‘Roseanne’ Fan Spots Classic Callback Everyone Missed

The Roseanne revival’s eight episodes included plenty of Easter eggs and callbacks to the original series, but there was one reference some might have missed.

On March 29, two days after the season premiered, Twitter user Richard Harris noticed that Aunt Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) is wearing a tacky blue sweater, first seen in season five, which aired back in 1992-1993.

“WOW! If that’s the original then it’s REALLY been looked after,” Harris wrote. “It’s my new mission in life to own one of those sweaters.”

Roseanne Barr retweeted Harris’ tweet, confirming the reference.

This was not the only piece of clothing from the original series to make a re-appearance in the revival.

Before it aired, ABC posted photos of Roseanne wearing an ugly white sweater with chickens on it. The shirt was a running gag, first appearing in season two. In one season five episode, “Daughters and Other Strangers,” every member of the Conner family is seen wearing it. During the end credits, Dan (John Goodman) is even seen squeezed into the shirt, which clearly did not fit him.

“The chicken shirt, it was just the ugliest shirt I ever saw and we had this bet between us, the actors; if you show something really bad on TV it takes off,” Barr said in the season five DVD commentary. “It was like another rebellious artistic statement, that it looks like art when it’s on TV.”

The new season of Roseanne, the show’s 10th overall, debuted on March 27 and was renewed for another season three days after its record-breaking premiere.

“We’re thrilled that America has welcomed the Conner family back into their homes,” Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment, said in a statement. “The show is as fresh and relevant today as it was when it left the air 21 years ago. We can’t wait to see what the Roseanne team has in store for next year.”

Roseanne was so successful that it inspired FOX to revive Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing, a season after ABC cancelled it. Like Barr, Allen is a celebrity with conservative views.

The next season of Roseanne will include 13 episodes, as opposed to eight for this season.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, writer Whitney Cummings said she pitched an idea for a dark gun-related storyline, where the young Mary Conner (Jayden Rey) got a hold of a weapon. After the Parkland, Florida school shooting on Feb. 14, the crew and ABC decided against filming it.

“[Mary] was gonna come out and be holding it, and it made everyone very uncomfortable, which is why I wanted to do it,” Cummings said. “I thought for a multicam, this could be incendiary and interesting and start a conversation and show the dangers inside the home of these kinds of choices.”