Several months ago, I saw “Revenge of the Nerds” for the first time in 25 some years. John Goodman was the football coach in the movie. This was pre-Roseanne and he was much slimmer at that time than he was during the late 80’s and early 90’s.
IMO, Laurie Metcalf was the best actor (actress) on the series but Goodman was a very close second. Roseanne had her moments but mostly she surrrounded herself with good talent including Sara Gilbert.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it, but Sara Gilbert is Melissa Gilbert’s younger half-sister (Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie). (Melissa is adopted)
I think my favorite was one of the later seasons when the characters morph in the opening credits. John Goodman hadn’t changed that much, but Roseanne (through the 24 plastic surgeries and weight ups and downs that were never mentioned) had and of course the kids and Jackie’s hair had changed several times.
The same creative team was behind Grace Under Fire, which was a great show in its short lived prime. Unfortunately, unlike Roseanne it got sunk by the star’s diva tantrums. Not sure what the difference was since Brett Butler’s meltdowns weren’t near as public or as profound as Roseanne’s (who authored a book claiming she had multiple personalities halfway through the show) other than Roseanne was a lot more popular.
A lot of Brett Butler’s routine was based on being from Alabama (though she grew up in Georgia) and from an abusive marriage before moving north, and this was worked into the episodes a bit. Unfortunately they also decided to give it a Lifetime “cause of the week” twist with alcoholism, and imo made a mistake when they moved her ex-husband from unseen to a regular.
I’ve wondered if Roseanne’s real life reunion with the child she gave up for adoption as a teenager was responsible for this being in the plot of Grace Under Fire (when she meets her firstborn son who was given up for adoption).
Some Grace Under Fire trivia: the baby on the show was played by the twins who star in the Suite Life of Zack and Cody shows.
Somewhere I heard that Lanford was supposedly in Fulton County, Illinois. Canton, the largest town in Fulton County, has some similarity to Lanford. Until 1983, there was a big International Harvester plant there. The population now is about 16,000, but I think it was bigger when the plant was operating.
However, Canton is more like 200 miles from Chicago than 100. Also, a family that lives in Canton couldn’t go 9 years without mentioning Peoria, which is less than an hour away and has over 100,000 people.
Speaking of TV Land, I’m now watching the episode where a tornado comes. The weather radio announces a tornado warning for Fulton County, so I guess that’s where I heard it.
From what I recall reading at the time, in my opinion Roseanne the person MADE Roseanne the show. The producers and network wanted a generic sitcom, but she pushed to make it real and poignant and great. She was right for a very long time - several seasons. Without Roseanne the person pushing so hard (as I recall she essentially had the producers fired fer crying out loud!), the Roseanne show would have lasted only a season or two, much like Maragret Cho’s sitcom. (That one had potential - a family sitcom with a fresh perspective. But then the suits showed up …)
By the later seasons Roseanne had the power and the track record to push the show into a direction that was not as real, and not as good. I stopped watching long before the lottery year, and it seems I didn’t miss much. That’s sad. But the Roseanne show would never have lasted long enough to take its downturn had Roseanne the person not pushed so hard and so effectively to make the early seasons good. They were great television.
I did not like the last (lottery) season much either, but it did make some points. Just because your rich does not mean you are not immune from hardship and problems. Dan has an affair and Darlene’s baby almost dies.
Roseanne also had some very good famous guest stars, including her war of words with cousin Ronnie (Joan Collins) and the marvelous bit in Vegas with Wayne Newton and a drunk Roseanne.
I loved their choice of Fred Willard to play Leon/Martin Mull’s boyfriend. Twenty years later they still had their Fernwood 2 Nightchemistry (a show that should be far better remembered than it is).
I liked the episode where they guest-starred the sitcom moms from past years – Isabel Sanford, Barbara Billingsley, June Lockhart, Alley Mills & Patricia Crowley.
It was silliness personified but I loved the acknowledgement of domestic goddesses who had gone before.
I remember on that episode one of them, I believe Barbara Billingsley (in character as June Cleaver) continues to chide Roseanne for the lesbian kiss. Later she hears how much Roseanne earns per episode (whispered, not said out loud) and says “Damn! I’d make out with a chick for that!” to which Isabel Sanford says “Anyone of you, anything you want, right here, right now!”
Speaking of: For Dopers who watched it in first run, remember the HUGE deal over the Mariel Hemingway kiss episode?
I can’t say why she wrote it the way she did (and I certainly understand the :rolleyes: at the “It was all a dream!” concept), but I thought it was an incredibly poignant way to end the series. A domestic diva from a small town, not a lot of formal education…fantasies abound. The whole show was a fantasy: and even within the context of the microworld it depicted, it was often playing with reality.
The final episode just brought that to its obvious conclusion: “Yes, this was mostly all made up, but it is of value, nevertheless.” Someone in the position that Roseanne depicted herself within might very well have fantasized a good chunk of lifetime; and as a writer, may have set down for posterity.