Roseanne’s immediate success may well have been in reaction to the dominant 1980s domestic situation comedy, The Cosby Show. Like The Cosby Show, Roseanne starred an individual who began as a stand-up comic, but the families in the two programs were polar opposites. Where The Cosby Show portrayed a loving, prosperous family with a strong father figure, Roseanne’s Conner family was discordant, adamantly working class, and mother-centered.

The Conner family included Roseanne, her husband Dan (John Goodman), sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), daughters Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Becky (played alternately by Lecy Goranson [1988–92, 1995–96] and Sarah Chalke [1993–95, 1996–97]), and son D.J. (Michael Fishman). Over the years the household expanded to include Becky’s husband Mark (Glenn Quinn) and Darlene’s boyfriend David (Johnny Galecki) and, in 1995, a new infant for Roseanne and Dan, Jerry Garcia Conner (Cole and Morgan Roberts).

The Conners are constantly facing money problems, as both Roseanne and Dan work in blue-collar jobs: in factories; hanging sheetrock; running a motorcycle shop; and eventually owning their own diner, where they serve “loose-meat” sandwiches. Their parenting style is often sarcastic, bordering on scornful. In one episode, when the kids leave for school, Roseanne comments, “Quick. They’re gone. Change the locks.” But caustic remarks such as these are always balanced by scenes of affection and support, so that the stability of the family is never truly in doubt. Much as in its working-class predecessor, All in the Family, the Conner family is not genuinely dysfunctional, despite all the rancor.

Roseanne often tested the boundaries of network standards and practices. One episode deals with the young son’s masturbation. In others, Roseanne frankly discusses birth control with Becky and explains her (Roseanne’s) choice to have breast reduction surgery. The program also featured gay and lesbian characters, which made ABC nervous, especially when a lesbian character kissed Roseanne. The network initially refused to air that episode until Roseanne, the producer, demanded they do so.

Roseanne became increasingly quirky as the years went by. The final season was filled with strange episodes in which Roseanne won the lottery and lived out numerous fantasies (including one in which she imagines herself as an action figure named Roseambo). Then, in the program’s last episode, Roseanne spoke directly to the viewers as the program’s producer and denied the reality of the entire season, explaining that Dan had died the season before, even though he had appeared to survive a heart attack. The final season had been the character Roseanne’s reveries as she struggled to deal with his death. It was a controversial, and, for some critics, an unsatisfying, way to end the program’s nine-year run.

Controversy attended the program off screen as well as on. During its first season, there were well publicized squabbles among the producing team, which led to firings and Roseanne assuming principal control of the program. Subsequently, Roseanne battled ABC over its handling of her then-husband Tom Arnold’s sitcom, The Jackie Thomas Show. Dwarfing these professional controversies was the strife in Roseanne’s publicly available personal life. Among the events that were chronicled in the tabloid press were her tumultuous marriage to and divorce from Arnold (amid accusations of spousal abuse), her reconciliation with the daughter she put up for adoption (an event that was forced by a tabloid newspaper’s threat to reveal the story), her charges of being abused as a child, her struggles with addictions to food and other substances, and her misfired parody of the national anthem at a baseball game in 1990.