Sharp Tongue in the Trenches

By Richard Zoglin

With her roly-poly figure and truck-driver's tongue, she is hardly your standard-issue TV mom. She works at a plastics factory, berates her good- natured but usually out-of-work husband, and snaps impatiently at her three nattering kids. "Why are you so mean?" complains one tot who doesn't get her way. " 'Cause I hate kids," she replies, "and I'm not your real mom." Her idea of a high time is going out to dinner at a restaurant "that don't have a drive-through." Hearing that two friends have got divorced, she responds with resentful sarcasm: "They shoulda stuck it out in the trenches, dodgin' that shrapnel with the rest of us that believe in true love."

The course of true love takes some strange turns in Roseanne, ABC's new hit sitcom starring comedian Roseanne Barr. This blunt-spoken family may not win any awards for Wonder-bread wholesomeness, but not since The Cosby Show has a TV clan achieved such instant rapport with the American public. Since its debut in mid-October, the show has consistently finished in the Nielsen Top Ten, one week even landing in the heady No. 2 spot, behind only the indestructible Cos.

As usual with a new network hit, Roseanne has been widely hailed as a TV breakthrough. The program's honest portrayal of blue-collar family life is, indeed, unusual for network TV, though hardly unprecedented. Its forebears range from The Honeymooners and All in the Family to, more recently, the Fox network's raunchy satire Married . . . with Children. Still, the show's grungy ambience and gleeful puncturing of TV ideals of happy domesticity have made it the most daring new sitcom of the fall.

Produced by the team responsible for The Cosby Show, Roseanne presents the flip side of the impossibly perfect Huxtables. Yet the two shows have some key similarities: both were inspired by the monologues of a stand-up comic, and both depend on loosely structured, slice-of-life episodes rather than sitcom contrivances. A typical Roseanne segment might revolve around something as prosaic as a visit to a restaurant or a discussion of how to pay the bills. (Roseanne's strategy: "You pay the ones marked final notice, and you throw the rest away.") Best of all, behind the put-downs and childish taunting lies a genuinely affectionate and affecting (if sometimes cutesy) husband-wife relationship.

As Roseanne's portly life partner, John Goodman gives a performance of great humor, heart and physical grace. Barr, by contrast, is still a novice in the acting department. But the show is an unmistakable expression of her comic persona. Born in Salt Lake City to a Jewish family, Barr, 36, quit high school and moved to Colorado, married at 21 and had three children. While working as a cocktail waitress, she started appearing at Denver comedy clubs. After moving to Los Angeles in 1985, she became a regular at the Comedy Store and landed some TV guest shots, gaining a following with her caustic, straight- from-the-heartland comments on the trials of housewifehood.

Her current series originated with Matt Williams, a former writer on The Cosby Show, who had been developing a sitcom about blue-collar working mothers. When Barr was brought in to star, the focus shifted from several women to one: Roseanne. "I identify myself by my values as a woman, not as males perceive me," says Barr. "It's a voice I feel I've never heard in the media, a voice that tells the truth and doesn't worry. It's like having coffee with your neighbor -- the way you talk before the husbands come in."

Barr's strong identification with her character has led to conflicts. She has complained publicly about efforts to tone down her humor and soften the show's feminist message. Sources close to the production say that Barr can be difficult and short-tempered when things don't go her way. Such reports are dealt with in careful euphemisms by the show's creators. "Sure, she's outspoken and opinionated," admits co-executive producer Marcy Carsey. "But if she wasn't, she'd still be in a trailer park in Denver." Says creator Williams: "We challenge each other, and the show is the better for it. It's a rough transition from the total freedom of stand-up to the discipline of weekly TV, but she's been remarkable in adapting."

"I'm not tough to work with," says Barr, "but I care a lot and am real passionate about everything that has my name on it." Though she writes few episodes herself, Barr helps generate story ideas and edits the finished scripts, often making changes right up to taping time. "I knew they'd try to homogenize the character I created," she says. "The question was 'How much?' I wasn't prepared for the answer. It was hard for me to give ideas that weren't executed the way I wanted. That drove me out of my mind."

Her strong ego is evident in the show. Some have compared her character to The Honeymooners' Ralph Kramden, but there is an important difference: for all Ralph's rantings, the point of each episode was to bring him down a notch, to teach him a lesson. Roseanne's zingers seek to elicit cheers, not comeuppance; their point is to teach us a lesson. Still, distinctive voices like hers are rare in network TV, and Roseanne's depiction of the world of tract homes and trailer parks is welcome. "It would be cool if the show opened the door for TV to really reflect the way people live in this country," says Barr. Then she adds with a sigh, "But they'll probably get Flip Wilson to play me on CBS."

With reporting by Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles