Roseanne: Scenes from a Barbecue

Roseanne: Scenes from a Barbecue
ABC
May 7, 1991
Sitcom
DVD
B

Shelley Winters makes her first of ten appearances as Roseanne's beloved Nana Mary.  At 70, she was too young to plausibly be 38-year-old Barr's grandmother, let alone the mother of the (unseen in this episode) 63-year-old Estelle Parsons, but no matter.  She looks and acts enough like Roseanne, that when she says Roseanne will be her in 40 years, we believe it.*  Writers Myer & Lorre are a bit heavy-handed about how everyone in the family adores Nana, which keeps this from being a B+.  Still, it's a solid third-season episode, without much plot but a lot of character interaction, from Nana assuring the black Mitchells she's not prejudiced, to the men's argument about how to BBQ.  The highlight is of course Bonnie surprising her friends with her beautiful voice for "You Really Got a Hold On Me" during the singalong.  (If I remember correctly, David Crosby would later show up as her referred to but not yet seen husband Duke, and we'd get a delicious duet.)

Kristopher Kent Hill returns as Lonnie.  James Pickens, Jr. and Adilah Barnes are back as Chuck and Anne-Marie, but I had to cut someone out of my excessive tags.  This is the only episode where we see Chuck, Jr., who's 16.


*Having read autobiographies by both women, I can say that Winters and Barr were quite a bit alike in real life as well, from being Jewish and "loud-mouthed" to having been pregnant as teenagers.  Their politics, at least at the time, were also similar.  But, yes, the physical resemblance is striking.