Roseanne: An Appreciation

With the premiere of the Roseanne revival coming in just a couple of weeks, I thought that it was time to revisit one of my all-time favorite sitcoms.  When the show premiered in 1988, there was nothing else like it on tv.  Roseanne Barr played the brash "domestic goddess" matriarch of the lower-middle class Conner family, living in (fictional) rural Lanford, Illinois.  Roseanne was outspoken, loud, and the undisputed boss of her household.  Her husband Dan (John Goodman) was a loveable goofball, a decent man whose temper flared up on occasion, usually when someone threatened his family.  Roseanne's younger sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) was a neurotic mess but very close to Roseanne.  Roseanne, Dan, and Jackie worked various jobs throughout the show's run, always struggling to make ends meet.  Roseanne went through stints as a factory worker (where George Clooney played her boss, by the way), fast food worker, beauty shop assistant, and waitress, eventually opening her own restaurant with Jackie.  Dan worked in construction, later opening a motorcycle shop (which pretty quickly failed) and eventually working at the city garage.  Jackie was the most all-over-the-map with her career choices.  After leaving her factory job with Roseanne, she became a cop and a truck driver before going into business with Roseanne.  The show was true-to-life in that many of its episodes revolved around the struggles of the typical middle American family.  The Conners had their electricity shut off, lost out on jobs because they didn't have computer skills, and faced foreclosure on their home and Dan's business going under. 

Roseanne's oldest daughter was Becky, played by Lecy Goranson and later Sarah Chalke, then Goranson again, and finally Chalke.  Becky was a good straight-A student who began to rebel a couple of seasons in.  She met boyfriend Mark (Glenn Quinn) and later eloped with him in a memorable season 5 arc.  Mark was a James Dean-esque bad boy, at first hated by Roseanne and Dan but eventually welcomed and loved by them.  Second child Darlene (Sara Gilbert) was a young tomboy and later become a dark and moody teenager.  She began dating Mark's younger brother David (Johnny Galecki) and married him by the series' end.  Youngest child D.J. (Michael Fishman) was an adorable young boy and later served as the annoying little brother to Becky and Darlene.  There was also a rotating roster of Roseanne's friends: naïve thrice-married Crystal (Natalie West), fellow waitress and amateur singer Bonnie (Bonnie Sheridan), and wild flower-child Nancy (Sandra Bernhard), who Roseanne and Jackie went into business with at the restaurant.  Some other characters popped in and out: Roseanne and Jackie's shrill mom Beverly (Estelle Parsons), their fun grandmother Nana Mary (Shirley Maclaine), and restaurant boss Leon (Martin Mull).

The biggest strength of the show was that it was just damn hilarious.  Its talented writers room was filled with names that later became famous for creating and/or writing other hit shows: Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator of Gilmore Girls), Chuck Lorre (producer of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory), and Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the tv version).  Most episodes, particularly in the best seasons (2-5) were laugh-out loud funny.  The humor was sarcastic and self-deprecating, especially from Roseanne and Darlene.  The show was also never afraid to tackle hot-button issues.  Season 4 episode "A Bitter Pill to Swallow" dealt with Becky asking her mother for birth control.  Season 5 episode "Crime and Punishment" included one of the show's most shocking storylines: Jackie tried hiding the fact that boyfriend Fisher beat her, and Dan was later arrested for brutally beating Fisher in retaliation.  There was also season 6 episode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", in which Nancy's girlfriend Sharon (Mariel Hemingway) kissed Roseanne.  This episode was extremely controversial at the time; it's hard to imagine today that a simple same-sex kiss would cause such a hullabaloo.  My personal favorite episodes weren't so controversial, but they were still pitch-perfect.  In season 2 episode "Brain-Dead Poet's Society", Darlene read her poem at a school assembly.  What started as a light-hearted episode about stage fright turned into a reveal that Darlene was actually struggling to fit in at school and was deeply depressed.  This moving episode was a bit out of character for the show's typical cynical and sarcastic tone, but it proved that the show also had a lot of heart.  Another favorite of mine is the season 4 finale "Aliens", in which Roseanne lost her waitressing job and D.J. competed at his school's spelling bee.  When D.J. won the contest on the final word "foreclosure" (Roseanne sits back and smiles when she realizes that D.J. is all-too-familiar with this word), and the family celebrated with a food fight in their kitchen, I realized that this show at this moment was perfect.

It's a shame that the show went so far off the rails in its final season, when the Conners won the lottery.  Most episodes revolved around Roseanne and Jackie living the high life, and the show became completely unrecognizable from its early years when it was about the typical struggling American family.  John Goodman even left the show for a while during this season after disputes with Roseanne (she was notorious for having disagreements with her writers and some of the cast).  The series finale laughed in the face of the viewers by declaring that the final season and some of the series itself were really part of amateur writer Roseanne's book: Dan was really dead, Jackie was a lesbian, Becky was really with David, and Darlene was really with Mark.  Here's hoping that the revival will restore some of the luster of Roseanne's early years.  After seeing early previews and reading reviews from critics, I'm cautiously optimistic (fingers crossed).