Roseanne Halloween Edition [31 DVDs of Halloween]

There are many rea­sons why Roseanne is one of my favorite sit­coms of all time, but some­where near the top of that list of rea­sons is the show’s con­tri­bu­tion to Hal­loween pop cul­ture. Every year that Roseanne was on TV, I looked for­ward to the show’s annual Hal­loween episode and it usu­ally didn’t dis­ap­point. The Con­nor family’s Hal­loween spirit put all other TV fam­i­lies to shame (except, per­haps, if we’re count­ing The Simp­sons ).

Seven out of nine sea­sons of Roseanne had Hal­loween spe­cials, and they’re all com­piled on this 186 minute DVD which gets reg­u­lar play around my house this time of year.

There’s just some­thing so com­fort­ing and famil­iar about this show; some­thing so  domes­tic  that makes me feel right at home like so many years ago on those chilly autumn evenings when I’d get home from school and watch Roseanne while mom was mak­ing din­ner. My older sis­ter and I were just like Becky and Darlene–she the prissy pop­u­lar one who got good grades, and me the weird, anti-social one who loved sports, comic books and being a smart ass. Dan and Roseanne were much cooler than my par­ents, though. I loved that Hal­loween was such a big deal to them, and that they went balls out every year. If I could pick any TV fam­ily to live with, it’d be The Con­nors, hands down.

The only spe­cial fea­ture on this disc is a single-episode com­men­tary by Roseanne her­self, but in it she offers the fol­low­ing quote, which I just love:

“I just wanted to be on tele­vi­sion so I could break all the rules of tele­vi­sion, and the first rule that was very excit­ing to break was the one where they wouldn’t let you have a Hal­loween show. Peo­ple don’t know that because it’s all over the place–everybody has a Hal­loween show nowadays–but back then they actu­ally fought with us and said that peo­ple in the Bible belt didn’t want a Hal­loween show because it’s a Satanic hol­i­day. I said ’ No they don’t, it’s about CANDY!’  So we always went way out on Halloween.”

So the next time you’re enjoy­ing the annual Hal­loween episode of what­ever your favorite show is, you can thank Roseanne for help­ing to pave the way and make it possible.

Wel­come to the Tun­nel of Terror

Clas­sic.

Spooky Screenshots

What is 31 DVDs of Halloween?

As a spe­cial fea­ture for the Hal­loween Count­down, I’m show­cas­ing 31 Hal­loween DVDs from my per­sonal col­lec­tion. I have a lot of Halloween-related and hor­ror DVDs in gen­eral, but for this year’s count­down I’m only going to focus on my absolute favorites–the ones I con­sider 100% essen­tial for my enjoy­ment of the holiday.

More stuff and things!