I too loved the first episode! The toaster scene, tunnel of terror, and the businessman are classic. Of course, I enjoyed the rest to a lesser degree because the first halloween episode was so damn good. There were eight halloween episodes as the first season of Roseanne didn't have one.

I fell asleep on my couch (missing the awesome Seasons Three and Four episodes, dammit!) and awoke to the "Jerry's birth" episode. It was the most fucking bizarre thing I've ever seen. I heard that Roseanne herself wrote that one. Figures.

I could never get into the Halloween episodes, specifically because of what yourfaceisdumb said: the Conners just didn't have the kind of money to get those kinds of costumes. Every other day of the year they had to eat Hamburger Helper, but on Halloween they suddenly have all this extra money to buy the most outrageous costumes you've ever seen. I especially didn't get it when Becky put together the mangled flight-attendant costume in about five minutes; where the hell did she get that stuff? It just never made sense to me.

I know sometimes its healthy to suspend disbelief, but I just couldn't do it for the Halloween eppies.

Roseanne and Dan are trying to out prank each other. Roseanne dresses as a wicked witch, Dan has a toy axe stuck in his head, Darlene has arrows stuck in her shirt with fake blood, Becky is dressed as a flight attendant with a missing arm, Jackie is the head under the platter in the kitchen, Crystal is Glinda, Good Witch of the North, and Lonnie's a pirate. The house is set up as a haunted house, whereby D.J. lets the trick or treaters through the front door, and they get led through the haunted house and each family member is stationed somewhere. At one point, Dan's potential new boss drops by to talk about a contracting job. Roseanne gets him to go along with a prank on Dan. Dan gets her back later by scaring her in the garage. But, in the end, right before the credits roll, Roseanne gets him back once and for all. She pretended to be on the phone with her mother and that her mother was going to visit for three weeks. Dan jumps up and down, waving his arms "no", going crazy. Roseanne then hangs up, smiles, and says "The master." Dan falls to the floor and bows to her greatness.

But it's the showrunners who decide the direction of the storylines, not the writers and directors. Who knows what kind of battles were happening though? It may have been Roseanne ignoring the inconsistencies in order to do the story she wanted to do. Since it was revealed in the finale that Roseanne the character rewrote her whole life anyway, maybe the inconsistencies aren't so out of place. But they still bothered me sometimes.

I never thought of it that way but that does make sense. I also still believe the with each fresh crop of writers came a new voice to the show so to speak. I destest the whole idea that everything that we had seen up to the last episode wasn't entirely real bothered me. Their are instantces that I could buy the idea of a book. The first season where Roseanne is working a lot of over time. She comes home to a dirty house and screaming kids. Dan tells her he'll take care of it. She stops in at a dinner and has a conversation with a waitress. The gist of it being about how her husband died a few years ago and that it's so quite and lonely now. So Roseanne goes home and is thankful for having a family to go home to. That could have been great foreshadowing to loosing Dan. I think when Roseanne first started this show the idea of incorporating a book into the show at the last season wasn't even a thought. Then again I'm not in Roseanne's head.



That was mentioned on Larry King Live. I think a caller asked why they didn't have Christmas episodes (which they did. I distinctly remember one. Darlene was hanging out at David's and his mother came home and she was a bitch on wheels) John Goodman said that Halloween was the Conner's Christmas. He also said that they saved up all year round just for Halloween and wasted $20,000 on it. That got a good laugh out of the cast.

They also had a Christmas episode when they won the lottery. Roseanne paid off the mortgage and gave him the paper to burn as a gift. I always found that hard to believe. With all the mortgages they had on that house -- that would have been the first thing they paid off when they got all that money.

I remember a couple of Christmas episodes too. The one with Shelly Winters in the diner where Roseanne and Jackie dress her up with Christmas lights. The other was with Mark helping Dan put up Christmas lights. I think that's the one where Roseanne said they were having a white trash Christmas. But in my opinion the Christmas ones doen't hold a candle to the Halloween ones.

I really liked the Christmas episode in the last season; I think it was the only episodes that season that wasn't insanely wacky. I loved the moment when they misplaced one of the figurines of the Wise Men, so Roseanne improvised with one of the kid's toys and bellowed, "Ah! But the Yellow Ranger is the wisest of them all!" And I'm still a sucker for the kids' letter to Santa. "Are any of your reindeer gay? Our grandma is!"

My favorite Christmas episode was (and I don't remember it extremely well, but) the one where Darlene starts hanging out with that older woman who runs the bookstore. This is when Roseanne finds out she's been writing short stories and all that, and asks Darlene why she's not allowed to read any but this other woman is. It was really touching at the end, when Darlene walked into the kitchen and hung a short story up on the fridge for them to read without saying a word. I loved how that show was so good at being touching and sentimental without descending into cheese!

Also, in that episode, Roseanne and Jackie are Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause at the mall. Jackie is supposed to hand out candy canes to all the kids, and she says something like, "Remember...POSESSION OF CANE IS A PRIVELIDGE, NOT A RIGHT!"
Cracks me up!

OMG I completely forgot Roseanne and Jackie as Santa and the elf. I LOVED that episode! Jackie was so hilarious in it. Also I think as the credits were rolling they were showing various kids on Roseanne's lap. It was so funny.

This was one of my favorite episodes as well. As I teen, I wrote a lot, and did not get along well with the kids my own age. I did have adult women as "friends" - it was nice to have an older person to look up to I wasn't related to. Sometimes it was just easier to talk to them, because I knew I wasn't being judged the same way. And it is really hard to share your fiction with family members, sometimes.

Roseanne is definetly one of my favorite sitcoms...

I liked the episode where Dan,Mark and Fred were out in the garage and
Dan was taking some horribly tangled Christmas lights out of a box.

Fred says"Dan,wouldn't it be easier if you spent time putting the lights away
right next time?"

Dan replies"Yeah ,like that is how I want to spend my Easter Sunday!"

Yeah, one thing I noticed about Dan and Roseanne's parenting methods, especially in the middle of the series' run, was that they always seemed to give each kid the opposite of what they wanted. Becky wanted to be taken seriously, so they put her down. Darlene wanted to be left alone, so they nagged her. DJ needed attention, so they ignored him.

And especially with DJ, at times I thought their treatment of him was just cruel. Two episodes in particular, both fourth season. The first was one where he says, "I haven't said anything for TWO DAYS! Nobody's cared!" D&R give him some tripe about having been busy, then promise to read him a bedtime story, then go to bed and forget about him again. R: "Well, he better learn to bitch and moan like his sisters or he ain't gonna last long in this house!" The second was the Thanksgiving episode where he was a kids' table of one. Roseanne ended up snarling at him because he wanted to know what everyone else was doing, then, when he asked to be excused, muttered, "Yeah, yeah...just get outta here."

I know this was supposed to be funny, but I could just never see the humor in it. Especially since they never seemed to make the connection between his behavior that they didn't like, and his "extra kid" status in the household. I felt somewhat vindicated during the episode when Roseanne smacked him, because that's when she finally said, "I think you're trying to tell me that you're not getting enough attention around here." Well, DUH!

Our collective nightmare has once again ended, as I just watched the end of the series finale (on Nick). Which, as always, blew hard. God that season was so unbelievably bad and the finale was so maddeningly nonsensical.

Tomorrow, the wonderfulness of the perfume/ship bell and how Dan doesn't do the dishes.

From what I know, much of the fuckedupedness was Roseanne herself, yeah. Who was a horrid, unreasonable, insane bitch to everyone who worked behind the scenes on that show.

I think Roseanne gets a bad rap. When it comes down to it I thought Roseanne was protective of the show because she wanted it to be realistic. (Before she went off and lost it and we became saddled with the dreck that is season seven) She fought for the things she believed in and she got stuck with the bitch label. I think Roseanne said it best herself when she was on Larry King Live that if she were a man she wouldn't have been looked down upon for the things she did.

Okay...Christmas episodes...geez...I honestly forgot that their were so many. I'm starting to question my Roseanne creed. Another example of me possibly having my Roseanne card revoked was I watched Becky, Beds, and Boys and I had forgotten that Mark started off as quite the smart mouth bad boy. The leather jacket and those two promient strands of hair in his face. I wonder how he ended up so far from what he use to be though because during his intial first appreances I never thought he was a stupid guy.

Well as tempted as I was to make it through all of the episodes on Nick at Nite last night...today WAS a work day so staying up till 6am just was not a good idea! I did manage to stay up till about 2:30 though. Although I loved this show during its first run, for whatever reason I never saw this last season. I was a little disappointed in the direction that they took Dan's character. Now, whether or not it actually happened or not (I am still a bit unclear as to what did happen vs what didn't happen; the timeline, etc., but I also know that there are plenty of posts here that describe it in detail) is a different story...but of all the TV dads/husbands, why did Dan Conner have to be the one to fall for another woman? While not personally attracted to him, I could certainly appreciate his cute schlumpy demeanor. It made me angry when I watched the scene between Dan & Roseanne in their bedroom when he was telling her about his mother's nurse. It also made me wonder if after being married for 25+ years, if ALL women react so non-chalantly to that kind of news.

That part didn't happen. Dad actually died after his heart attack. There was no almost-affair with the nurse.

I agree. Yes, I think she went somewhat batshit crazy during that final season (but I'll still defend the sentiment of the finale voice over, if not the plot twist itself) but I've always had the feeling that I'd have been on her side for 98% of her battles with the writers and producers during the earlier seasons. And I don't see how anyone could plausibly deny that a man in the same situation would generally be referred to as a mad genius devoted to his craft rather than as a bitch throwing her weight around. Taking issue with her behavior is undoubtedly valid in more than a couple of instances; calling her a bitch shows me there are still way too many people uncomfortable with any woman who tells the truth about her life and refuses to sit at the back of the proverbial bus.

I know this is old but..."emergency exits are this way [pointing] and this way [flinging amputated stump]!"

GOD! Mark was such a jerk! It's so important to see this episode to see exactly why him and Becky weren't supposed to be dating. I just love when Dan and Roseanne are trying to have a conversation with him, all they can do is keep sweeping the "bangs" off their foreheads. Heh.

I also agree that before the Roseanne-Tom Arnold debacle that Roseanne is probably why this show worked so well. She knew who she was marketing to. But I think that after the drama of the divorce, the quality of the show started slipping. Of course I can't indicate which season (besides the last) was the jump shark season.

I think she'd like to think that, that she was just a strong woman who had opinions but... while I absolutely believe that goes on, I don't in any way think it was the case there. She was awful to people, she - and she and Tom - were... loony. I know people who were involved and from what I know, well, like I said. And you have no reason to take my word obviously, I wasn't there myself, but from what I know it was not a case of a strong woman being disparaged in any way.

And I've had people who were involved tell me that it very much was a case of a strong woman being essentially told to sit down and shut up. So, obviously, it's all a matter of perspective. In the end, I guess it's the product that matters.

Exactly.
There are a few little things about Roseanne personally (from that period, anyway) that I am happy to overlook because she was such a genius and her show--for eight-ish seasons, anyway--was one of the most incredible accomplishments in the history of television.

I feel the same way about Woody Allen. :)

Separating the art from the artist is almost impossible with the media tyranny we live under these days, but people miss out on a lot of they don't try to keep that in mind, I think.

Is anyone else hating the new Nick at Nite schedule with Roseanne being on from 10-11 EST? It really ruins my nightly schedule. And, they show a marathon of episodes all Sunday night, so that means I'll miss several of my favorites because I can't stay up and watch them. I didn't mind the marathon last weekend because it got through the crappy last season ones.

It makes me choose between Roseanne and Good Times...and Roseanne loses from 10-10:30.

Ariel, I agree with your post about Dan and Rosenne's parenting concerning D.J. Another thing that bothered me about their parenting is how they allowed Darlene to treat D.J. Granted D.J. could be the instigator at times. It just seemed that they thought it was normal behavior. For example, the pregnancy scare episode. Darlene says something like "it's bad enough we have this little accident running around" pointing at D.J., who is right there in the room. And then D.J. approaches Roseanne and asks if he was an accident. Wouldn't you think that Roseanne (considering the environment she and Jackie were raised in) would try harder to shield her children from such emotional abuse.

But then we wouldn't have had one of the best Roseanne-DJ scenes. To this day I love her explanation that he was a suprise, something you didn't know that you wanted until you got it. That just melts my heart a little. Plus, while I do think that Dan and Roseanne didn't do the best as parents, I always loved that they were allowed to tease each other. And in the beginning it was always with love. Plus, you can't control what the siblings say to each other (my brother constantly said I was adopted), only what you say to your kids in response.

Also, during that--the pregnancy scare episdoe--did we know that Roseanne and Jackie had such a crappy upbringing? Wasn't that added a couple of seasons later? I'm not making much sense. But that's one of my favorite lines too.

It was later on in the series when everyone got really mean to each other. At least in the beginning, if they called each other names we knew that they REALLY did love each other. Later on I thought they all just hated each other (Which may have more to do with the acting than the lines, they just seemed to shout everything out at each other)

And my brothers used to tell me that they found me in a dumpster. Aren't siblings FUN!

Man, the "Back Story" and "Less is More" have to be two of the greatest sitcom episodes ever. Laurie Metcalf was never funnier. When Roseanne is discussing a potential breast reduction in the doctor's office and says she doesn't want him to take too much off, you know - and she looks at Jackie's chest, LM's reaction makes me laugh so hard every time, and I've seen it about 25 times.

As far as Roseanne's personal behavior affecting her perceived professional clout, I can say that I rarely watched the show during its actual ABC run because she and Tom Arnold were constantly in the media doing ridiculous things, and it put me off. Once I got into the show via reruns, I realized she was basically a genius. Sure, there were lots of people involved, but I've no doubt Roseanne had much to do with the success of the material.

David was on an episode of My Name is Earl last night. He never got tall and still has that floppy haircut. It was nice to see him though.

Can someone please point me to where Roseanne's baby went from being a girl (as proven by an amnio) to a boy? Because it didn't seem like anyone was surprised when Jerry was born.

I think the writers changed the sex after Roseanne had a boy in real life. They probably did this because A) Roseanne wanted the show to mirror her own life as much as possible, and B) Jerry Garcia had just died, and for some reason they wanted to name the baby after him. But it bothered me that no one even acknowledged the fact that the amnio was wrong; you'd think at least one of the Conners would have said something like, "We thought you were going to be a girl!"

There was an episode that ended with Roseanne sitting in the kitchen, talking to the audience, explaining the baby thing. She just said that she knew the baby was originally supposed to be a girl but she/they/whoever decided to change it to a boy when she had a boy in real life. But, yeah, it would have been better if one of the characters had said something during the regular part of the episode.

The other thing that confused me about the baby was that, before he was born, Roseanne began having doubts and Dan was furious with her because he wanted the baby very badly. But once Jerry was born, you hardly ever saw Dan interact with him. For someone who wanted a baby so much, Dan didn't seem too interested after the baby was born. Not long after Jerry was born they started doing the midlife crisis/going to California/almost affair storyline (which turned out be to fake anyway), so maybe they wanted to portray that Dan was troubled and was losing interest in the family. Who knows.

I thought it was the other way around -- Roseanne wanted the baby, while Dan was willing to consider an abortion if it turned out to be severely disabled. That was one of the many later-season episodes where Roseanne was a raving bitch and there seemed to be no love between her and Dan at all.

This is probably a stupid question, but was baby Jerry played by her real baby? If not does anyone know the name of the baby? That was one fat baby, I'm curious as to what he looks like now.

That's not a stupid question! :) It was her baby, the one she had with her limo driver? bodyguard? husband. lovelinus mentioned the end segment where she was explaining the gender discrepency of the baby...she also said something like, "Besides this kid will work for free." Also, at the very end of that segment, they show a family photo of Roseanne, the limo driver? bodyguard? guy, and the baby.

Baby Jerry must be almost 10 now. Crazy!

I think his real name is Buck. Am I right?

I think that Roseanne forgot that "Roseanne" the show WASN'T just "her" baby. It was a creation brought to fruition in tandem with some very talented writers and directors (writers, especially), many of whom moved on to great things. That's why the show was so good in its early seasons (add to that extremely talented vets like Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman in the cast). If it was just a cookie cutter show based on Roseanne's standup it would've just been one of the dozens of cancelled standup sitcoms out there.

Roseanne's error was in getting a big head, and in thinking that the show was hers alone. She drove away a lot of good people with her diva antics, and we all saw how the show suffered once she alone was allowed to rule the roost. She could no longer accept input and, like so many others, came to believe that she was the stah! and could do no wrong.

Laurie Metcalf had a guest spot on this past Thursday's Without A Trace, and she was excellent. I'm sure it will repeat at some point during the year, but I'm just glad to see her on anything. And I've seen Johnny Galecki on a few things this fall, as well, he looks exactly the same.

I don't think baby Jerry on the show was actually the real Roseanne's baby.

I'm pretty sure he was, yourfaceisdumb. He looks exactly like Ben Thomas (?) the bodyguard Roseanne briefly married.

Then who is this?

Good question. Is it possible the person entering the info made a mistake? I've seen some cases where people have entered erroneous info into IMDB (sometimes deliberately). Or maybe Roseanne's l'il Buck Thomas got himself a stage name.

I was wondering if some more learned fan could help me...

Years ago I vaguely remember seeing an episode, which had a future version of DJ as a girl at the end (played by an actress rather than the actor in drag), with Dan and Roseanne oblivious to their "son" being a teenage girl.

Am I imaging this or did it really happen and could someone tell me which episode (or season at least).

I don't think Baby Jerry was played by Buck Thomas, either.

Lazlo, maybe you're thinking of the episode where Jackie and Fred were at odds over how to raise Andy. Fred was concerned he would end up "girly" if Jackie did girly things with him. I want to say she put him in a dress but that might not be right. Anyway, the last scene in the episode is a joke with an aged Fred and Jackie (about 16 years older) talking about how their little Andy ended up OK and how silly it was to argue all those years ago. One of them calls to Andy, telling him to get a move on, he'll be late for the football game (I think he was a captain of the team too). A pretty teen girl comes out, in a cheerleader uniform with pompons. That's Andy, today, the result of Jackie's efforts.

I found this among other sites where Cole Roberts is listed as playing Jerry along with a Morgan Roberts. Twins I would assume since most small children on TV are played by twins.

Thanks lovelinus, I knew I was remembering something wrong but wasn't sure what (I haven't seen the episde since it aired so it's very hazy).