The Roseanne Show

When "The Roseanne Show" began in September '98, it was pretty unusual. Roseanne took the best elements of daytime and nighttime talk shows and combined them: kooky skits, celebrity interviews, musical performances and topical conversation. Roseanne didn't go for the stale, redundant questions celebrities get asked on other talk shows, and she frequently played games (like "Roseanne or...?," in which she'd reveal a weird story and audience members had to guess if this story was about Roseanne or her guest) so the interviews were always unique. Occasionally Roseanne would don a costume for a skit (such as the time she dressed up and gave a monologue as Hillary Clinton), but most of the time the skits involved an actor who was interviewed in character -- for example, Nora Dunn played Crystal Lynn Pickett, who was in love with an imprisoned serial killer, and Ellen Cleghorne appeared in a variety of skits as a woman with reverse-Michael-Jackson-disease, the proprietor of a brothel for women, etc. Also covered were hard-hitting subjects, such as sex, drug abuse, teenage runaways, etc, and the talk about Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson was neverending. Unfortunately, Roseanne found herself surrounded with stiff competition, so the ratings weren't great. Predictably, to improve ratings they began tinkering with the show's setup.

In January '99, the show shifted gears, the skits were somewhat phased out, the well of A-list celebrities began to dry up and the Oprah-wannabe topic shows started becoming more commonplace. Then there were off-the-wall elements, such as her "Date My Daughters" contest, in which male, Jewish viewers were encouraged to send in videotapes telling why they worthy to date one of Roseanne's daughters. This oddball contest was foreshadowing of what was to come...

By season 2, Roseanne, who'd had gastric bypass surgery, became disconcertingly thin, she dyed her hair blonde and began sporting glasses on a regular basis. I've noticed that when fat women become really thin or women make a drastic change in their appearance (such as going from brunette to blonde), they have a tendency to become a bit mentally unstable, and Roseanne was certainly no exception. Season 2 brought Michael Fishman (her TV son) to basically play Ed McMahon to her Johnny Carson. The good celebrity interviews became more infrequent and the subjects began slipping into Ricki Lake/Jerry Springer territory. Honestly, I gave up on the show early in season 2, but when I tuned back in around the time the show was canceled, it seemed Roseanne had gone even further off the deep end, and had an episode that was like a game show. I don't remember what the game was, but I DO remember thinking it was weird that I was wasting time watching it.

Whether the changes in the show pertained to the ratings or Roseanne's creative control, I'm not sure, but it's a shame that it didn't go on as originally conceived. In late-night, the show initially had the potential to become a long running hit, but because it was daytime (and EVERY celebrity was offered a daytime talk show in those days), it never got a chance to truly shine.

"The Roseanne Show" was good during its first season and then all of a sudden it became so crazy and weird that its audience turned away from it in droves. The reason? After the success of her Emmy-winning sitcom "Roseanne",which ran for an impressive nine seasons on ABC-TV from 1988 until 1997,her producers thought it would be best for Roseanne to have her own syndicated weekly talk show. And this was at the time the star was at the peak of her fame too,not only that her weekly sitcom ended its long-running stanza on the air in prime-time but also she also had her own Saturday Morning cartoon show as well not to mention still had the acting chops as a stand-up comedian. But her talk show was just the opposite since it lasted two seasons on the air from the premiere episode on September 14, 1998 until her demise from the airwaves,which was the show's final episode on June 23, 2000.

First off,who thought this was a good idea anyway for Roseanne? For one,her in-your-face-attitude and off-the-cuff humor not to even mention the craziness that came out of her made Roseanne(nee Barr,then Arnold,and then Thomas),who was a sitcom star during the success of Roseanne,but when she tried to translate her stuff from prime-time to daytime television,they were in for a surprise. Some of the guests that were on Roseanne's show found something really wrong here and they found out quick...they found each of Roseanne's 20-something personalities more terrifying than the last since she was extremely bright woman on the outside but inside the exterior was crazy as hell. And I do mean crazy like a bat outta hell. Or the institution for that manner. The program similarly suffered from a case of schizophrenia,as it drifted from more topical beginnings(which went from successfully brilliant it is first season to beyond the point of stupidity during the second season)with a second year of guests including Jolene-the Trailer Park Queen(what the hell???)--who extolled the virtues of pink lawn flamingoes while Roseanne nodded sympathetically and ate cavier while making a monkey of herself with guest stars that came on the show. In other words,audiences had enough and "The Roseanne Show" was cancelled in its second seasons during the summer of 2000.

When the show started, it was a pretty good day time talk show, but then a year or two into it, man she started being all weird and everything. i mean, i like Roseanne, but in about the 2nd year of her show, she was stupid, the whole idea of the show had changed, and it was trash. too bad.