Although I watched a lot of television in the '80s, there were barely any shows that I consider groundbreaking in a social/societal way. There was Married With Children, which broke ground for shock television and the Cosby Show, which led to some interesting discussions, but mostly put me to sleep (I'm sure plenty of others would disagree with me on this). In 1988, I remember watching the first episode of Roseanne, which I thought was stupid, irrelevant, and poorly scripted. But I, as well as others, kept giving the show a chance. Within a year, the show developed some of the most fascinating and relevant characters with plots that television had ever seen. After ten years, there was finally another show, like All In The Family, that could not only break new ground, but cause several hours of discussion and debate.

Not being from a high class family, I identified with the Conners. They struggled with money, had family members with serious problems, and were the complete opposite of the Brady Bunch. I remember when Roseanne first found Darlene with a pack of cigarettes. I felt the way the writers dealt with the situation was very realistic rather than the usually preachy “smoking is bad, smoking is sad” slogans I often heard in school that were cheesy enough to make me want to explore smoking rather than avoid it.

Future episodes dealt with Darlene reaching puberty, a salesman falling dead in the Conners’ kitchen, Becky getting caught reading Dad’s girlie magazine, Dan’s visit to the IRS, Bev’s alcoholism, both Becky and Darlene’s unexpected pregnancies, the “pot” episode, and the famous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” episode where Roseanne receives a kiss from Nancy’s new girlfriend.

Roseanne suffered from the fate of many other long-running sitcoms in that the show soon became a parody of itself. Many argue that the show went downhill after the Conners became rich and ran into the problems that people with newfound money often run into. Even though the sudden plot change of the show wasn’t explained until the very last episode, it was hard to suffer through the last season. Even so, nobody can ever deny the impact Roseanne had on television, as well as popular culture.