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TIME: Almanac 1990s
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<text id=93TT1776>
<title>
May 24, 1993: ABC's Star Wars
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
May 24, 1993 Kids, Sex & Values
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
TELEVISON, Page 75
ABC's Star Wars
</hdr>
<body>
<p>As they trash the network, Tom Arnold takes his talents elsewhere
and Roseanne vows to do the same
</p>
<p>By RICHARD ZOGLIN--With reporting by Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles
</p>
<p> Tom Arnold, always a blunt fellow, once offered this characterization
of himself and his wife Roseanne: "We're America's worst nightmare--white trash with money." He wasn't quite right. For most
of America, the couple are an outrageous but entertaining sideshow
to the three-ring circus of network TV. Only at ABC have they
become something of a bad dream.
</p>
<p> Upset at the network's agonizingly drawn-out indecision over
whether to renew his sitcom, The Jackie Thomas Show, Tom a week
ago announced he was leaving to do a new show for CBS. One unhappy
Arnold usually means two, and sure enough, Roseanne threatened
to take her top-rated show to another network as well. (ABC
has the contractual right to air Roseanne for one more season.)
By the end of last week, the parties had reached a face-saving
accord: a nonexclusive deal giving ABC the first look at shows
the couple will develop. But that hasn't silenced the fusillade
of abuse aimed at ABC executives. "They are evil people," Roseanne
told TIME. "Their attitude was, `We're going to teach this girl
a lesson.' It was a male supremacist attitude."
</p>
<p> With their crude, shoot-from-the-hips outspokenness, the Arnolds
are an oddly refreshing phenomenon in Hollywood. Anger in show
business is usually a carefully stage-managed affair--couched
in lawyerly evasion, discreet no-comments, calculated no-shows.
Such niceties are unknown to the Arnolds. They have turned bad
manners into a power statement.
</p>
<p> After marrying in 1990, they quickly became TV's most obstreperous
two-career couple. First Roseanne insisted that Tom be made
an executive producer of her hit show. Then she pressured ABC
to give Tom his own sitcom and air it in the choice time period
following Roseanne. The Jackie Thomas Show--in which Arnold
gamely battled poor material as a dim-witted, egotistical TV
star--went on the air in December but was a ratings disappointment:
though ranking in the Top 20, it lost an average 27% of Roseanne's
viewership. ABC hedged on whether it would survive.
</p>
<p> Brandishing her clout as the network's most valuable star, Roseanne
resorted to public arm twisting. In mid-April, she announced
on the Tonight show that she and Tom were moving to CBS. The
following week she complained to the New York Times that ABC
executives--primarily former entertainment chief Robert Iger--had lied and treated her with "disrespect." Their main beef,
the Arnolds say, is that ABC programmers told them they liked
Tom's show but kept putting off a decision on whether to renew
it. "They never, ever leveled with us," says Arnold. "They strung
us along so that I couldn't work on another show or sell Jackie
Thomas [elsewhere]. They told us we couldn't negotiate with
other networks."
</p>
<p> ABC, which has declined all comment on the dispute, finally
canceled the show a week ago. (Officially, the network says
only that the show is "off the air" because Arnold has left
the network.) The Arnolds' tantrum appears to have backfired.
"You can't publicly humiliate the head of a network and then
make him cave in," says independent producer Faye Mayo. "If
Roseanne and Tom had quietly negotiated behind the scenes, like
Cosby and other major stars, they would have probably gotten
what they wanted."
</p>
<p> The Arnolds, however, say they did get what they want. Tom's
new sitcom, in which he will play a factory-worker father, is
being created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, one of TV's hottest
producers (Hearts Afire; the Clinton Administration). "At CBS,"
says Roseanne, "they wanted Tom for his talent." Meanwhile the
Arnolds will start production this summer on a feature film
in which they play a working-class couple on the road. Roseanne
says she will honor her commitment to do Roseanne for ABC one
more season but vows to bar network executives from the set.
"They are not welcome," she says. After that, the show will
be offered to "whoever has the money. Except that it will go
to ABC only if they change the top executives."
</p>
<p> All this bluster ignores a couple of realities. Roseanne is
owned by Carsey-Werner Productions; it, not Roseanne, has the
ultimate say on the show's future. (Carsey-Werner executives
would not comment on Roseanne's problems with ABC.) Nor are
the Arnolds likely to find life outside ABC as rosy as they
might hope. Roseanne has shown no ability to draw an audience
in any fictional role besides Roseanne Conner. Her last film,
She-Devil, was a flop ("They exploited me," she says now), and
an April TV movie, The Woman Who Loved Elvis, in which she and
Tom co-starred, got middling ratings.
</p>
<p> As for Tom's new series, the Arnolds claim CBS has committed
to a fall launch and a 22-episode order. But as of Friday, a
CBS spokesman insisted, "Nothing has been confirmed," and insiders
say the show may be put off until midseason. "It's a great opportunity,"
said CBS broadcast president Howard Stringer of Arnold's new
show, "if it comes off."
</p>
<p> And now they're CBS's problem.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>