Why Roseanne’s a hit with the President
Roseanne Barr is revelling in Donald Trump’s support for her returning sitcom’s impressive debut, which the President says was a cultural and political breakthrough.
“It was a thrill to get a congratulatory phone call from The President of The United States of America,” Barr tweeted yesterday, two days after ABC’s Roseanne reboot drew an estimated 18.4 million viewers.
In the updated Roseanne, Barr’s support for Trump is shared by her character. For the President, it’s a rare bright spot among the major TV series, award ceremonies and latenight shows that regularly skewer him.
Trump seized on its ratings during a speech yesterday in Richfield, Ohio, that was to be about infrastructure but hopscotched through other topics. He credited producer Mark Burnett, who brought Trump to reality TV in The
Apprentice, for breaking the good news about Roseanne.
“He said, ‘Donald, I called just to say hello and to tell you did you see Roseanne’s ratings?’ I said, ‘Mark, how big were they’?” Trump recounted. “And it was about us,” the President continued. “They haven’t figured it out, the fake news hasn’t quite figured it out yet . . . But they will and when they do they’ll become much less fake.”
The White House confirmed the Thursday phone call from Trump to Barr. They did not say if Trump had watched the show.
The updated sitcom starring Barr and her original co-stars returned more than two decades after the first one ended its hit run. The hour-long debut episode was watched by 10 per cent more viewers than saw the May 1997 finale of ABC’s original Roseanne.
Barr said Trump was happy for her. She said, “I’ve known him for many years and he’s done a lot of nice things for me over the years.”
Conservatives cheered the show’s ratings.
During a Q&A session with television critics this year, Barr said, “It was working-class people who elected Trump. So I felt that was very real, and something that needed to be discussed.” She added that the same holds true for “people actually hating other people for the way they voted, which I feel is not American. And so I wanted to bring it [the series] right down the middle, and we did”.
She added she doesn’t agree with everything Trump says and does.