Thoughts on the morning after the Roseanne debacle.

I'm skeptical. Did ABC really cancel "Roseanne," or are we sucked into high-drama theater with more scenes to come? Is this like the Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un show, where it's on, then it's off, then it's on?

There's so much politics-and-showbiz going on, and I'm not going to sit passively in a comfy chair as a good little audience member. 

I predict Roseanne Barr will have more scenes to play, perhaps some slow rolling out of apologies as the new TV season approaches and new episodes are teased about how Roseanne Connor said something racist and kind of might actually be a racist or maybe Dan is a secret racist and Darlene comes to the rescue and the little he's-not-transgender boy shows us how to love again.

What soppy goo we slurp up every day! It's always something new. For example, right now, I'm seeing "Roseanne Barr blames sleep aid Ambien for racist tweet" (Reuters)...

“It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended-it was egregious Indefensible,” she wrote. “I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but...don’t defend it please.”

What does "it was memorial day too" even mean? Roseanne has a disorderly mind — or speaks as though she does — but she's done a bang-up job of grabbing our attention and that draws into question how orderly our minds are. Step back. Get skeptical. You only have the hours and minutes in your life that you have. You must use that time as it happens in the now. Every second you pay attention to one thing, you lose a second that would have gone somewhere else.

How many seconds of human time can Roseanne or Donald Trump or Kim Jong-Un amass? Kudos to them for their unfolding victories in the game of paying attention.

IN THE COMMENTS: Eleanor said:

Personally, I think Roseanne saw some of next season's scripts, didn't like the way the story was going, and wanted out. She'll rehabilitate herself, maybe another network will pick her up, and she'll get more control of the show. If not, she can afford to enjoy her retirement, knowing she put liberal hypocrisy on grand display.

Leland said:

I think it is cancelled. She insulted the Obamas by insulting Valerie Jarrett. And the comment was definitely ugly, despite years of Chimpy McHitler. Fair enough, what she tweeted about VJ was not nearly as bad as dressing up as Hitler and pulling ginger bread men out of the oven. That latter joke didn't keep ABC from hiring her in the first place.

Yes, the problem of likening humans to apes, an interesting variation on the age-old resistance to the notion of evolution. We are primates, all of us, the same order as the apes. Bush was "Chimpy McHitler," and let's not forget that time Trump sued Bill Maher for joking that Trump was the son of an orangutan.

Oh! And I see that people have not forgotten. There's already: "Roseanne Supporters Are Calling For HBO To Fire Bill Maher For Calling Trump An Orangutan" (Hollywood Life).

Henry said:

I don't think Roseanne walks this one off -- at least not until she does a full Mel Gibson disappearance for a few years.

Pre-production on the next season was already underway. It wouldn't surprise me if Disney tries to reboot the show without Roseanne. Maybe she dies off-screen and Dan remarries Betty White.

Roseanne's next page is to go full Charlie Sheen. She's not getting her show back.

Yes, I thought that too. Do the show without "Roseanne." Before the reboot, the series had ended with Roseanne's husband dead. So come back with Roseanne dead. Was she really the without-which-none of the show? She's a bad actor compared to the others. John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf are at the complete opposite end of the scale — great actors. Sara Gilbert ("Darlene") seems to have been the brains of the reboot. She could become the central character. Build the new season around John Goodman, Laurie Metcalfe, and Sara Gilbert, and leave the dead weight of Roseanne behind.

Sal said:

My new script idea: Roseanne has an encounter with some black guy. He complains about her apes reference and she gives him ten bucks. His eyes light up!

LOL. (He's referring to this. I love comments that incorporate stuff from other posts.)

AND: daskol said:

Great actors are moons and need a planet. Great TV writers too, and even clever Sara Gilbert is merely a moon without a planet. Roseanne is a planet.

"Thank you for this article. It will save me the time I might otherwise have wasted watching Roseanne."

That's the top-rated comment — by far, with 858 up-votes — at the NYT article "Roseanne Conner Has Become a Trump Supporter. Just Like Her Creator. After 21 years, 'Roseanne' returns to ABC, and Roseanne Barr’s portrait of working-class Americans is as topical as ever."

Second-highest, with 649:

Well I'm glad I was never a big fan of the show in the first place. Not really into sitcoms, but I don't disparage them. But supporting Trump, well, that does it for me. To my thinking, someone that supports Trump wants to end democracy in America and despises me for who I am, thus they are my enemy.

It's too bad, but there's nothing I can do about the situation, so I hope the reconstituted Roseanne flops and doesn't get renewed, just as I hope Trump doesn't get another term.

Etc. etc.

From the interview in the article:

Roseanne Conner has become a Trump supporter. How did that happen?

I just wanted to have that dialogue about families torn apart by the election and their political differences of opinion and how we handle it. I thought that this was an important thing to say at this time.

Was it your idea for Roseanne to back Trump?

Yes. Because it’s an accurate portrayal of these people and people like them. In terms of what they think, and how they feel when they are the ones who send their kids over to fight. We’ve been in wars for a long, long time, which everybody seems to forget — but working class people don’t forget it because their kids are in it.

I feel sorry for (and annoyed by) people who are so anti-Trump that they've got to protect their precious minds from comedy that shows a family divided over Trump and has scenes that look like this:



Laurie Metcalf is hilarious as the Trump-hating family member. I'm speaking from first-hand experience: We watched the show last night. Why shrink from seeing your Trump-phobia played out within a particular working-class family? Maybe you were always distanced from the people depicted on that show and maybe that's part of why the deplorables elected Trump.

ADDED: "First, let's say grace. Jackie, would you like to take a knee? Dear Lord, thank you for this food and for bringing our son, D.J., home safe from Syria. Please protect his wife, Geena, and all our troops still overseas. Please watch over our son, Jerry, who's on that stupid fishing boat where apparently they don't get phone calls. But most of all, Lord... Thank you for making America great again!"



ALSO: The show was a "massive" success in the ratings with "18.2 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among adults 18-49." That's higher than the "60 Minutes" with Stormy Daniels. It seems to be "the biggest comedy rating in quite some time — even higher than NBC’s mega-hit This Is Us during regularly any of its regularly scheduled episodes.