Trivia: Roseanne's three ex-husbands have appeared or worked on the show during its run. Her first husband, Bill Pentland, wrote a few episodes for the show and played Dan's friend, Freddy, in a season one episode. Tom Arnold, her second husband, played Arnie and was an executive producer. Finally, her third husband, Ben Thomas, had a cameo as a police officer who pulled her and Jackie over in an episode later in the show's run.
The Courtship of Eddie, Dan's Father - S3-E13
Trivia: Ned Beatty plays Ed Conner, the father of Dan Conner (John Goodman). In real life, Beatty is only fifteen years older than Goodman.
Trivia: Shelley Winters plays Estelle Parsons' mother in the series, even though in real life she's only seven years older than Parsons.
Trivia: In the Season 7 episode, "White Men Can't Kiss," D.J. refuses to kiss a student named Geena Williams in a school play because she is black. In Season 10, it's revealed that D.J. is married to that same girl.
Trivia: The show's ninth and original final season received a great deal of backlash due to its differences from prior seasons, plot-twists and the revelation that Dan had died of a heart attack during the finale. When the series was revived in 2018 for a tenth season, it was revealed that outside of a few cheeky inside-jokes, the ninth season was going to be largely ignored and was no longer considered canonical, and that the entire original cast (including Dan) was set to return. (Whew!).
Two for One - S7-E2
Trivia: At the end of the episode Nine Is Enough there is a scene making a joke out of Dan being in shock about Roseanne being pregnant. In that scene they show Roseanne in the future with a pregnant belly wearing a maternity dress. In the very next episode, Two for One, she is in a maternity shop trying on that very same dress.
Answer: Clearly, the only person who could truly answer this question would be a set designer for the series, or someone else directly connected to the series who would have this kind of detailed information. I looked on IMDb.com and Cheryl Lanner is credited as set designer through 1997. I quickly found her Facebook page, and I directed your question to her. After some time, Ms. Lanner has replied as follows: "I decorated the last season 1/2 but after 9 seasons the sofa just plain got worn out and had to be repaired from 8 years of usage. There was a board put on the sofa but as I've said, it was due to so much usage. If they had back problems I was unaware of them, but you can be assured that if that was the problem it would have been fixed immediately. Take care Michael!"
Michael Albert