I guess I should write about the whole Roseanne matter. I'm an absolute First Amendment champion but I've scoured that fine piece of legislation and nowhere in it do I see a Constitutional Right to have your own TV show. Nothing in there about getting paid millions of dollars to do that show, either.
I never argue "funny" with anyone. If you laugh, he or she or it is funny to you. Roseanne, with or without her various last names and on TV or stage, has never been funny to me, which is why I haven't watched her new show and only briefly watched her old show…I think only when Stan Freberg was on.
I saw her at comedy clubs a few times before her first series was a hit. Didn't laugh and neither did most of those audiences. Obviously though, other audiences did. Her appeal escapes me but so does the appeal of a lot of shows and performers who are quite popular. That does not bother me one bit.
Once after her first series was a hit, I was backstage at the Comedy Store with a friend who was about to go on with an act, much of which I had written. Roseanne walked in and demanded that whoever was on stage at that moment get off because she wanted to go on, do a new hunk of material she was breaking in and then get the hell outta there, A.S.A.P. There and at other clubs, I had seen Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Garry Shandling, Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and others show up and ask if they could go on when there was an opening. None of them demanded, none insisted on bumping another comic but Roseanne had to go on immediately.
She was accommodated. The comic on stage — I think it was Dennis Wolfberg — was given a signal to cut his set short. Roseanne went on.
You ever see a cat throw up? You know how hilarious that is? That's about as hilarious as Roseanne was that night. She left, cursing the crappy writer who'd sold her those jokes. I thought the performance was at least as much to blame but, hey, she's done well for herself so what do I know?
Her new series was a big hit upon its debut but with diminishing popularity since. As I understand, it was picked up for another season but because of her Twitter remarks, the pick-up was rescinded yesterday. In a way, I think ABC shouldn't have put it on in the first place if they were going to yank it off because of some racist thing its star said.
It's not like anyone couldn't have imagined she'd do such a thing. My pal Stu Shostak even predicted it on his podcast. So far, the best argument I've heard that ABC was wrong to yank her show is a pretty weak one: That they knew what they were buying. It would be like canceling an appearance by Willie Nelson because it came out that he was smoking pot.
The most surprising thing about this to me was the swiftness of what happened. Up went the tweet, down came the hammer. ABC didn't even wait a day or two so they could claim, true or not, that they heard from a lot of advertisers who said they'd no longer buy time in Roseanne. I'm guessing there were execs at ABC who for whatever reason already wanted to dump the show and the tweet put the vote to do that over the top.
This story may not be over. Roseanne will probably do something to portray herself as a victim…and as I write this, Trump has yet to weigh in. By the time I awake, he probably will and there will be some new twist to this whole matter. See you in the morning.