Fans of the classic sitcom Roseanne can now see the new theme song that will accompany the series’ revival later this month.
The opening should be familiar to anyone who watched the original run, which aired from 1988 until 1997. In those years, it included wordless wordless (played mostly by a saxophone) as the camera, starting and ending with the title character, would revolve around the Conner family’s kitchen table as they ate dinner, taking in each member or visiting friend in turn. In the eighth and ninth seasons, however, this was replaced with time-lapse pictures of the various actors, showing how they had changed over the series’ run so far. The ninth season also exchanged the saxophone for a harmonica and added lyrics by the band Blues Traveler.
The revival or “season 10” opening, now available on Youtube, eshews these newer and less popular elements. Here, we see the returning actors, as well as the title character’s grandchildren, huddled around a crowded kitchen table. The main difference from early seasons of the show is that the camera angle lets us see more of the kitchen around them, as characters walk over to the table, lean against the counters and so on.
Naturally, the characters joke around with each other—Roseanne eagerly licks a eggroll that her granddaughter tries to steal from her plate, for example—and it ends on the iconic Roseanne laugh.
Coming more than twenty years after the show ended, the new season will be nine episodes and feature most of the original actors. However, Glenn Quinn, who played Mark (husband of Roseanne’s elder daughter Becky), passed away in 2002; as such, Mark is presumed dead in the series as well. Meanwhile, Johnny Galecki, who played Roseanne’s other son-in-law David, will be coming back for only one episode.
In the original run, Becky had two actresses over the course of the series, who wound up sharing the role in later seasons. In this season, original actress Lecy Goranson will play her, while the second actress, Sarah Chalke, will play a new character, Andrea, who wants Becky to be a surrogate mother for her and her husband.
New characters will include Roseanne’s grandchildren Harris (played by Emma Kenney, and technically appearing in season 9 as a newborn) and Mark (named for his aforementioned uncle, played by Ames McNamara). It will premiere on March 27, 2018.
