History YMMV / Roseanne

*** Penelope Spheeris wrote "Fender Bender." She's best known to punk and metal fans as the director of The Decline of Western Civiliation Parts 1 and 2, and as the director of Film/WaynesWorld.

* WhatAnIdiot: Dan and Roseanne for opening up a bike shop (that was previously failing) in a small town like Lanford, where the bike demographic would be very small, and having no education in business or economics.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Dan's father; he presents himself as something of a martyr to his son, explaining that he spent so much time away from his family and allowed his son to think he was an asshole to shift the attention away from the fact his wife was going insane, as he didn't want Dan to remember her as a bad mother. Conversely, Dan's father was just a coward who couldn't deal with his wife losing her mind, and when an out came in the form of his work, he took it and happily abandoned his family because it was easier on himself, making up the excuse later to appease his guilt. The latter interpretation is very heavily hinted as to what Dan actually thinks about his father.

*** While being reprimanded for the underage drinking, Becky sarcastically says that having one drink makes her an alcoholic and that she’ll call the 1-800 number. Cut to ''Series/TheConners'' and she has indeed become an alcoholic as a way of coping with Mark’s death.

** [[spoiler: Considering ''Series/TheConners'' sees Darlene and David breaking up again, this dialogue in "The Wedding" is very sad.]]
--> '''Darlene''': Well, it's my [[spoiler: last morning as a single woman.]] \\

* In the season 1 episode "Bridge Over Troubled Sonny", Roseanne hugs Dan and jokingly tells him "Thinking About how differently life would've turned out... if you had lived.". Cut to the original series finale and it's revealed [[spoiler: Dan really die from a heart attack]], thought it was later undone with a retcon in the 2018 revival.
** In the season 1 episode, "Dear Mom and Dad", Bev warns a sleep deprived Dan not to sleep on his left side for it's bad for his heart. In season 8, Dan suffers a heart attack.
** 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 jokingly ponders what her life would have been like if Dan had lived. May also be a {{Foreshadowing}}/HilariousInHindsight.
** In one episode, Dan goes to DJ's school for the first time. The principal is stunned to meet him, as DJ had told everyone his dad was dead. Cue that finale and...
*** Then he turns out to be alive in the reboot, making this conversation even weirder.

* ^ In the season 1 episode "Bridge Over Troubled Sonny", Roseanne hugs Dan and jokingly tells him "Thinking About how differently life would've turned out... if you had lived.". Cut to the original series finale and it's revealed [[spoiler: Dan really die from a heart attack]], thought it was later undone with a retcon in the 2018 revival.

* While Jackie and Booker’s flirting and eventual dating in season one was completely mutual and innocuous, a boss engaging in this kind of behaviour with a subordinate would certainly raise a few questions in today’s world. Booker does comment that it could be construed as inappropriate on the basis of all work-place relationships being a conflict of interest, but the imbalance of power is never mentioned.

* In the season 1 episode "Bridge Over Troubled Sonny", Roseanne hugs Dan and jokingly tells him "Thinking About how differently life would've turned out... if you had lived.". Cut to the original series finale and it's revealed [[spoiler: Dan really die from a heart attack]], thought it was later undone with a retcon in the 2018 revival.

** In some early episodes, DJ is a CreepyChild who destroys his sisters' Barbie dolls. Laurie Metcalf, who plays Aunt Jackie, would go to be the voice of Andy's mom in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', which features a character who tortures toys.

* {{Narm}}: Watching the beginning of the tornado episode with them treating a tornado ''watch'' with gallows humor and panic can be rather ludicrous to viewers from Tornado Alley. (For the record, a tornado '''watch,''' basically means "Conditions are right for a tornado; stay tuned, one might form. A tornado '''''warning''''' means "A tornado has been spotted, YouCanPanicNow" - though it's just as common to go out and watch.) They are vindicated soon after though...

** In the season 1 episode "Bridge Over Troubled Sonny", Roseanne hugs Dan and jokingly tells him "Thinking About how differently life would've turned out... if you had lived.". Cut to the original series finale and it's revealed [[spoiler: Dan really die from a heart attack]], thought it was later undone with a retcon in the 2018 revival.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** When Bev joins AA she accuses Dan of being an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] because he has a keg at his Super Bowl party. These are PlayedForLaughs. This episode comes across as jarring after Creator/JohnGoodman admitted he was an alcoholic for thirty years.
** In an early episode DJ bites his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun and goes "Bang, bang." [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/student-suspended-for-pop-tart-gun/ Flash forward to 2013 when a child DJ's age was suspended from school for doing the same thing under modern zero-tolerance policies.]]
** 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 jokingly ponders what her life would have been like if Dan had lived. May also be a {{Foreshadowing}}/HilariousInHindsight.
** In one episode, Dan goes to DJ's school for the first time. The principal is stunned to meet him, as DJ had told everyone his dad was dead. Cue that finale and...
*** Then he turns out to be alive in the reboot, making this conversation even weirder.
** Dan saying he was having an affair in "Roseanne in the Hood", which was PlayedForLaughs [[ItMakesSenseInContext if you watch the episode's plot]] becomes less so when he [[spoiler:has an affair in the season finale with one of his mother's nurses...but that becomes even more ''difficult'' to watch when it's revealed it was just something Roseanne made up in her book after Dan died, stating that his death felt like he was with another woman.]]
** In one episode, Roseanne scolds DJ ''very'' harshly for refusing to kiss a girl in a school play because she is black, explaining that she didn't raise "a little bigot" and further that "black people are just like us." What ultimately got the revival cancelled? Barr herself tweeting messages that included a racial slur against African-Americans.
** The Rodbell commercial episode (which aired in 1992) featured the Conners film the commercial without Roseanne. Fast forward to 2018, where ''The Conners'' spin off is happening, without Roseanne.
*** During production throughout the first season, Roseanne would get into vicious spats with show-runner Matt Williams (the first of many infamous clashes that would happen between Barr and the crew). It got to the point where Williams would pitch doing the show without Barr to John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf only for them to refuse every time. Apparently they changed their minds somewhere down the line.
** After Dan's mother is hospitalized in "Lies My Father Told Me," Roseanne and Darlene are cracking jokes while they tell DJ about Dan's mother being crazy. Roseanne says "This is just our way of coping." Dan gets very angry when he overhears them, and tells Roseanne that his mother was great, and "She didn't teach her kids to make jokes about things that aren't funny." In ''Series/TheConners'' first episode, Darlene and Becky are making jokes, and Becky asks "Should we be laughing?" In a subtle CallBack , Darlene replies "Inappropriate laughter is what she taught us."

** In the season 1 episode "Bridge Over Troubled Sonny", Roseanne hugs Dan and jokingly tells him "Thinking About how differently life would've turned out... if you had lived.". Cut to the original series finale and it's revealed [[spoiler: Dan really die from a heart attack]]. Until it was retconned in the 2018 revival that is.

** On a much lesser degree, some fans only acknowledge that the Conners have three children, completely ignoring baby Jerry, which may have become CanonDiscontinuity since the revival series has yet to include him.

*** While being reprimanded for the underage drinking, Becky sarcastically says that having one drink makes her an alcoholic and that she’ll call the 1-800 number. Cut the [[series:The Conners]] and she has indeed become an alcoholic as a way of coping with Mark’s death.

** Bruce Helford was an executive producer. Helford is best known as creator and executive producer of * ''Series/{{Anger Management|2012}}'' and co-creator and executive producer of ''Series/TheNormShow'', ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'', and ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow''.

** Mark later turned out to be [[Series/{{Angel}} half-demon]].

* RewatchBonus: There are possibly some subtle hints throughout the final season that everything is a fantasy of Roseanne's--note that the bedrooms and garage aren't redecorated like the main rooms, an odd omission for someone refurbishing their house.

* NeverLiveItDown: Suffice to say, [[DontShootTheMessage the show's "Republican voters are people, too!" message]] will probably have the stigma of being associated with Roseanne Barr, who was leading that message, being racist. On that note, those remarks have likely [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor tanked her career]] as well. Happily, ''The Conners'' seems to doing a decent job of escaping from the shadow of its former star's odious behavior.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Roseanne’s mom, Bev, is in equal parts insufferable and hilarious. Some fans dislike her annoying voice that’s so over-the-top that it even sounds like she’s forcing it, as well as how judgmental she can be. Other fans think of her as an UnpopularPopularCharacter for those same reasons, and enjoy the comedic moments that come from just how much that quirk and personality trait annoy the other characters InUniverse. She plays the role of an annoying mother very well, at least.

* ValuesDissonance: In one episode, Dan describes Roseanne as a person who can only deal with pain by spreading it; while ostensibly to humanize her, it sounds uncomfortably like how one would rationalize/justify the behavior of an emotionally abusive spouse and parent.