Roseanne: Suck Up or Shut Up

Roseanne: Suck Up or Shut Up
ABC
January 4, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This episode, with its teleplay by Borns & Gandolfi, based on a story by someone who didn't work on any other of my shows, is mainly notable for its celebrity cameos.  Florence Henderson plays a local businesswoman (also named Florence) that Roseanne sucks up to for the restaurant, although it becomes a challenge when D.J. quotes Roseanne's mockery of the woman's weird son.  (Henderson was then 59 but didn't look it, so I guess it's just plausible she could be the mother of a preteen.)  And in the tag, Anthony Geary and Genie Francis appear as Luke & Laura, and the Becky switch is lampshaded.  The other plot thread has Mark getting fed up with school but Becky, on Roseanne's advice, pushes him until he leaves her.  It seems like such a waste that Mark was sent to school, while straight-A Becky is working at Bunz.

Selma Archerd, who had acted with Henderson before, on the "goat" episode of The Brady Bunch and in A Very Brady Christmas, here has her first of two Roseanne roles, as Lucille.  Note that Chuck is currently the Lobo bartender, and again I have to omit Pickens from the overcrowded tags.