The Floor Plan According to Roseanne

I guess from many of my posts you would think that I’m obsessed with Roseanne. And yes, that may be a little bit true. Roseanne is the one show that after several decades of being on television I can still sit down and watch no matter what time of day or season.

There’s one thing however that’s always bugged me about the show – the house’s floor plan. Now I’m not an architect, engineer, draftsman or person of any real education concerning blue prints, etc but I’ve always been fascinated by floor plans. When I was a kid my dad would draw house plans for people and I’d sit on the floor next to him and draw floor plans for the loft my Ken Doll and his boyfriend from North Korea that he met on the internet would move into when gay marriage was legalized…

Yeah as a kid I was totally gay. GAY GAY GAY. I was so gay that at about 2 years old at my cousin’s wedding I threw a fit because I wanted a wedding dress like she had so my dad had to put me in one of his big t-shirts so I’d shut up. Someday if I can find pictures of it I’ll post them, I know I’ve seen them somewhere.

Anyway, when I was growing up I used to watch Roseanne all the time, it made me feel normal to see how abnormally they functioned I guess. During my parents fights, which they had very frequently I would pretend that we were the Conners because they seemed a lot happier.

WOW tragic, huh! Dear god that brick needs to go right back in the wall, f’real.

Still after like 20 years of watching the show the floor plan bugged me because I couldn’t figure it out. Everything made sense to me except the master bedroom/master bath configuration that never seemed to fit right with me. I’ve looked online several times for some kind of clue but I could never find a PDF or even a jpeg of the floor plan so it continued to haunt me.

Until three days ago. I spotted it while watching the show, the missing link in the house. The part I never understood was the doors actually, the doors they walk through to reach the bedroom or bathroom from the kitchen didn’t match the ones going from either room into the kitchen, they seemed switched. Three days ago however I noticed A HALLWAY. Yes that’s right.

WOOT.

I doubt many of you are as excited about this as I am but it ended a question that’s lingered in my head for a long time. I’m a simple guy that takes simple pleasures and this is one that has seemed to make my life a little more complete for some reason.

I have this blogging censor that keeps me from writing stuff that I don’t think anyone will give a shit about like Dan and Roseanne Conner’s Floor Plan but this time I said to myself “no, just go ahead and hit that ‘publish’ button. SOMEONE out there has to be wondering about the same thing so even if nobody else gets it, someone will.”

So here it is, the Conner Family’s Floor Plan.

The Roseanne Set

Yes, the set is still standing and alive and well. I got a comment on my facebook page from my friend Asa Benally that I met at the Seagle Colony in New York saying that the Roseanne set had also been used for the TV show Family Matters. Although I don't personally see it, I did find out that the set has been modified and used for many other productions. Here is a picture of the set now, still at Lacy Studios that I found on Flikr.

So where did everybody go???

So according to the rumor mill Roseanne Barr is in talks with Fox to reprise Roseanne. OMG How cool would that be? She’s stated that if the Conner’s were around today, DJ would have died in Iraq and after Dan’s death and Roseanne’s depression they would have lost the house...

There are so many avenues she could take that though, in the last episode she revealed that the entire last season was made up and they had never actually won the lottery, but she was writing it in her memoir… so what happened with that? Did it get published? Did she loose the house, then make a ton of cash off her book and move to Chicago? What about Darlene? And Becky? Did she end up having a baby like they implied in the last episode? These are things I wonder about while laying in bed at night listening to Boards of Canada.

So in reality, where the eff is everybody now? What are the two Becky’s doing? What about DJ??? I took a minute to check up on everybody and see what’s going on. Here’s the skinny.

Dan – John Goodman is still alive and well. In 2009 he is expected to have completed 9 movies including the recent “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. Goodman also portrayed Pops Racer in the recent live action adaptation of Speed Racer.

Jackie – After Roseanne’s completion Laurie Metcalf went on to star in many Stage roles as well as a regular on the TV series circuit. She’s had roles on shows such as King of the Hill, Dharma and Greg, and Third rock from the sun. Every now and then she pops up as a guest star when I’m watching sitcoms and I say “Hi Jackie!”

DJ – No Kids, DJ isn’t gay. Michael Fishman disappeared from any kind of screen or stage, save a Larry King interview, an episode on Seinfeld and Walker, Texas Ranger and the movie AI. I finally spotted him on AI in the back seat of the car before they go to Rouge City. He’s now married and has a couple kids.

Becky I – Alicia Goranson, AKA Becky I pulled a DJ and more or less disappeared. She’s been in a few television roles such as Sex and the City and Fringe. Goranson now writes a blog entitled “Don’t Shoot the Messenger” at http://aliciagoranson.blogspot.com. I’m pretty sure that’s her at least. It’s comprised mostly of poetry, and it reads pretty well too.

Becky II – Most of us now know and love , AKA Becky II as Dr Elliot Reid on Scrubs. She’s mostly stayed on the TV circuit but has appeared in several movies as well. You can find her on myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/sarah_chalke

Mark Healy – Glenn Quinn was actually Irish and put on an American accent. He was a musician and collector of star wars memorabilia and partial owner of a club in North Hollywood, CA. After Roseanne he went on to portray Allen Doyle on Angel before he died in 2002 of a heroin overdose.

Kevin AKA David Healy – Johnny Galecki is still a working actor, most recently as Leonard Hofstadter on the TV series “The Big Bang Theory”. He too is on myspace, and lookin damn sexy if I do say so myself. http://www.myspace.com/johnnygalecki check him out!

Beverly Harris – Estelle Parsons is currently 81 years old and in 2008 took the role of Violet Weston in the play “August: Osage County”. She is also due to appear in the movie “Salomaybe?” in 2009. Parsons is still active and in good health.

And of course, Roseanne is still a major celebrity icon, she never seems to really go away. I would LOVE to see what she could do with an updated version of Roseanne, it seems to be so popular now anyway with fox bringing back shows like Absolutely Fabulous and Melrose Place. Even 90210 is back on the air, isn’t there room for Roseanne?

What IS real???

Last night, at 2am, I decided to google "what is real?" because I was doing my nightly questioning of reality and turned up this really neato page. Check it out here.

The REAL House of Conner - Pics of the real Roseanne House

Last week someone commented on my old WordPress site where I originally posted the Conner's floor plan about the relation between the actual house and the set from the show. The comment read:

"The problem is the front door. It doesn't fit the house layout. The door is on the right corner on the outside shots and on the inside shots the door is in the middle. >I was at the actual house today (no one lives there) and the floor plan inside the house is not the same as on the show. It's not even close. The stairs in the real house are straight ahead as you walk into the house and the living room is to the left. I took pics. If you want them then send me an email."

So I emailed Allen (the comment poster) and he gladly sent me the pictures of the front of the house as well as the Lobo, now a Pizza place and bar called "Talk of the Town". Allen also said this about the interior:

"The inside is not the same layout on the show. The picture window is were the living room is and about 10 feet back is a wall parallel with the front of the house. To the right is another section that could be a second small living room but it is overshadowed by the stairs and then it looks like the kitchen is in the back."

Unfortunately Allen couldn't get any pictures of the interior because the house was vacant and dark inside but the shots he did get are pretty good. This is the house they used for all the exterior shots of the house in the cut scenes and such, enjoy!

I think it’s starting to get bad…

In 1995 I made a little discovery called America Online. My mom was a teacher and she would get the discs brightly exclaiming things like “5 hours free!” And immediately I was excited. As soon as the modem finished screaming the friendly gentleman exclaimed “Welcome!” and “You’ve got mail!” My pupils dilated. My blood pumped faster. instantly I knew I was hooked.

After I used up those five little hours I decided to find out what else my modem could do so I found the four message boards in Roswell, NM and each one had about 2-15 users on at a time, and that was during peak hours.

Then BLAM, non-AOL 14.4bps internet service hit New Mexico featuring Netscape 1.0! I was double hooked. It wasn’t long before I found IRC and super basic web-based chat, like the kind you’d have to press reload to see new posts. My favorite was Café Kyoto, pretty much the only chat room I could find at the time, and now I can’t even find it on google.

Now here it is, 14 years later and I am currently a member of:

Myspace
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
DList
lifeOUT
Gay.com
HotorNot (even though I deactivated my account!)
Photobucket
Blogger
Redbubble
Eventful
FMyLife
Ning (and about 6 mini social networks inside that one)
YouTube
Rethos
AND Yahoo!

Is this a problem? Does that count as an addiction? Is there a group I can go to, or maybe just a message board or something I can join?