October 18, 1988: “Roseanne” Premieres

Left to right: Roseanne Barr, Lecy Goranson,

Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman and John Goodman

October 18, 1988: Roseanne premieres on ABC. At the time, she was a feminist, blue-collar, and hated rich guys. A lot can change in 30 years.

The show was based on the standup comedy of Roseanne Barr. Although she was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, the show was based in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois. Lanford was apparently outside Chicago, but it was no comfortable suburb: It was a run-down "Rust Belt" town, where factories had closed and laid people off.

Roseanne Barr played Roseanne Conner, formerly Roseanne Harris, a waitress at a diner. Eventually, she and a fellow waitress started their own diner, the Lanford Lunch Box. She was nasty and sarcastic, traits she inherited from her mother, Beverly (Estelle Parsons).

Her husband, Dan Conner (John Goodman), was a drywall contractor, who later ran a motorcycle shop. They had a few things in common: They were both fat and poor, and each could match the other for banter. And they each came from a broken home: Roseanne's father was a jerk and a womanizer, while Dan's mother was mentally ill, which left him emotionally stunted.

They had an older daughter, Becky (alternately played by Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke), who was more like Dan; a younger daughter, Darlene (Sara Gilbert, sister of Little House On the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert), who was athletic like Dan but, personality-wise, was just like Roseanne; a son, David Jacob, always referred to by his initials, D.J. (Michael Fishman); and, to reflect Roseanne's real-life pregnancy, 7 seasons into the show, another son, named Jerry in honor of Jerry Garcia, the lead singer of Roseanne's favorite band, The Grateful Dead, who had just died in real life.

Roseanne's sister, Jackie Harris (Laurie Metcalf) was in most episodes, and appeared to have more personal trauma from their rotten parents than Roseanne did: Unlike Roseanne, who married the first guy she ever dated (because she was pregnant), Jackie went through men like tissues, including an abusive boyfriend that Dan spent a night in jail for beating up, and an idiot husband with whom she had a child.

On July 25, 1990, the real Roseanne was invited to sing the National Anthem before a San Diego Padres game at Jack Murphy Stadium. In a conservative city with a large naval base, she yelled and screeched the Anthem, and got heavily booed.

In the 1995-96 season finale, Darlene married David, but Dan had a heart attack. In the 1996-97 season premiere, Dan recovered, and Roseanne won the lottery. They started splurging, and Dan had an affair. It all seemed so out of character. The show's ratings collapsed, and it was canceled. In the series finale, Roseanne is shown finishing a book, and says that the last season was her fantasy of what would have happened if Dan hadn't died from his heart attack.

At some point, the real Roseanne began veering to the political right, and became a supporter of Donald Trump, the kind of man that the 1988 version of Roseanne Conner would have hated -- on the basis of Trump's misogyny and his elitism.

In 2018, ABC revived Roseanne, with the same actors showing their characters' present-day lives. And the "retcon" was "retconned": Dan was alive and well, and there was no lottery win.

But after 1 season, Barr made a racist remark, and she, not the show, was canceled: The show was rebranded as The Conners, and it was revealed that Roseanne Conner had died due to her abuse of prescription drugs.

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October 18, 1988 was a Thursday. This was also the day DC Comics issued the issue of Batman: A Death in the Family in which Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin, died. I have a separate entry for that event.

Game 3 of the World Series was played at the Oakland Coliseum. The Oakland Athletics beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1. Mark McGwire hit a game-winning home run for A's, just as Kirk Gibson of the Dodgers had in Game 1. That Gibson homer gave rise to the name "walkoff home run." This remains the only World Series with 2 walkoff homers. This turned out to be the only game the A's won in the Series.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season began 17 days later. There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And in an "Original Six" matchup and an arch-rivalry, the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-3 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Steve Yzerman scored the winning goal, with 1 second left in overtime.

July 20, 1984: “Revenge of the Nerds” Premieres

July 20, 1984: Revenge of the Nerds premieres. 20th Century Fox initially billed it as an "underdog story," such as other Fox films as Star Wars, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, and The Sound of Music. The tagline was, "They've been laughed at, picked on, put down. But, now, it's time for the odd to get even."

Some of the stars became good actors: Robert Carradine as Lewis Skolnick, Anthony Edwards as Gilbert Lowe, even Curtis Armstrong as the not-at-all-nerdy, and indeed truly disgusting, Dudley "Booger" Dawson. It is truly hard to believe that Arnold Poindexter turned into Timothy Busfield.

The only known stars at that point were Bernie Casey, as national fraternity head U.N. Jefferson; and Ted McGinley, as Stan Gable, quarterback and head of the jocks' fraternity. It was the first time I can remember seeing James Cromwell (as Lewis' father) and, aside from a commercial for A&W root beer, John Goodman (as football coach Harris).

At the time, it felt like a victory over every guy and every girl who treated me the way the Nerds were treated. In retrospect, it was a horrible piece of moviemaking. And it feels like not just a ripoff of Animal House, but a doubling down on it, to the point where the good guys ignore Gilbert’s warning about bringing themselves down to the bad guys' level.

A "Facebook Friend" once told me, "I bought the DVD for that a couple of years ago in a two-pack with Porky's. What surprised me was that of the two movies, Porky's was actually less sexist and rape-friendly."

To paraphrase another movie, You either die a nerd, or you live long enough to see yourself become the fraternity jerk.

And yet, the film's success launched a franchise, which stretched 4 films. Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise was a Spring Break film released in 1987. Donald Gibb, who played lineman Fred "The Ogre" Palowaski in the 1st film, returned, and, at the end, "came out of the closet" as a nerd and was admitted to the "Tri-Lambs." Anthony Edwards had only a brief cameo, but the other main Nerds from the first film all returned, with Gibb as the only returnee among the enemy.

Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation was a TV-movie in 1992, with Lewis and Betty now married, and both professors at Adams College. Since any child they would have would be too young to go to college, Gregg Brinkley plays his nephew, Harold, who views him as "The George Washington of Nerds," and asks him to rebel against the new head of the board of regents, played by trash-TV pioneer Morton Downey Jr. Stan Gable, now a campus police officer, turns hero. The other original Tri-Lambs all return, with the exception of a different actor making a brief cameo as Lewis.

Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love was a TV-movie in 1994. A remake of the 1st film was planned for 2007, but location issues and the Hollywood writers' strike led to its cancellation. In 2020, Seth MacFarlane announced he would reboot the series, but, as of July 20, 2022, no progress has been made.

Bernie Casey died in 2017. The rest of the main cast is still alive.

UPDATE: As of July 20, 2026, there is still no remake. Robert Carradine was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and had at least 2 suicide attempts before a successful one in 2026. Three months later, Donald Gibb died of cancer.

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July 20, 1984 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. The Twins led 3-2 with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, with former Yankee Ron Davis on the mound. But he walked Mike Pagliarulo, and gave up singles to Ken Griffey Sr. and Omar Moreno to tie the game, and a double to Willie Randolph to lose it. Jay Howell was the winning pitcher, in relief of Dennis Rasmussen. Dave Winfield went 1-for-4. Don Mattingly went 2-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Keith Hernandez brought Wally Backman home with the winning run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the 11th inning. This made Jesse Orosco a winning pitcher in relief of rookie Dwight Gooden, who struck out 11 batters in 9 innings. Darryl Strawberry hit a home run.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 13-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The Phils' only run came on Mike Schmidt's 410th career home run.

* A doubleheader was split at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the opener, 4-3. The San Diego Padres won the nightcap, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Tony Gwynn went 5-for-7 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Texas Rangers, 3-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 1-for-3 with an RBI. Eddie Murray went 1-for-5. Cal Ripken went 2-for-4 with a walk.

* The Houston Astros beat the Montreal Expos, 8-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. In his brief stay with the Expos, Pete Rose had an RBI on a pinch-hit groundout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 4-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Jim Rice doubled Jackie Gutiérrez home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Oakland Athletics, 9-7 at the Oakland Coliseum. The Brewers scored 5 runs in the 9th to win it. Robin Yount went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Paul Molitor was injured, and did not play. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-2 with a walk and 2 stolen bases, before being pinch-hit for.

* And the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Seattle Mariners, 12-7 at the Kingdome in Seattle.