Roseanne (after her children have left the house): “Quick, they're gone. Change the locks.”--From "Life and Stuff," Season 1, Episode 1 of Roseanne
(On this date in 1988, the sitcom Roseanne, starring Roseanne Barr—who later changed the last name to Arnold following marriage to the comedian Tom Arnold, then dropped the whole business altogether—premiered.
Creator Matt Williams left the show after 13 episodes, despite the fact that the series had quickly become one of the top three programs on television, after repeated run-ins with the former nightclub comedienne-turned-TV star. Another executive producer, Jeff Harris, departed with a line almost as funny as anything that appeared on the show: an ad in Variety that he had decided to "vacation in the relative peace and quiet of Beirut." At a baseball double-header the buttons-pushing star sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” off-key, grabbed her crotch and spit.
Some might say that Roseanne epitomized the phrase used by Shirley MacLaine to describe her Terms of Endearment co-star Debra Winger: “turbulent brilliance.” Others might say that Roseanne made Ms. Winger look like Bernadette of Lourdes by comparison.
My take is a bit different. I think that for nine seasons, she managed to become a late-century TV version of Jackie Gleason: another large-sized comedian with a difficult temperament whose sitcom masterfully mined the humor of married life in a stressful, blue-collar environment. How many people made that kind of shows during those years? Now quick—aside from Gleason’s The Honeymooners or All in the Family, how many shows in the history of television did that? As a product of that environment, I remain grateful that she tried to depict that life with as much truth as the medium could bear, even as I acknowledge the limits of her acting ability as well as what must have been the immense difficulties of working with her.)
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