

The "Becky" r91 writes about... I wanna beat the crap out of her parents. What pieces of shit. I hope her half-siblings ignore them now and they have no one to care for them in their old, decrepit age.

There wasn't any plan for my or my sisters higher education, either. My eldest sister, who lived with my father and was, and always has been, a very ambitious high-achieving person, was horrified to learn he didn't save any money to help her go to college. He wasn't rich, but he worked for the Montgomery County, MD Government as a software developer and made pretty good money for sure. He definitely has been enjoying a good retirement, from what I hear. I'd be surprised if there weren't good programs available to employees with children regarding college funds.

[quote}The point of the show was to show how people like Roseanne’s family make bad life decisions and how it then affects them.

It was?

So many professional victims in this thread. Meanwhile where I work, I have seen six young people work their way to bachelor degrees with no financial aid. I guess if you spend all your time bitching about how life is unfair, you can't work to achieve your goals.

Go fuck yourself with your Log Cabin Republican pin, R97.

R97 literally sounds like one of those things someone makes up because they think it sounds believable.

I do know people who've risen in the world, R98 and R99, but I've also known a lot of people who wanted to rise in the world and failed, and sometimes the difference was in bad choices made... and sometimes the difference was sheer luck - good or bad.

It's perfectly believable that the Connors would want to rise in the world, make plans to improve their lives and take risks... and fail. That happens in real life, and people like R97 would like to believe that it's because the people involved are stupid or lazy, but bad shit happens to plenty of hard-working, intelligent people, and anyone who hasn't seen that in real life isn't keeping their eyes open.

But yes, some people do manage to rise, and that's actually one thing the show could have included and didn't - someone who was making it out of Lanford! That's one theme they could have included, how making it into the middle class means changing attitudes and beliefs in a way that alienates friends or family, or the jealous "crab pot" mentality, where people pull down those who are trying to rise.

They kind of did that with Cousin Ronnie played by Joan Collins. Darlene really looked up to her and she inspired her to want to go away to school ASAP. She was also shown to have become a snooty bitch after leaving Lanford and "making it".

Until the lottery season, I also thought maybe they would end with at least one of them getting out. The Evans got out the ghetto at the end of Good Times. If they had just ended Roseanne with them discovering they had won the lottery and then faded to black, it would've been a cop out but it would've been better than that season was.

[quote] I do know people who've risen in the world, [R98] and [R99], but I've also known a lot of people who wanted to rise in the world and failed, and sometimes the difference was in bad choices made... and sometimes the difference was sheer luck - good or bad.

You need to have a risk mitigation plan to deal with the possibility of “bad luck”.

Fuck off R103. I wish I believed in tempting fate because you'd have a doozy coming for you.

I thought it was fairly realistic the Connors thought they were amazing parents but were mostly setting their kids up for failure. It’s also one possible way to explain why Darlene suddenly became the golden child. First one didn’t work out, let’s try again.

The show really morphed. They started out as a typical working class family and turned into white trash. Roseanne dominated Dan and was permissive about nearly everything her kids did. That’s why they ended up where they were, not purely based on their socio-economic status.

The first five years were a lot more realistic. Roseanne and Dan bickered but were parents who worked together. Jackie was neurotic, but grounded. The kids fought but cared for each other when push came to shove. Mark had a sexy but dangerous air to him. David had a limit for Darlene's bullshit. Beverly was nagging but cared for her kids.

After that the tone started to change. Roseanne became combative and mean spirited. Dan became lazy and inattentive. The kids practically hated one another. Jackie became a lunatic. Mark became a bumbling idiot. David an emasculated wimp. Bev became insufferable. And the show incorporated tired sitcom tropes such as having two actors play the same role. I'm surprised they didn't try the obligatory one actor plays a dual role in an episode, but they came close with that awful flashback two parter.

The first few seasons were awful. Say whatever, but the show was best when she and Tom Arnold took control (until the lottery season).

I disagree. Everything up until Leon buys Beverly's share is perfection.

Once that happens, it starts to jump the shark.

I liked it when Jackie was a cop and then a truck driver. Suddenly, she gets knocked-up by Mr. Sensitive. Then, wasn't there a Very Special Episode where we find out that Mr. Sensitive was abusing Jackie?

Fred, the sensitive guy, was divorced by Jackie for being too boring. He was a rebound after the abusive relationship with Fisher. The two-parter in which Dan is jailed for punching Fisher is one of the high points of the series.

Lecy is HEARTBREAKING in this scene.

[quote] Fred, the sensitive guy, was divorced by Jackie for being too boring. He was a rebound after the abusive relationship with Fisher. The two-parter in which Dan is jailed for punching Fisher is one of the high points of the series.

Thanks, R111, I turned Jackie's 2 boyfriends into one, composite character. Jackie was a lesbian and should have been with a woman, anyway.

[quote] The two-parter in which Dan is jailed for punching Fisher is one of the high points of the series.

That was one of the most real-to-life lower class stories on Roseanne. I've known a lot of men, who normally you would think they hated their in-laws, but if someone did something to them, they took care of it and damn the consequences. Roseanne and Jackie's dad was dead and they didn't have a brother, so Dan did his duty as the man of the family.

Seasons 1-5 are my faves, with S6 being passable. I think S8 and S9 were the worst. I think S10 showed promise and had some good writing, even if they changed some of the history, but then Roseanne had to blow all that up with dynamite.

[quote]The two-parter in which Dan is jailed for punching Fisher is one of the high points of the series.

Roseanne, upon seeing Dan's bruised hand and the bucket of fried chicken he brought home: "Oh god. You didn't kill him and then pick up chicken?"

Great show.

I was watching season 6 epis and noticed Roseanna had serious thrush. Yuck! That is where the tongue turns white, depressed persons and people with the aids get thrush. It ain't pretty. Rose always said she was on fifty meds on Roseanna.

[quote] The Evans got out the ghetto at the end of Good Times.

In the finale of "Good Times" good fortune suddenly falls on ALL of the Evans and their friend Willona and her adopted child and I think even for Bookman, the super of the run down building where the Evans have eked out a living for so long. It was a lame, trite, sappy, "and they all lived happily ever after" ending. It was crap. The show would have been a lot more meaningful if the building they lived in )they're ALL moving to an upscale apartment building) were slated to be demolished and they all had to leave abruptly, their future uncertain. That would have been much more in keeping with what the show was about in the beginning: an African American family's determination to thrive in the face of adversity. The "happy ending" was just a cop out, worthless.

R112 Why are Laci Gorrinson and Laurie Metcalf's voice so low? Especially Metcalf's. Does aging really do that that dramatically?

And what happened to Sarah Gilbert's voice again that makes it so high? She got a nose job or something?

The Connors continually kept fucking up their lives and having bad luck because a sitcom need CONFLICT in order to create humorous situations. There would be no laughs if they didn't keep making stupid mistakes and fouling up. The same goes for drama series. Constant conflict is needed to keep things interesting. Also a lot of bed hopping. Viewers love drama series with lots of affairs, and love triangles, and cheating and hot love scenes. It 's a formula and it works.

[quote]I was watching season 6 epis and noticed Roseanna had serious thrush. Yuck! That is where the tongue turns white, depressed persons and people with the aids get thrush. It ain't pretty. Rose always said she was on fifty meds on Roseanna.

No, Rose, Roseanna Rosannadanna was not on Roseanne. How many times do I have to tell you?

I grew up in the rural Midwest not far from where the show was set. We were a stable middle class family surrounded by other stable middle class families. We were expected to earn good grades and work hard. Our parents did not care if we went to college if we could get a decent job and move out of the house. There was also pressure to date somebody and get married ... to somebody who could get a decent job and move out of their parents' house. The expectations were low.

We were far removed from the urban elites and until I went to college myself, I knew very few people who had graduated from college. There were plenty of factory jobs in rural areas during the 1970s and unions gave people a good living. That all went away in the 1980s and 1990s.

The early years of the show seemed very realistic to me. They got further removed from reality with each season, and the family more and more turned into white trash. The current version of The Connors running on ABC seems like a zombie version of Roseanne ... it's like the characters have become walking dead versions of their previous selves.

I wonder if Roseanna had the aids? Maybe dats why she so crazy in real life.

What I find puzzling is that Roseanne’s character was a fat, sloppy, moody, fight-picking smartmouth and terrible mother who wisecracked at her kids and her husband all day long and people found that funny. She was always telling off “snooty” people who were often just people asking for a modicum of acceptable behavior when out in society and a bit of cleanliness. Roseanne was a pig and proud of it. Nine years if that deeply affected those who watched the show.

“See? It’s ok to be a fat sloppy bitch! Maybe I’ll get rich and famous too.”

There were fat slopply bitches among the working poor long before and long after "Roseanne" was on the air, Roseanne didn't create them. They were always there, living their difficult lives away from your eyes, and the only difference Roseanne Barr made to them is that they were happy so see one of their own make it, and put a funny version of their lives on TV.

Roseanne didn't bring out the worst in them or empower their worst tendencies, that was Trump.

[quote] They were always there, living their difficult lives away from your eyes, and the only difference Roseanne Barr made to them is that they were happy so see one of their own make it, and put a funny version of their lives on TV.

"Happy to see one of their own make it?" I doubt any average white trash fat sloppy bitch was "happy" to see Roseanne Barr have a hit tv series. And happy to see a "funny" version of their lives on tv? I don't any fat sloppy white trash woman who is barely scraping by financially would think there was anything "funny" about it.

R126 What a cunty thing to say. In season 2 of Roseanne she had 41 million viewers. No doubt white trash females were a large part of her viewership.

Didn’t Lecy leave the first time because she was having an affair with a married man that worked behind the scenes on the show? The affair ended badly and left Lecy devastated and wanting to quit the show. Howard stern asked Roseanne about it and she was genuinely shocked he knew about it and quickly changed the subject.

Lecy Goranson should've won an Emmy last year for her work on The Conners. She wasn't even nominated

Because at that point Roseanne had gone off the deep end with Tom and the writers had to create a plot line with actors who would actually show up and not be insane?

R128 I thought it was more creepy than that. I thought he had started pursuing her when she was underage etc. I don't think it was just an "affair" gone bad. I think it was more predatory.

There is no evidence anywhere of Lecy Goranson having an affair with a predatory older man on the set of roseanne. Only some old fart on datalounge. Nobody else ever heard Howard Stern make this alleged remark.

Goranson went off to school & also felt like she needed a break from the show. Probably because her character was an annoying whiny bitch and it was exhausting having to keep up that level of obnoxiousness on screen for all those years.

Wrong R132. I remember listening to that Howard Stern Roseanne interview back in the 90s and he did ask her that.

Oh well if YOU REMEMBER IT it must be true.

And Roseanne said…..yes, it’s true?

^ She said “where did you hear that?” She did not confirm nor deny.

People have been arguing about the Goranson/producer issue on DL since at least 2009; some of the old threads are still around. If gossip-oriented Usenet groups have searchable archives, this was discussed on several of them decades ago.

I don't have the patience to do a more thorough search but the affair was established gossip by 1995, if not earlier.

[quote] She said “where did you hear that?” She did not confirm nor deny.

And what did Howard say?

[quote] People have been arguing about the Goranson/producer issue on DL since at least 2009; some of the old threads are still around. If gossip-oriented Usenet groups have searchable archives, this was discussed on several of them decades ago.

By you

This isn't for the troll, but for any gossip historians who might be interested. Here's the exchange from Roseanne's September 1994 Stern appearance (which predates the existence of DL). Howard asks who her friends are and she says they're mostly people she works with. Then he confuses Goranson with Gilbert and Robin steps in.

Robin: Oh, you mean the other one who's running around with the producer!

Roseanne: Oh! How did you hear that story?

Robin: I know everything.

Roseanne: Oh my God!

Then Howard interrupts to take a call from a veteran offended by Roseanne's national anthem performance. They get off track for several minutes before Robin steers it back to the producer story at 32:51.

Robin: Well, what did happen with that young girl and your producer?

Roseanne: Well, I didn't know --

Howard: What do you mean?

Roseanne: I didn't even know that story was out.

Howard: What story?

Robin: The girl who played the oldest daughter --

Roseanne: How did you find out about that?

Robin: I know everything.

Roseanne: But tell me how you found out.

Howard (joking): Tom called us.

Robin: I cannot give out my sources.

Roseanne: It was real, it was a sad thing, I hope she's doing well.

Howard: Tell me what happened.

Roseanne: Well, I shouldn't get into that either.

Howard: What happened?

Roseanne: I don't wanna get sued, I've got enough lawsuits.

[quote] No doubt white trash females were a large part of her viewership.

I seriously doubt that. I think the audience for Roseanne Barr's show were middle or upper class people who got a kick out of watching fat, ugly, stupid, white trash people continually fucking up their lives. I think it make them feel very superior and full of themselves: "Ha ha! Look at those ugly low class people! Boy, are they a skit! Poor slobs, their lives are such shit! Ha ha ha!"

R141 Are you fucking brain dead? Are you a xtian retard? No upper class wasp watched Roseanne, psycho cunt from hell.

[quote] No upper class wasp watched Roseanne, psycho cunt from hell.

And just how would you know that, you poor white trash shithead?

R143 That was not who the show was geared towards, you fucking cunt. No rich person ever watched Roseanna.

[quote] No rich person ever watched Roseanna.

You were in the living rooms of every person in the U.S. who watched Roseanne? Boy, are you a retarded white trash piece of shit!

Two big fat slobs had three thin average sized children somehow!

[quote] Two big fat slobs had three thin average sized children somehow!

Yeah, if it were true to life they all would have been fatsos.

R147 They ate nothing but crap also. Darlene was athletic so okay she gets a pass but Becky and the boy should have been fatties.

Dan was used to Becky rebelling. He never saw it coming from his little former tomboy, Darlene. It was a nasty shock. Each daughter engendered different expectations from their parents. Low bar, not expecting much (Becky). High bar, fully expect to be impressed by that kid (Darlene). You didn't notice how much closer Dan and Darlene were than Dan and Becky? Angry Becky? Looking-to-hurt-her-parents-all-of-the-time Becky?

I agree with R12.

One of the underlying themes of the show was that Roseanne Conner regretted the fact that she had wasted her potential. She was a creative person, and maybe she could have had an amazing writing career if she hadn't thrown away her dreams for the first guy she fell in love with. (I saw this happen to a few girls in high school. They had dreamed of going to college, but then they fell in love, and made their boyfriend the center of their life, at the cost of everything else. They only cared about marrying the man, even if it meant putting off college. Then they had kids, were forced to get jobs they didn't like, and they never went to college. But they love their kids more than anything, of course.)

Roseanne expressed her regret to Dan, wondering out loud what she would have become if she had pursued her dreams instead of the conventional path of marriage and kids. First, Dan was resentful, but he came to understand. Becky was a smart student who made good grades, and she knew she wanted to go to college. But...then she fell in love, and she sacrificed her college dreams for a man. As a newlywed, she already felt regretful, and she considered taking courses at community college. Dan came to like Mark because he recognized that Mark was just like him. As Jackie once pointed out to Roseanne and Becky, "You two married the same guy."

The character of Darlene was different. She was a goth, and she wasn't concerned about being just like everyone else. But eventually she fell in love. Then out of nowhere, the show made Darlene pregnant. Now we had another character who had been obsessed with leaving Lanford now stuck there for life. And...she seemed OK with it. After bitching about Lanford for years. The goth girl wanted the normal conventional life of husband and kids.

In the last few years, too many women were getting pregnant: both Roseanne and Jackie later in life, and now Darlene. It was like the show was just driving the boat around looking for more and more sharks to jump. The show started off very feminist, but now it was suggesting that every woman needed a baby. The single character, Jackie, was portrayed as a codependent, clingy mess. They could have portrayed her as a strong, independent single woman who didn't need to chase man after man, but no... Another letdown.

I won't even get into how Roseanne destroyed the show in the final season and what a clusterfuck the finale was.

what do you think made Roseanne the creative liberal actress/comedian turn Trumper? Even if she argues that she was never a liberal the tone and content of the show was

I am convinced that when a liberal with a brain turns paranoid conservative in their fifties, sixties, or seventies... it's an early sign of dementia.

No, really, I think that's what's going on with these changes - cognitive and personality changes caused by degenerative disease that's too subtle to be detected by any medical process we have now.

R145 They measure by the Nielsen ratings system, you fucking white trash piece of cuntgarbage.

[quote] Dan was used to Becky rebelling. He never saw it coming from his little former tomboy, Darlene. It was a nasty shock.

Just watched a show last night where Darlene dropped out of basketball when she got to high school which shocked Dan and made him angry. He called her a quitter. Roseanne yelled at Dan that Darlene wasn’t his little jock.

Re:Jackie. In the beginning Jackie was a feminist. She stood up for herself and teased George Clooney, who played her boss. She slept with him but when he cheated on her she told him to go fuck himself (in tv words). Later she slept with him again as a “why not?” casual sex. But she wasn’t a basket case over him. And she didn’t dress like a Navajo hobo like she did in the middle part of the series.

They really changed her character and finally reduced her in ‘The Connors’ to a loud mouth, over-gesticulating crazy-eyed bobble head.

The lack of continuity between the original show, the one-season revival and "The Conners" really bugs me.

It makes no sense to have retconned Jerry and Andy out of existence, when both characters could drive some story. Particularly in Andy's case, for Jackie to have nothing of her own in her life truly guts the character and makes her the unhinged, bug-eyed crazy woman she's now portrayed as being.

And we're supposed to believe that Dan had not spoken to his father in over 20 years when he died nor been in touch with his half-siblings when we Crystal and Darlene were working together in the revival? Crystal - one of Roseanne's best friends - would never have allowed that estrangement to happen and would certainly have kept the family members abreast of any developments.

And don't even get me started on Harris' age. She was born in 1997 and should be 25, not 20. Ugh, I could go on and on. Even if you're willing to dismiss the lottery-winning final season and the dismal finale of the original show as dreams or fantasies, the rest of the show's continuity is god-awful.

[quote] They measure by the Nielsen ratings system, you fucking white trash piece of cuntgarbage.

There were no Nielson ratings that proved Roseanne was exclusively watched by lower class white trash retards like you. Eat shit, retard.

R156 It is just common sense, fucking retard. Why would upper class people watch Roseanne. Stupid cunt.

It was because Mark wasn’t living in Dan’s house.

Sorry if someone already pointed this plot point out.

[quote] Why would upper class people watch Roseanne. Stupid cunt.

Why wouldn't they? Fuck off, retard.

R159 Fuck off, Janbot. Your circular arguments are fucking obvious. Blocked yet another of your hundreds of spam accounts.

I saw DJ on the show this past week, but I don't remember him saying anything. Usually they give him at least one line.

Everyone of the cast looks fucking awful. They truly were white trash in real life to have aged so horribly. The only one who looked good was the one who played second Becky. She was also the only one who knew how to act.

[quote} Fuck off, Janbot.

I don't think I even know what a "Janbot" is, much less be one. Get help.

[quote] The only one who looked good was the one who played second Becky. She was also the only one who knew how to act.

Actually, the only really attractive cast member of Roseanne was Glenn Quinn. A troubled soul, he died of an overdose of a drug overdose.

[quote] what do you think made Roseanne the creative liberal actress/comedian turn Trumper

She was good friends with a fat slob musician who sang the Roseanne theme show lyrics named John Popper. He’s a rightwing Republican who carries guns wherever he goes. She befriended him in 1995 and he apparently had a lot of influence on her.

The history of traumatic brain injury probably plays a part in her belief in conspiracy theories and Trumpism (and assorted antics prior to that).

Did she really have a traumatic Brian injury, though? She’s lied about so much I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a lie too. Wasn’t she pregnant around the time she had this supposed injury? I could understand if her parents told people she was in hospital for a car accident while she was in an unwed mothers home in her last weeks of pregnancy.

(Yes they did that. My aunt worked at a “home for unwed mothers” and my first apartment in Manhattan had once been a home for unwed mothers. They put girls in them for their last month or so of pregnancy because that’s when they were really showing, and if something went wrong, neighbors wouldn’t see them being rushed to hospital in ambulance from home.

So they went to a building that was usually attached to or very close to a hospital (My apartment building was placed near Bellevue Hospital. My aunt’s was on the grounds of a regional catholic hospital)

They received prenatal care and delivered the baby in the hospital. My aunt said the care was very good and most girls hadn’t had any prenatal care at all because they’d been hiding their pregnancy from their parents, friends and neighbors - it was that much of a shameful thing to be unwed and pregnant in those days. Some girls even got kicked out of their houses by their fathers (I think a few of Manson’s girls had gone through that)

Babies were given up for adoption. In most families, it was never spoken of again.

The traumatic brain injury happened when she was 16; the pregnancy and adoption came two years later. In her book, Roseanne's sister Geraldine details the severity of the accident, which came close to killing Roseanne or leaving her in a vegetative state. She also writes about the radical personality shift Roseanne had afterward (and chronicles the pregnancy, too).

The worst thing about the reboot is that they want us to believe that this beautiful woman wants to marry Dan, despite himself and his family of losers. No. Way.

Yeah, the Louise character makes no sense, R169.

There's no way that woman would give up years of independence to live in that filthy dump with poor Dan and his failure of a family,

Didn’t she give up her nice clean house? She and Dan could’ve moved into her house while his failed daughters & son and their weird children could live together in that tiny house. Does jackie live with them?

I like Katey Sagal, but Louise was ill-conceived and it beggars belief that she'd 1) live in a backwater like Lanford; and 2) want to live in an overcrowded roach motel with Dan and his clan.

She also doesn't seem to have much of a point of view. We really don't know much about her except that she's tolerant of Dan's loyalty to his wayward offspring and she used to be a rocker chick.

Sagal herself comes off as so aging Sunset Blvd. glam rock, it's unimaginable that she'd marry lower-middle-American Dan. She's totally out of place on this show and its universe.

Stunt casting. Someone thought it would be funny for the mom from Married With Children to replace Roseanne

The funniest thing about the return of Roseanne was when Estelle Parsons had aged the best out of all of them except for second Becky. Estelle also never forgot how to act unlike everyone else. Her seven Oscars really shone through. It should have been about Estelle.

"Sagal herself comes off as so aging Sunset Blvd. glam rock, it's unimaginable that she'd marry lower-middle-American Dan."

Dan isn't lower middle-class, he's pure working class. He's the guy with little education but a ton of practical skills, always worked in construction and contracting, carrying a pipe dream of working on motorcycles, looking after his family and always missing out on financial stability. That's deliberate, the whole premise of the show(s) was to look at the difficult lives of the working class, and what keeps their bright and motivated children from breaking into the middle class (early pregnancy).

As for whatshername, a lot of formerly glam people end up back where they started from, with little show for their wild youths except children.

90% of Americunts are extreme lower class. Don't delude yourselves. LOL. A nation that worshipped Elvis cannot be too bright.

Estelle Parsons doesn't have 7 Oscars - I don't think anyone has that many.

They continued a show without the creator and star? Yeah puzzling and shitty. Other racists , sexists , anti semites etc… are still working, shit Will Smith assaulted someone & got applauded & an Oscar. Fucking Roseanne loses her show and career over a shitty insult joke and her aligning with Trump (I hate him too but it’s so one sided)

The Peggy Bundy character is a prize? Seems like trash like the rest.

Katie Seagull is an awesome actress. Even after the execrable Bundy show she shat on. But she fits right in with the trash unable to act on Roseanne 2.0.

[quote] The Peggy Bundy character is a prize? Seems like trash like the rest.

She's way too attractive for Dan. And she doesn't seem retarded, so why would she want to hook up with him and live in his crummy house and deal with his unbearable family?

Life in Lanford would suck, yes, but some of you are forgetting that not everyone in larger cites is upwardly mobile The working poor/working class and white trash are everywhere, not just in shitty, suicide inducing shitholes like (fictional) Lanford.

But a singer with big dreams - as Louise is portrayed to have been - would not stay in Lanford and likely never return unless she was forced by circumstance. If Louise had her dreams dashed, we don't know and probably never will. She's an undeveloped idea far more than a character.

R35 Being gay made me crave a hell of a lot more out of life than a Sunday breakfast at House of Pancakes, the largest TV screen possible and a three bedroom ranch house in the future MAGA white trash mecca that I had the misfortune to grow up in as a gayling. Eight minutes after my high school graduation I was out of there and now live a great life on another continent.

The only reason my exit took eight minutes was that I tarried to say goodbye to the lesbian gym teacher who had written in my yearbook "Never be afaid to be who you are." God bless her.

No one thinks Lecey Goranson can act? I thought she was very good and believable this last season as well as a small role on Sex in the City .

Lecy shouts all her lines.

I’m watching on CMT right now. The fantasy episode in Roseanne’s episode is seriously the most bizarre episode. I usually skip it, but I’m watching it for the first time in years (decades?) I seriously don’t get what they were trying to do with this episode. It’s just awful.

R187 I meant the fantasy episode in Roseanne’s BATHROOM. It’s seriously soooo freakin weird.

A lot of people hate that episode. I never minded it. The worst episode for me, by far, perhaps in the history of television, is the terrorists on the train. There was a lot in season 9 that I didn't actually mind. If it had been a show like The Nanny, it would have worked fine. But the terrorists on the train is a line that I cannot cross.

R189 yes, Roseambo. That one is awful too.

I am also more bullish on season 9 than most people are, but that one is unwatchable.

Roseanne Season 9 is what happens when you put (1) a crazy person (2) in charge of a creative budget and (3) no one has the courage to tell them that their ideas are bad.

R191 I kind of think of it as somewhat akin to Madonna’s Erotica album, famously described in a review as an “audacious public temper tantrum.” Season 9 was a public temper tantrum from Roseanne. Her show fell out of the top 10 in season 8 and she realized that people had only been sucking up to her in Hollywood because she had a top 10 show, so she just decided to make her show go completely apeshit.

And… it works for me. There is a trainwreck quality to season 9 that has always appealed to me.