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Original Flavor Season Talk: Dinner at Rodbell's


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18 hours ago, anna0852 said:

I've been rewatching the original run on Amazon Prime and it's starting to occur to me that Roseanne and Dan both had pretty solid middle-class upbringings.  You don't hear either of them referring to any sort of finanical struggles as children or having to do without or anything like that.

Dan father is referrenced to making a good living as a salesman, things don't seem at all tight on that side until after he marries Crystal and has 3 more kids to support. Dan was an only child growing up and there are multiple references to him owning a very nice motorcycle in high school, something he probably wasn't going to be able to affort on a part-time job. Dan not going to college seems more of a lack of parental involve/direction than lack of money. Ed was always on the road and Audrey was battling mental illness.

For Al and Bev (Roseanne's parents), Bev doesn't seem to have ever worked after getting married, they owned a decent home in Lanford and have plenty of money in those later years, enough to loan Dan and Roseanne money towards the purchase of the house and before the divorce there was a certain amount of travel. Bev always seems very comfortable after the divorce as well, in fact it's implied that she retained most of the marital assets. Roseanne didn't go to college because she wasn't encouraged to do and was determined to get out of her parents house as soon as possible. 

To me, all this adds up to Roseanne and Dan actually taking an economic step backwards when they married and started their family. Both parents had to work outside the home and things were consistantly much tighter than what they grew up with. I think that might actually explain some of the poor financial decisions they made over the years. They knew things were supposed to get better, as witnessed in their own upbringing, but neither knew to effectively make that happen.  Dan presumably has some sort of contractors license but Roseanne clearly has no secondary eduction or certification even though Becky wasn't born until they'd been married for 4 years, durning which time Roseanne could have obtained some sort of job training.

I think you might be applying 2017 values on characters who grew up in the 50s and 60s.

Dan and Roseanne not going to college wasn't due to a lack of funds or motivation. The only people who went to college back then were doctors and lawyers and engineers and academics etc. Everyone else either went to a vocational school to be a nurse or a teacher or they went into a trade which would have been on the job apprenticeship training. Everyone else went to work in a factory right out high school. 

In the time period they grew up it would have been UNCOMMON for them to have gone to college. 

What's more interesting to me is how both Al and Ed were travelling salesmen. With Ed it was clear he was still working and always on the road as it was mentioned when he wasn't in an episode.

With Al though, the fact he was a patio furniture salesman wasn't even mentioned until season 4 when they drive to Kansas City. In the couple episodes Al is in I always got the impression he was retired. They just show up on Roseannes doorstep because they "felt like going for a ride". A travelling salesman doesn't just do that lol.

Also, there's that episode Bev comes for a visit but Al doesn't. There's no mention that he wasn't there because he was on the road. If that were Ed, there would have been a line of dialogue about him being on the road and that's why he wasn't there that week.

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2 hours ago, anna0852 said:

Provided that he did well in school and avoided the mistakes of his older sisters, DJ has a pretty bright future in front of him. He's only a couple of years older than me and I think I was some of the last people to go to college without worrying about crippling educational debt (graduated HS 2000, college 2004). DJ stands a very good chance of getting through college and into the workforce ahead of the recession and without the student loan debt.

Agreed! You're a bit older than me....I graduate HS in '02 and college in '06, but it's amazing what a difference a few years makes in terms of your professional and financial outlook. 

I feel like I JUST made it through before college costs got truly insane. I have younger coworkers who graduated with the same degree I did at comparable schools whose student debt FAR exceeds mine.....and we all did workstudy, partial scholarships, etc. 

So, I agree about DJ. If he played his cards right in terms of doing well academically and was able to get a good job, I could see him being in pretty good financial shape. 

Edited by SparklesBitch
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On 9/15/2017 at 8:42 AM, Mmmfloorpie said:

The episode that really gives me chills is the one where Meg hits Roseanne with her car. It foreshadows what "could have been" in my eyes.

Imagine the series for the next 7 years with Roseanne working at the beauty shop. We get to know the other employees there. Marsha who runs the shop and is a little kooky when it comes to her deceased husband Art. Iris is the loveable ethnic stereotype who is presumably a bit shellshocked from the Vietnam War but still maintains a sense of humour about it. The ditzy blonde Debbie is, well, a ditzy blonde.

Meg continues to pester Roxanne as her former employer. Jackie the cop visits regularily in her police garb and talking like Joe Friday. She eventually weds Gary and we get all the storylines of Jackie still being a doormat and letting Gary control things. 

Crystal stays on the scene since she is a client at the beauty shop. Getting her "do done" gives the writers an excuse to put her in scenes without having to constantly write explanations of why Ed and the kid aren't there with her that week. 

Becky helps guide Darelene into adolescense and the world of dating. She continues to date Mark whenever the writers need some extra conflict. When the time comes and she ages out of high school, she decides to go to community college (or a heretofore unmentioned Lanford University) so she can remain a regular on the show.

DJ continues being either the butt of jokes or the cute little deliverer of one liners. "Uh oh, someone's in trouble!"

Dan continues to find success with his contracting business. He is the bread winner of the family, just like Ward Cleaver, but still finds time to be a loveable skamp.

Disgusting isn't it?

So I'm watching Feeding the Monster, which is a BBC documentary you can find on YouTube. It's about a week of making an episode of Roseanne (in this case, "Mrs. Claus" in Season Four). Roseanne absolutely threw a coup after Season 2 and fired all the writers, which is why S3 begins to feel like "her" show.

The writers are terrified of Roseanne and Tom, and two episodes ago an episode got completely rewritten on a Thursday (when they tape on Friday!). Some of the writers, Chuck Lorre and Amy Sherman, later go on to great success. Roseanne and Tom may have micromanaged their show to hell, but it's the reason it was so successful.

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8 hours ago, JakeyJokes said:

So I'm watching Feeding the Monster, which is a BBC documentary you can find on YouTube. It's about a week of making an episode of Roseanne (in this case, "Mrs. Claus" in Season Four). Roseanne absolutely threw a coup after Season 2 and fired all the writers, which is why S3 begins to feel like "her" show.

The writers are terrified of Roseanne and Tom, and two episodes ago an episode got completely rewritten on a Thursday (when they tape on Friday!). Some of the writers, Chuck Lorre and Amy Sherman, later go on to great success. Roseanne and Tom may have micromanaged their show to hell, but it's the reason it was so successful.

I watched that too. I think it was done by an Australian or New Zealand group though.

Funny how that producer guy (I think it was Jay Daniel) said he was on thin ice and felt he could be fired at any time. Sure enough he was not long after lol.

I felt that the drama was amped up a bit for that documentary. They make it like it was all last minute rewrites. In that episode they had the Santas Village set and the book store set. You don't just build those in a day lol. The core of the episode had to have been in place long before.

I also can't believe how much she wanted the show to mimic her life. Tom and her open a loose meat sandwich shop in Iowa so guess what, her character on the show opens one too! Jackie even says they stole the idea from a place in Iowa.

I always had a suspicion that the only reason the Bike Shop failed was so Roseanne could open the Lunchbox. All through season 4 it struggles but Dan would sell a couple bikes here and there and gets the snowmobile contract etc.

Then the first episode of season 5 they close the shop and Becky leaves town etc. 

It's like they took their post season 4 hiatus and Roseanne decided to take the show in another direction yet again. It corresponded nicely with Lecy Goranson leaving for college and Mark losing his job at the shop so they leave. Makes you wonder how they would have written Becky off the show if the shop didn't close. Probably would have been like Darlene where she gets into some college program early and leaves for school.

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Yeah, I think "rewriting the equal show" doesn't mean scrapping the entire plot and starting over. I know she was really picky about dialogue and not being too sitcom-my. Norm MacDonald wrote during Season 5 and said she would constantly send scripts back with the note "there are too many jokes", which was confusing to the writers.

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For any Canadians on this forum - ever notice the occasional Presidents Choice product pop up? I just noticed DJ eating Decadent cookies in a season 7 episode. PC products were only Ever available in one US chain - Jewel supermarkets in the Chicago area. Guess that's a little Easter egg for those paying attention and adds to the Chicago realism on the show. 

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On 10/5/2017 at 10:12 PM, DB in CMH said:

For any Canadians on this forum - ever notice the occasional Presidents Choice product pop up? I just noticed DJ eating Decadent cookies in a season 7 episode. PC products were only Ever available in one US chain - Jewel supermarkets in the Chicago area. Guess that's a little Easter egg for those paying attention and adds to the Chicago realism on the show. 

Yep I looked that up before too.

I always wondered about the brand of various food products in the show. The black boxes with the white bold lowercase font.

Could have been made by the production designers I guess but maybe it's some type of generic brand (oxymoron much?) in California that they covered the logos on?

I can see a script saying "Jackie picks up a box of crackers" or "Roseanne takes Darlene's class to the supermarket and there are aisles and aisles of boxed foods". Do the production designers make all that stuff or just go to a store and buy off the shelf? I'm thinking the latter.

On 10/5/2017 at 2:11 PM, JakeyJokes said:

Yeah, I think "rewriting the equal show" doesn't mean scrapping the entire plot and starting over. I know she was really picky about dialogue and not being too sitcom-my. Norm MacDonald wrote during Season 5 and said she would constantly send scripts back with the note "there are too many jokes", which was confusing to the writers.

Oh I know. But in that documentary they make it seem like Roseanne hated the episode and the whole thing was going to go down in flames. 

In reality I think she just wanted some of the jokes rewritten.

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10 hours ago, Mmmfloorpie said:

Yep I looked that up before too.

I always wondered about the brand of various food products in the show. The black boxes with the white bold lowercase font.

Could have been made by the production designers I guess but maybe it's some type of generic brand (oxymoron much?) in California that they covered the logos on?

I can see a script saying "Jackie picks up a box of crackers" or "Roseanne takes Darlene's class to the supermarket and there are aisles and aisles of boxed foods". Do the production designers make all that stuff or just go to a store and buy off the shelf? I'm thinking the latter.

I wonder about this in Superstore which is loaded with very natural product placement.  I'm assuming everything is just empty boxes. 

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10 hours ago, DB in CMH said:

I wonder about this in Superstore which is loaded with very natural product placement.  I'm assuming everything is just empty boxes. 

For years, you had shows where they had boxes with generic names and even missing letters. I remember both on Home Improvement and Full House they had items with letters missing such as: "runch bar", "plain corn flakes", "super guy comics". You understood they couldn't place them, but it was a bit too similar to what the actual item was they were trying to knock off.  

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59 minutes ago, readster said:

For years, you had shows where they had boxes with generic names and even missing letters. I remember both on Home Improvement and Full House they had items with letters missing such as: "runch bar", "plain corn flakes", "super guy comics". You understood they couldn't place them, but it was a bit too similar to what the actual item was they were trying to knock off.  

Unlike Roseanne which seemed to have its own brand.

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2 hours ago, readster said:

For years, you had shows where they had boxes with generic names and even missing letters. 

This sort of thing always cracks me up, especially in cases where it's super obvious. For instance, in the episode Little Sister when Jackie is getting drunk in her apartment after fighting with Roseanne about being a cop, the scene opens with her on her couch reaching for her can of beer.....which is just a can with the word BEER emblazoned on it in big, bright letters. Just BEER. No brand, no name. Just BEER. Kind of like when characters go up to a bar in any show or movie and ask for "a beer". Everyone knows why they do it that way, but it's still funny. =) 

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18 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

They used to sell generic beer around here. It was a white can with just "Beer" in black letters. Nothing else.

Of course now with so many craft beers and home brews. You could just make up names, how about some: "Gutter Beer" in big letters with a red can. 

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On 10/5/2017 at 9:41 AM, Mmmfloorpie said:

I watched that too. I think it was done by an Australian or New Zealand group though.

Funny how that producer guy (I think it was Jay Daniel) said he was on thin ice and felt he could be fired at any time. Sure enough he was not long after lol.

I felt that the drama was amped up a bit for that documentary. They make it like it was all last minute rewrites. In that episode they had the Santas Village set and the book store set. You don't just build those in a day lol. The core of the episode had to have been in place long before.

I also can't believe how much she wanted the show to mimic her life. Tom and her open a loose meat sandwich shop in Iowa so guess what, her character on the show opens one too! Jackie even says they stole the idea from a place in Iowa.

I always had a suspicion that the only reason the Bike Shop failed was so Roseanne could open the Lunchbox. All through season 4 it struggles but Dan would sell a couple bikes here and there and gets the snowmobile contract etc.

Then the first episode of season 5 they close the shop and Becky leaves town etc. 

It's like they took their post season 4 hiatus and Roseanne decided to take the show in another direction yet again. It corresponded nicely with Lecy Goranson leaving for college and Mark losing his job at the shop so they leave. Makes you wonder how they would have written Becky off the show if the shop didn't close. Probably would have been like Darlene where she gets into some college program early and leaves for school.

 

On 10/5/2017 at 0:56 AM, JakeyJokes said:

So I'm watching Feeding the Monster, which is a BBC documentary you can find on YouTube. It's about a week of making an episode of Roseanne (in this case, "Mrs. Claus" in Season Four). Roseanne absolutely threw a coup after Season 2 and fired all the writers, which is why S3 begins to feel like "her" show.

The writers are terrified of Roseanne and Tom, and two episodes ago an episode got completely rewritten on a Thursday (when they tape on Friday!). Some of the writers, Chuck Lorre and Amy Sherman, later go on to great success. Roseanne and Tom may have micromanaged their show to hell, but it's the reason it was so successful.

Thanks for giving me a heads up on this, it really was interesting.

  1.  Roseanne and the Lady who played Bonnie looked a lot  smaller in this doc, then they ever did on the show.
  2. Holy, ugly nineties clothing Batman!
  3.  Fascinating about how Roseanne Midwest blue collar existence was totally foreign to Hollywood.  It really is what made her show special.  She represented the lower middle with such dignity.  I hated that the later seasons turned the Connor's into white trash, they were never like that in the beginning.
  4. She had a weird vibe with Tom Arnold, but he seemed to bring out the best in her writing wise.
  5. I can't believe she hired all of Tom's unemployed room mates to be on the staff.
  6. It was hard to find actresses who looked like regular women from the Midwest and not aspiring starlets.  They were doing the Santa episodes and have to cover up all the bad nineties bleach jobs with hats (these were the women standing in line with their children to see Roseanne Santa).
  7. Trying to find regular kids and not Hollywood overly precocious moppets was also difficult.
  8. Writers make a lot of Money-up to forty K a week and that was the early nineties
  9. Saw the creators of Big Bang Theory and Gilmore Girls (I think).
  10. How does such a strong feminist get a tattoo saying "Property of Tom Arnold" on her butt?  Was she trying to be sarcastic?
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Watching the show today something struck me.  The Home Ec episode and Dan is asked to come to school for career day or something and Roseanne goes ballistic because of the implied sexism in not asking her. But when they're on the field trip at the supermarket and she asks one of the girls to choose some meat. Meryl chooses the steak and Roseanne goes "what does your father do?" Seems a little sexist to me.

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3 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Watching the show today something struck me.  The Home Ec episode and Dan is asked to come to school for career day or something and Roseanne goes ballistic because of the implied sexism in not asking her. But when they're on the field trip at the supermarket and she asks one of the girls to choose some meat. Meryl chooses the steak and Roseanne goes "what does your father do?" Seems a little sexist to me.

Sort of. When she goes balistic though isn't it because she feels like since she isn't the breadwinner, her duties as wife and mother aren't seen as being as significant or important?

Until The Lunchbox I think it was generally acknowledged that her income was more supplemental and Dan was primary. Most of the second season she is unemployed and is jealous of Dan's success. 

The salon and Rodbell's were pretty low on the income scale and Bonnie says Roseanne was only part time. I doubt she made much tips with her demeanour as well.

Back on topic, lol, her assuming that the father was likely the breadwinner wasn't a betrayal of her being a feminist ideals. Just an acknowledgement of reality in 1991 Lanford Ill.

Edited by Mmmfloorpie
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Ann Wedgeworth has passed away. She played Dan's mom Audrey during the first Thanksgiving episode in season 2 ("Compared to who?"). Weird that it's right before Thanksgiving now! 

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11 hours ago, FairyDusted said:

Awww. I remember her from Three's Company too. I wonder why they replaced her with Debbie Reynolds? I mean I loved Debbie but I bought Ann's portrayal.

So did I.She reminded me of my mom's best friend, a country girl from Kansas and a descendant of the Dalton gang. She was quite a lady.

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12 hours ago, FairyDusted said:

I wonder why they replaced her with Debbie Reynolds? I mean I loved Debbie but I bought Ann's portrayal.

Because Carrie Fisher wrote it.  (I thought maybe Wedgeworth was doing Evening Shade then, anyway, but I looked it up and the Debbie Reynolds episode was a few years after ES went off the air.)  If Carrie Fisher writes an episode about a crazy mom, of course Debbie Fisher is going to play the mom, heh.

I remember April Winchell telling the story of them being at Reynolds's house, with Roseanne and Debbie talking about the potential tussle between Roseanne and Audrey, ultimately winding up rolling around on the ground, while Carrie Fisher looked on with basically no reaction.  Winchell asked if this happens often, and Fisher said, "You have no idea."  A link to the saved blog post was on TWoP; I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere.

Edited by Bastet
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On 11/17/2017 at 9:34 PM, UYI said:

Ann Wedgeworth has passed away. She played Dan's mom Audrey during the first Thanksgiving episode in season 2 ("Compared to who?"). Weird that it's right before Thanksgiving now! 

That's sad to hear but I think she was the biggest casting mistake in 8 seasons.

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10 minutes ago, Not4Me said:

I thought Debbie Reynolds’ Audrey was just ridiculous but I put the blame more on the terrible direction of the show at that point. I always preferred Ann Wedgeworth’s portrayal.

Me too. I've always hated stunt casting plus she was not believable as a small town woman. Anne Wedgeworth was perfect. She was sweet, motherly and had just enough of an edge that you could believe that she might go off the deep end.

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1 minute ago, Bastet said:

I love Ann Wedgeworth's delivery when Audrey tells Dan to lose 50 pounds and cut his hair.

So do I. She does it so sweetly and lovingly. She's the kind of mom whose criticism doesn't make you grit your teeth to keep from screaming like some. I also loved how she was to Roseanne. Who wouldn't love to have an MIL like that?

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Last night Logo had a Roseanne Thanksgiving marathon and my DH and I realized that only about three of them were actually any good. After that you had the stupid, patronizing Native American one, the painful pregnancy scare one, the one where they go to the homeless shelter, the one where Dan isn't coming home from California. Bleh.

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I love the Native American Thanksgiving episode if only for Anne Marie's incredulous "Excuse Me" when a mother at DJ's pageant says american history can be summed up as "people came to america for the freedom."

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I love that Thanksgiving episode.  I like D.J.'s play, I fucking love Anne Marie's response to that "people came here for the freedom" twit, and I love the re-enactment that skewers a bunch of Thanksgiving myths.  The part at the end, though, perpetuates some tropes, which is a letdown after a whole episode subverting them. 

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2 hours ago, Dee said:

I love the Native American Thanksgiving episode if only for Anne Marie's incredulous "Excuse Me" when a mother at DJ's pageant says american history can be summed up as "people came to america for the freedom."

I did love that too but the whole thing was a massive straw man for some weird feminist point Roseanne was trying to make. It felt forced.

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23 hours ago, Dee said:

if only for Anne Marie's incredulous "Excuse Me" when a mother at DJ's pageant says american history can be summed up as "people came to america for the freedom."

I love her reaction so much, it never fails to crack me up even after many repeated viewings! 

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The Thanksgiving ones have always been my favorite. The Halloween episodes are enjoyable, but they’re more about the costumes or the pranks. The Thanksgiving shows were great because they were mostly in one place and had the ensemble cast all in one place. It’s also one of the reasons I loved the bbq episode. 

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1 hour ago, Stacey1014 said:

The Thanksgiving ones have always been my favorite. The Halloween episodes are enjoyable, but they’re more about the costumes or the pranks. The Thanksgiving shows were great because they were mostly in one place and had the ensemble cast all in one place. It’s also one of the reasons I loved the bbq episode. 

Oh, the BBQ episode has to be in my top five.  These are my top five:

1. Communicable Theater

2. Toto, We're Not In Kansas Anymore

3. We Gather Together

4.PMS I Love You

5. Scenes From A Barbeque

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2 hours ago, Stacey1014 said:

They’re not my favorite, but they all have a scene or two that is enjoyable. I like the one where everyone is snowed in. 

Something not right about that episode. I used to watch the show on TBS around the 2000s and they always seemed to skip that one. Like it wasn't in syndication. I only finally saw it years later when the DVDs. I've seen it on tv since and it always seems heavily edited. Like a lot of the Darlene and David part is cut like Alex and Nicky or whatever their names are.

Also just the look of the episode is different. Hard to explain.

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Been watching the seasons on Amazon Prime. (Haven’t watched the show in a few years & never watched them in order just the re-runs on tv since I’m only 24) I’m on season 5 and I still hate the “Molly” character as much as much as before.  I’m on the prom episode and still don’t know why they went to prom with Molly? Especially after she kissed David. 

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On 11/24/2017 at 1:35 PM, Mmmfloorpie said:

There were no good Xmas episodes lol.

I will respectfully disagree. I love both the Season 4 (Roseanne as Santa Claus) and Season 5 (Everyone is snowed in) Christmas episodes. In fact, I think the Season 5 one might be better now than the Season 4 one, and I used to think the opposite. 

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39 minutes ago, UYI said:

I will respectfully disagree. I love both the Season 4 (Roseanne as Santa Claus) and Season 5 (Everyone is snowed in) Christmas episodes. In fact, I think the Season 5 one might be better now than the Season 4 one, and I used to think the opposite. 

I agree. And as I have been re-watching the great thanksgiving episodes are not as great as I remembered. The only really good ones are the ones where Jackie tells her mom about being a cop and the one where Nana Mary goes up to Darlene's room. YMMV.

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