Roseanne

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Question: In the episode where Jackie goes to Roseanne's house and complains that she is overdue, she says something along the lines of she will be 80 years old with a 35 year old kid inside her. Well she lifts up her shirt and that pregnant belly looks real. Here's the question, was Jackie pregnant in real life?

Answer: Yes she was. When Laurie Metcalf, who played Jackie, became pregnant during the series, her pregnancy was written into the storyline; her pregnant belly is real. At the end of the episode where Jackie gives birth, there is a photo of Laurie Metcalf in the hospital just after she had her baby.

raywest

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Question: The original couch changes skirts somewhere along the line. The new skirt is beige (does not match the overall material like the original) and appears to be a couple of inches taller than the original. I surmise either Rosanne or John have back issues and the couch legs were increased so to raise the level of the seating. What was the reason?

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

Answer: One episode of season seven has a moment when Dan hops over the couch and breaks one end of it. The board was probably added so they could keep using it like nothing happened.

Answer: No. Sara Gilbert has given birth to one child (so far) and that was in 2007.

Halloween - The Final Chapter - S8-E5

Question: Who is in the picture at the end of this episode? Roseanne is holding a baby, and there is a blonde guy in the picture. It's right after the dedication to Jerry Garcia, the 3 of them are wearing tie died shirts.

Answer: That was Roseanne and her then real-life husband, Ben Thomas, with their baby son, Buck. Barr's pregnancy during Season 8 was written into the show.

raywest

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Question: While the series finale was inventive for its epilogue (telling us Roseanne's life for some time has been a written work of fiction), there are some things that were never made clear. For example, Roseanne (in voiceover) tells us she switched Becky and Darlene's boyfriend's, then husband's, because she thought it seemed better that way. Which brings me to my questions, does that mean Roseanne's life has been fiction from the point when Dan builds her the room in the basement to write or did it start when Mark, her future son-in-law, showed up in the show? Also, do we have any clue (or has Roseanne said in any interview or other source) what her character has REALLY been doing when she began writing?

Answer: A definitive explanation was never given. Roseanne Barr had hoped to keep the show going after the departure of John Goodman, who would not do another season. That is why his character, Dan, died. The rather preposperous epilogue was a feeble attempt to erase the previous season's ridiculous plot line about the Conners winning the lottery. The change in the characters (Jackie was now gay and Bev was not, switching the daughters' husbands, etc.) seems to have been a misguided effort to give the show a new dimension.

raywest

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Question: In which episode did Jackie enter Roseanne's kitchen still dressed from traffic duty with white gloves on, then proceeded to do a hysterical, flippant routine about doing traffic duty, with sweeping hand movements, repeating something like "you must listen to the glove"? I laughed myself silly!

Answer: Season 3 Episode 2 "Friends and Relatives".

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Question: In the episode where Leon gets married, Dan says at the end that Leon and Scott are "having it out" or something like that. Roseanne says that they're just "two people of the same gender going at it". Then a woman sits down behind her and Roseanne says "Hi there". Then the audience roars in laughter and applause. I don't get it. What's the joke?

Answer: The woman who sits down is Sharon, who was Nancy's girlfriend in "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (season 6) and is played by Mariel Hemingway. In that infamous episode, Sharon kissed Roseanne on the mouth. She returns in "December Bride" (season 8) and makes a brief, but very funny, appearance at Leon and Scott's wedding. You may also be interested in Milton Berle's "drag" cameo, as he catches the bouquet. On Berle's TV show, back in the 40's and 50's, his skits in drag became his trademark.

Super Grover

Answer: Most likely this had to do with TV production concerns rather than depicting reality. The set for the home's main floor is bigger and allows for more action to be shown. The storm's damage and severe effects such as the high winds, torrential rain, thunder, lightning, etc. are from the windows, heightening the drama. If the family was in a cramped basement space, they would be huddled together and the action would be more static. Some artistic license was needed in order to tell the story.

raywest

Answer: In the episode Becky said they need to go to the basement and Roseanne said that they don't have a basement anymore because Dan had turned it into a storage locker. Dan replies saying he had to put his 2X4's and sheetrock somewhere.

Chosen answer: Her name was likely changed in the credits when the series was syndicated as reruns.

raywest

Father's Day - S1-E14

Question: When the family is having dinner, and Ed tells them about how he almost invented rear windshield wipers, he mentions that at the time, Dan was three years old and Audrey was eight months pregnant and required a bathroom break, so he lost his train of thought on the wipers. For the rest of the series, Dan is portrayed as an only child until his father marries Crystal. So, what happened to that sibling? Was anything else ever mentioned over the course of the series?

Answer: It was never mentioned again or explained, and Dan was always portrayed as an only child until Ed married Crystal. There could be any number of explanations, such as Audrey had a miscarriage or stillborn, the baby died shortly after birth, etc. Ed's colorful stories are usually so embellished, it's hard for the family to know what is true or accurate. The show may also have been intending for Dan to have a previously unmentioned sibling to be introduced as a new character at some point. However, this likely was a continuity error.

raywest

Answer: It was in Season 10, when the show was rebooted. Roseanne's pain pill abuse is first brought up in Episode 8, "Netflix and Pill." In the spin-off series, "The Conners", Roseanne's death was attributed to an opiate overdose.

raywest

Stressed to Kill - S4-E9

Revealing mistake: Shortly after the fight with Becky, Roseanne asks Jackie to go across the street to get her something to drink, so she can smoke in secret. After Roseanne lights the cigarette and walks near the register, Jackie's plaid coat can be seen in the door's window as she waits for the next scene.

More mistakes in Roseanne

Dear Mom and Dad - S1-E22

Roseanne: If my parents move to Lanford, I'm gonna be sleeping on a cot for the rest of my life because I'm gonna be in prison for blowing them away.
Dan: Honey, Honey, be realistic. You don't know how to use a gun. I'll do it.

raywest

More quotes from Roseanne

Trivia: Shelley Winters plays Estelle Parsons' mother in the series, even though in real life she's only seven years older than Parsons.

More trivia for Roseanne

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