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Popular sitcom that ran from 1988 to 1997 on [[ABC]]. It focused on the trials of the working-class Conner family. There was mother Roseanne (Roseanne Barr); father Dan (John Goodman in [[Star-Making Role|the role that made him famous]]); preppy daughter Becky (originally played by Lecy Goranson, and taken over by Sarah Chalke -- one of the most famous instances of [[The Other Darrin]] outside of [[Bewitched|Darrin]] himself); sarcastic daughter Darlene (Sara Gilbert); son D.J. (Michael Fishman); and Roseanne's younger sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf).
Probably the [[Trope Codifier]] for the [[Dysfunctional Family]] on American TV. The Conners were generally stable but were still prone to dealing with domestic arguments, problematic neighbors, daughters who seemed to [[All Girls Want Bad Boys|like bad boys]] and taking in a kid whose home life was far worse than theirs. The Healey brothers, Mark (Glenn Quinn) and David (Johnny Galecki) were added to the show as long time boyfriends to Becky and Darlene, eventually marrying them. The show was also noted for a welcome subversion to the [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]] rule.
Was in talks for a sequel [[Revival]] written and produced by the ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' guys.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Bright Light]]: one Christmas, Roseanne and co. defy their POA with a light display designed for this. (They wear sunglasses to turn it on.) We don't see the display, but we do see that it does indeed create absurdly bright light.
* [[Abusive Parents]]: Mark and David's mother, especially to poor David. Roseanne's father was physically abusive to his daughters. Dan's mother was also (literally) insane, and his father was a traveling salesman who was rarely home. You'd have an easier time finding parents who ''aren't'' abusive on this show; even Roseanne herself has an episode where, in a fit of anger, she strikes DJ, and then panics over it because she very badly doesn't want to be the kind of parent her father was.
* [[Actor Allusion]]: When Michael O'Keefe (Fred) left the show, he went to another show on ABC called ''Life's Work,'' where he was the husband of an assistant district attorney with two children. In one episode of ''Roseanne,'' while complaining about Fred's Christmas present to Jackie, Roseanne says that they never see him "since he moved in with that D.A. chick with them two kids."
* [[A-Cup Angst]]: Jackie's small breasts are a source of embarrassment to her. Doesn't help that Roseanne teases her about them, and a woman at the health spa in season 9 says they're "much too small for her body".
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* [[Brick Joke]]: The lottery ticket that would make the Conner family one hundred and eight million dollars richer shows up briefly in the episode before when Bev almost uses it as a coaster.
* [[Burger Fool]] - Roseanne does a stint at a chicken joint as one of her many odd jobs over the series to keep her family afloat. It's not too bad, but her barely legal boss has a superiority complex and can't understand how her family comes before her responsibility to ''him''. The family actually makes more fun of her when she gets a job sweeping hair at a salon.
** Her waitress job at the restaurant in Rodbell's had some tones of this as well. The ridiculous costume for starters, and her boss Leon seemed to enjoy making them suffer (when the restaurant finally went under, he told them that management had phased out those horrible uniforms years before.)
* [[Butt Monkey]]: Bev. She's easily the most abused character on the show. Molly is also treated this way by Darlene.
** With Bev she was [[My Beloved Smother]]: But, it was justified. Her daughters screwed their lives up. She reminded them of it, which bugged them. They are also mad at her for being a [[Extreme Doormat]] to their abusive father, standing by and doing nothing while they were abused (they mention in one episode that she was always washing dishes when their father would take a belt to them.) As far as the grandkids, well, she was something of a pretentious, shrill, holier-that-thou harpy to everybody, including them (and there's always the possibility that Roseanne taught the kids to be deliberately disrespectful to her so she wouldn't come by as often.)
** Although to be accurate, ''everybody'' was a [[Butt Monkey]] when Roseanne was around. The only possible subversion was Darlene.
* [[Call Back]]: In the pilot episode Dan and Roseanne have a fight about how Dan doesn't do anything around the house, leading to this exchange.
{{quote|'''Dan''': You want me to fix dinner? I'll fix dinner! I'm fixing dinner!
'''Roseanne''': Oh, but honey, you just fixed dinner ''three'' years ago! }}
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* [[Chew Toy]]: Poor Jackie had some of the worst luck of anyone on the show.
* [[Christmas Episode]]: Several.
* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]: Virtually everyone who didn't live in the house completely disappeared without explanation by the end, neighbors, best friends, rather important characters. Although sometimes justified at least one neighbor moved away, and coworkers lost touch because of the main characters getting a new job.
** Crystal, one of Jackie and Roseanne's closest childhood friends gets married again to Dan's father Ed and she vanished from the show pretty quick. Becoming more of [[The Ghost]] up until the end of the series where she actually had one last appearance during Roseanne's baby shower. Why neither her nor Dan's father appeared at later notable events like their grandaughter/honorary niece Darlene's ''wedding'' or following the Conner's lottery win is a mystery.
** Jackie's husband/ex-husband Fred stopped appearing altogether a couple episodes after they divorced, although was occasionally referenced as taking care of their infant son in various episodes. Like other characters, his absence in the face of the Conners winning the lottery(including his best friend and boss Dan, his ex-wife Jackie and his infant *son* Andy) is nigh-inexplicable.
** One neighbouring family introduced a few seasons into the series got tons of episodes and development, including one daughter pursuing main character David Healy and her overweight wallflower sister catching Roseanne's attention as somebody who needed support and guidance. The Conners even all traveled to California with them in an RV at one point. Unlike their previous sets of neighbours who'd had proper send-offs, they eventually just stopped appearing.
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Nancy and Nana Mary could definitely be this at times. D.J. was too at times.
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* [[Diet Episode]]: [[Played for Drama]] when Dan is put on a diet following his heart attack. It eventually leads to the largest fight Dan and Roseanne ever had on the show.
* [[Discontinuity Nod]]: David had his name changed after his first appearance (where he was called Kevin). In a later episode, Roseanne remarks facetiously that "David" is just a name Darlene gave him and not his real one.
** The name change is especially odd because although rarely used, "David Jacob" was already DJ's full name. In one episode one of his sisters actually just called him "David!" while yelling at him.
* [[Disnot]]: Edelweiss Gardens, in an episode that aired immediately after the two-parter where they visited Disney World. And with a pretty hefty dose of [[Those Wacky Nazis]], complete with the other "Hans the Hare" mascots dressed as Hitler Youth.
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: One of the Halloween episodes featured everyone pulling an elaborate prank on Roseanne during the credits. Roseanne and Jackie began to suspect their mother is secretly bald, after finding a wig that looks exactly like Bev's hair. Bev reveals that she is indeed bald, followed by everyone else revealing to a shocked Roseanne that they're bald too. Roseanne wonders how she could manage to top this prank. She then pulls out an old-fashioned detonator and blows up the house.
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* [[Flanderization]]: Bev, Roseanne and Jackie's mom, who starts out as a slightly annoying, overly-critical conservative woman, but later in the series becomes an insane, ultra-fundamentalist closeted lesbian who nags everyone around her in a shrill, high-pitched shriek of a voice.
** A one-time gag at the end of a later episode had her only faking that personality; her "real self" in the gag was a [[The Ladette|Ladette]] with a deeper voice who drank beer with Fred. When asked why she didn't act this way all the time, she said, "Well that wouldn't be much fun now, would it?"
** A particularly bad example happened with Mark. Originally a leather-jacket-clad greaser bad boy who wasn't booksmart, but always seemed sharp and was shown to be even better than Dan at fixing motorcycles. After marrying Becky and returning to the show he became an idiotic dope/manchild who routinely shocked the rest of the characters with his lack of sense. Only when teaching David how to tie a bowtie before the latter's wedding at the end of Season 8 did Mark's original stoic, streetsmart badboy persona get one last moment in the spotlight.
** And David. He went from a mildly sensitive artist from the wrong side of the tracks to an uber-sensitive, in-touch-with-his-fem-side, snobbish doormat.
** Jackie is one of the worst sufferers of this. In the earliest seasons, she's a confident, clever woman with bad luck in love. She's slightly neurotic, but it just added to her charm. Later on, the neuroticism completely engulfed her character to the point where any little thing would reduce her to a babbling twitching mess. It was amazing to think that she wasn't in a mental hospital with her kid taken away.
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** An early episode has Crystal lamenting her dead husband, Sonny, and wondering what her life would have been like if he'd lived. Once she leaves the room, Roseanne hugs Dan tenderly, and [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|jokingly ponders what her life would have been like if Dan had lived.]]
* [[Freudian Excuse]]: Roseanne and Jackie are implied to have ''quite'' a few issues with men due to their father's abuse -- mainly Jackie's promiscuity, but a case could certainly be made for Roseanne's control issues. Mark also reveals a few of these later on due to his and David's [[Abusive Parents]], and even Bev seemed to have these with her own mother.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: In “Driver’s Seat”, Nancy told her about the voting process that was done without Roseanne and explains the toucan was voted. Roseanne just blocks her right hand with her left… it was one way to seek in a [[Flipping the Bird| gesture]] as she states:
{{Quote| '''Roseanne''': Would you like to see the bird I voted for?}}
** In “The Getaway, Almost”, Roseanne spots a sexist truck driver and exchange insults towards him, including [[Flipping the Bird]]. However, when she and Jackie cause the truck driver to get into a road accident, they pull up to a rest area so Rosanne can “breast-feed” her infant son, Jerry while Jackie tries to make phone call. A police officer comes by after the incident was reported, and he finds himself in an uncomfortable position while Rosanne was feeding Jerry, and she almost switches side.
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{{quote|'''Dan''': *whining* Well, maybe ''I'' wanted to hit him.}}
* [[Meat Versus Veggies]]: Darlene and David are both vegetarians. Roseanne acts like a real [[Jerkass|bitch]] toward them because of it.
** Darlene is quite the bitch about it too. Her interfering with the operation of Roseanne's diner--the chief source of income for the family--doesn't help her case at all.
* [[Mental Story]]: The last season turns out to be a book that Roseanne is writing.
* [[Moebius Neighborhood]]: The neighborhood's geometry is extremely vague, and the Conners deal with arriving, recurring, and departing neighbors, but never more than one family at a time.
* [[Monochrome Casting]]: Especially blatant in a series that supposedly focused on the working-class income bracket.
* [[Nested Story Reveal]]: {{spoiler|In the season 2 finale, Dan builds Roseanne an office in which she can realize her dream of becoming a writer. In the final episode, it's revealed that the entire series has been based on a semi-autobiographical story she's been writing in the office. In the story, [[Fix Fic|she's changed a number of details about her life that she didn't like]], while in reality, Dan actually died from his heart attack during Darlene's wedding; Darlene actually married Mark, while Becky married David; her sister, rather than her mother, was a lesbian; and Roseanne didn't win the lottery.}} This is seen by some fans as brilliant, but by others as a desperate attempt at a [[Retcon]] to justify some of the series' poorly-received plot lines (particularly in latter seasons). So it's not entirely played straight, but [[Not a Subversion]] either.
* [[Nobody Poops]]: Completely averted. Roseanne probably had one of the most visible bathrooms on television. Characters were shown in the tub, dyeing their hair, getting high, brushing teeth, and even taking a pregnancy test. An entire episode focused around D.J.'s new-found [[A Date with Rosie Palms|love of the bathroom]].
** In fact, the show had '''three''' bathrooms. Becky and Darlene's bathroom upstairs, where Darlene dyed her hair and Becky had her first hangover, D.J.'s bathroom, where Darlene saw Jackie with her bruises after Fisher beat her, and the downstairs bathroom, where most of the show's insanity occured (it was used frequently as a safe haven to gossip and hide from everyone else, such as when Roseanne and Jackie were gossiping about their parents.) [[Fridge Logic|These people were supposed to be poor, right?]]
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'''Dan''': Darlene is repeating everything D.J. says a second before he says it.
'''Roseanne''': ''(to Darlene)'' Don't be so childish! }}
* [[
* [[Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss]]: Roseanne making out with bisexual Nancy's girlfriend. [[Moral Guardians]] were ''furious!''
* [[The Talk]]: Subverted. Roseanne and Dan are preparing themselves to give this to Becky, when they discover that ''Darlene'' actually needs it more.
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