‘Jackie’ Instead Of ‘Roseanne’ Could Help Save Cast And Crew Jobs At ABC
Today, ABC canceled Roseanne after Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist comment aimed at former President Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Despite the fact that the show’s revival became a big hit for the network and ABC renewed it for another season after the first new episode aired, they swiftly canceled it following Roseanne’s controversial tweet, which killed the show in a mere 53 characters. ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said the tweet “is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel the show.”
One of the harshest side effects of the abrupt cancellation is that so many cast and crew members lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
Michael Fishman, who played Roseanne’s son D.J. Conner on the series, tweeted how badly he felt about the cancelation for those who depended on the show for their livelihoods.
“Today is one of the hardest in my life,” he wrote in a statement he posted on Twitter. “I feel devastated, not for the end of the Roseanne show, but for all those who poured their hearts and souls into our jobs, and the audience that welcomed us into their homes.”
Fans everywhere echoed his sentiments about the TV show. No matter how they felt about Roseanne’s tweets, most fans felt empathy for everybody else who lost their jobs, and some fans even called for ABC to create a spinoff show called Jackie with no Roseanne Barr attached to it. Jackie, portrayed by Laurie Metcalf, was Roseanne’s sister in the series.
One Twitter user who goes by the username @Jenn31708 tweeted a realistic looking poster for the imagined new series along with a tweet that said, “Can ABC make this happen? We don’t need #roseanne we need #JACKIE @ABCNetwork.”
“Disney should fire Roseanne and give us an awesome sitcom starring John Goodman & Laurie Metcalf written by @iamwandasykes,” tweeted Roland Scahill.
Disney should fire Roseanne and give us an awesome sitcom starring John Goodman & Laurie Metcalf written by @iamwandasykes
— Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) May 29, 2018
Earlier, Inquisitr reported that Roseanne feels angry after her tweet generated such a strong backlash with such swift results from ABC. She’s so upset that her former co-stars have spoken out so harshly against her on social media that she’s reportedly considering outing them by releasing copies of their supportive emails that they sent to her in the wake of the initial uproar.
It seems like none of the people who worked with Barr on the show feel too concerned about her threat of exposure. In fact, Inquistr also reported Sara Gilbert, who portrayed her TV daughter Darlene and also co-hosts The Talk, vowed to never work with Roseanne again.
There’s no word on if the cast might be open to working together with ABC on some type of spinoff of the series that does not have Roseanne Barr attached to it, but it certainly seems to have fan support.
