The Jackie Thomas Show
Encyclopedia
The Jackie Thomas Show is an American sitcom that aired on the ABC
network from December 1992 to March 1993. The series received widespread attention due to its creators Roseanne Arnold
, then starring in the fifth season of her top-rated comedy Roseanne
, and her husband and Roseanne co-producer Tom Arnold
. The Jackie Thomas Show starred Tom Arnold as a misanthropic
sitcom actor.
comic and slaughterhouse
worker now starring in his own sitcom (a show-within-a-show), also called "The Jackie Thomas Show." As described in one review, Arnold's character was "an obnoxious, loud-mouthed tyrant
who fires writers, producers, actors, even the show's caterers, on the slightest whim." In the premiere episode (written by the Arnolds with Brad Isaacs), Jackie demanded that the child actor portraying his sitcom son be killed off, due to Jackie's jealousy over the amount of fan mail received by the boy.
"He's unbelievable," Tom Arnold said of the Jackie Thomas character. "It's a guy you love to hate. He has his own reality and it's different from the people around him. And you go, 'Gosh, the guy is such a jerk.' But you have compassion for him, especially as the show goes on, because you learn where he came from, what's really going on with him." The character was named in tribute to Arnold's two favorite comedians, Jackie Gleason
and Danny Thomas
.
From the beginning, The Jackie Thomas Show was intended to be an ensemble
production, as Arnold "didn't feel [he] was ready" to support a show on his own. The cast included recurring Roseanne guest star Martin Mull
as a network executive, Dennis Boutsikaris
, Michael Boatman
, Paul Feig
and Maryedith Burrell
as writers and Alison LaPlaca
as an office assistant.
The show was designed partly as an homage
to The Dick Van Dyke Show
, which centered around a fictional television variety show
with a tyrannical star. (A photo of Dick Van Dyke
was displayed prominently on a character's desk in the first Jackie Thomas episode.) Roseanne Arnold said that she had always "wanted to do a TV show that talks about television."
Roseanne said, "All the work we do is personal. It's based on my kids, my family. You just take it from real life. That's the funniest stuff."
Such comparisons were bolstered by a BBC
documentary, Feeding the Monster, which depicted the backstage activity behind the writing, rehearsal and filming of the season four Roseanne episode "Santa Claus." Although the documentary didn't mention The Jackie Thomas Show, the Los Angeles Times Jeff Kaye said that "the documentary unveils a real-life, parallel universe to the new series." Kaye wrote that "the show's writers live in constant terror, their exhausting work-weeks punctuated by Pepto-Bismol
swigging and all-night writing sessions. They are emotionally battered and their life expectancy on the show is short." The segment aired in Britain but was omitted from the documentary's American broadcast on the Showtime cable channel, due to Roseanne Arnold's relationship with Showtime's rival HBO.
of The Washington Post
wrote that The Jackie Thomas Show "seems a solid piece of comedy workmanship, yet remains stubbornly and unfunnily off-putting," largely blaming weak characterization; of the Jackie Thomas character, he said, "Thomas is a letdown when we meet him...a character smaller than life."
Similarly, Howard Rosenberg
of the Los Angeles Times
felt that "the only time that "The Jackie Thomas Show" truly works is when other characters are describing and creating mental images of Jackie's bullying, authoritarian tactics. When Jackie actually shows up in the person of the one-dimensional Arnold, the image disintegrates." Rosenberg called the pilot episode "weak and unsatisfying."
Rick Kogan
of the Chicago Tribune
reviewed the show more favorably, calling it "as solidly crafted a sitcom as I've seen in some time." He praised the pilot for introducing "an attractively quirky cast" and "a wholly conceived, interesting environment." John Freeman
of The San Diego Union-Tribune
also approved of Jackie Thomas, writing that it was "nearly as brilliant" as HBO's The Larry Sanders Show
, another series about a show-within-a-show.
-laced messages to three television critics who had reviewed Jackie Thomas: Ray Richmond
of the Los Angeles Daily News
; Matt Roush of USA Today
; and Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times. Roseanne told the media that the messages were sent in "self-defense" and that the critics in question had chosen to make personal attacks on the Arnolds instead of responding to the show itself. She said, "Generally what emerges in these reviews is fear and loathing of women. It's very misogynistic
. Something needs to be done. These people are affecting the revenues of the work Tom does and I do." She defended her use of the anti-gay epithet "faggot" in her letter to Roush, saying that her comments were "based on personal things I know about him." In a later interview, Tom Arnold said he supported his wife's efforts and said the epithet was an "anti-[Roush] term."
, the time slot directly following Roseanne; the Arnolds publicly acknowledged that they had used their clout
to have the show scheduled in what was widely considered the best time slot on television (although they denied rumors that Roseanne had threatened to quit her own show, with Roseanne saying "I didn't have to go that far"). To make room, the timeslot's former occupant Coach
moved to 9:30 PM on Wednesday, replacing the sitcom Laurie Hill
, which was cancelled.
Tom Arnold said in an interview before the show's debut, "There's pressure to be in that time slot we're in. We've got to get some numbers (ratings)
and maintain them. I think ABC believes in the show. And I think if it fails, if it's not meant to be, then we move on and I'll do another show for sure because, no matter what, doing the show has been good for me."
The Jackie Thomas Show debuted with the highest ratings of any network series premiere since Twin Peaks
in April 1990, holding onto 90% of viewers from Roseanne. Its ratings were slightly better than Coachs season average in the time slot, and reflected the smallest viewer falloff from Roseanne of any show that had ever been in the time period. The two shows were the top-rated programs for the week.
For the Jackie Thomas premiere, the Arnolds and ABC experimented with a new technique called the hot switch
, in which there was no commercial break between two adjoining shows. The preceding episode of Roseanne ended with the Connor family watching a TV set playing the fictional "Jackie Thomas Show," and viewers were then transitioned to the real Jackie Thomas Show. ABC commissioned a special minute-by-minute ratings report from ACNielsen
to measure viewer dropoff and found that most viewers stayed with Jackie Thomas for the entire pilot episode
.
In its second week, The Jackie Thomas Show fell to 18th in the ratings as it followed a Roseanne rerun
, which placed 3rd. The following week, a new Roseanne regained the #1 spot and Jackie Thomas rebounded to #4.
"When a show gets that kind of time slot, it can be good news and bad news," ABC president Ted Harbert
said at the end of December 1992. "The good news is that you have the best lead-in on television, and the bad news is that the network's expectations are higher because of that. But it has met our expectations so far."
ABC continued to utilize the hot switch for the programming block for the next three weeks before bowing to complaints from local stations and advertisers; once the commercial break between the two programs was implemented, dropoff between the two shows grew significantly.
Roseanne also featured a crossover
episode in February 1993, in which the characters took a road trip to California and attended a taping of The Jackie Thomas Show. In the same month, the Roseanne cast competed against the cast of Jackie Thomas in a three-episode series of The New Family Feud, proceeds from which benefited the Arnolds' foundation for abused children
.
During an April 13 appearance on The Tonight Show, Roseanne Arnold told Jay Leno
that she was considering taking Roseanne to another network following the 1993-1994 season if ABC did not renew Jackie Thomas. Such a possibility had been previously mentioned—but immediately dismissed—by Tom Arnold on the talk show Charlie Rose
in January. The morning after the Tonight Show interview, Roseanne repeated the threat in a phone interview on a KTLA
morning news show, saying "We don't want to be in business with people who make bad decisions." Tom Arnold told KTLA that if Jackie Thomas were cancelled, he would star in a new sitcom on CBS
, the same network that had wooed David Letterman
from NBC
a few months earlier.
In the KTLA interview, Roseanne repeated Tom Arnold's claim that ABC had previously told the couple that Jackie Thomas would be renewed. "I feel I deserve to be treated more honestly," she said. "Coming over to my house and promising me that the show is going to be on and then acting like they didn't ever say it...I am hurt, and I have given them a good show and product."
ABC president Robert Iger
responded to the Arnolds in an April 21 news conference, where he maintained that the network would make no commitments until May and stated that the power to move Roseanne to another network rested with the show's producers, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner
, and not with the Arnolds. Iger expressed his resentment that the Arnolds had made the issue so public. He also assessed Jackie Thomas as having performed "reasonably well under the circumstances" in terms of ratings. Although it placed 16th among 142 prime-time network shows for the season, The Jackie Thomas Show had lost about a quarter of Roseannes viewers on average, garnering a 23% audience share compared to the 31% share brought in by Roseanne.
In an interview published in the April 23 issue of The New York Times
, Roseanne said that her relationship with ABC was "absolutely over."
On May 20, 1993, CBS confirmed that Tom Arnold would be starring in a half-hour sitcom, titled Tom
, about a blue-collar worker
living in a trailer
with his five children. CBS committed to a 12-episode on-air commitment for the new show, which was later scheduled for a March 1994 debut. Tom Arnold convinced his former Jackie Thomas co-star Alison LaPlaca
to leave her commitment to another series in order to play his wife on Tom, replacing another actress who had already begun work. Tom did not garner high ratings and was cancelled in May 1994.
In November 1994, Tom and Roseanne Arnold divorced. Roseanne remained on ABC until the show's finale in 1997.
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
network from December 1992 to March 1993. The series received widespread attention due to its creators Roseanne Arnold
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997...
, then starring in the fifth season of her top-rated comedy Roseanne
Roseanne (TV series)
Roseanne is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC from October 18, 1988 to May 20, 1997. Starring Roseanne Barr, the show revolved around the Conners, an Illinois working class family...
, and her husband and Roseanne co-producer Tom Arnold
Tom Arnold (actor)
Thomas Dwaine "Tom" Arnold is an American actor and comedian. He has appeared in many films, perhaps most notably True Lies . He was the host of The Best Damn Sports Show Period for four years.-Early life:...
. The Jackie Thomas Show starred Tom Arnold as a misanthropic
Misanthropy
Misanthropy is generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings...
sitcom actor.
Premise
As Jackie Thomas, Arnold played a former nightclubNightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
comic and slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
worker now starring in his own sitcom (a show-within-a-show), also called "The Jackie Thomas Show." As described in one review, Arnold's character was "an obnoxious, loud-mouthed tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
who fires writers, producers, actors, even the show's caterers, on the slightest whim." In the premiere episode (written by the Arnolds with Brad Isaacs), Jackie demanded that the child actor portraying his sitcom son be killed off, due to Jackie's jealousy over the amount of fan mail received by the boy.
"He's unbelievable," Tom Arnold said of the Jackie Thomas character. "It's a guy you love to hate. He has his own reality and it's different from the people around him. And you go, 'Gosh, the guy is such a jerk.' But you have compassion for him, especially as the show goes on, because you learn where he came from, what's really going on with him." The character was named in tribute to Arnold's two favorite comedians, Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
and Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...
.
From the beginning, The Jackie Thomas Show was intended to be an ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
production, as Arnold "didn't feel [he] was ready" to support a show on his own. The cast included recurring Roseanne guest star Martin Mull
Martin Mull
Martin Mull is an American actor who has starred in his own television sitcom and acted in prominent films. He is also a comedian, painter, and recording artist...
as a network executive, Dennis Boutsikaris
Dennis Boutsikaris
Dennis Boutsikaris is an American two-time Obie-Award winning character actor. He is a Broadway Actor and frequent television guest star and leading man in made-for-TV movies...
, Michael Boatman
Michael Boatman
Michael Patrick Boatman is an Image Award-nominated American actor and writer. He is best known for his roles as U.S. Army Specialist Samuel Beckett in the ABC drama series China Beach, as New York City mayoral aide Carter Heywood in the ABC sitcom Spin City, and as sports agent Stanley Babson in...
, Paul Feig
Paul Feig
Paul S. Feig is an American director, actor and author. Feig is known for playing Mr. Eugene Pool, Sabrina's science teacher, on the first season of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch as well as Tim a camp counselor on the hit kids movie Heavyweights...
and Maryedith Burrell
Maryedith Burrell
Maryedith Burrell is an American television actor and comedian, best known for her role in the early-1980s sketch comedy series Fridays....
as writers and Alison LaPlaca
Alison LaPlaca
Alison LaPlaca is an American actress best known for the role of acid-tongued yuppie Linda Phillips in the Fox sitcoms Duet and its spin-off Open House, both of which aired in the late 1980s....
as an office assistant.
The show was designed partly as an homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....
, which centered around a fictional television variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
with a tyrannical star. (A photo of Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
was displayed prominently on a character's desk in the first Jackie Thomas episode.) Roseanne Arnold said that she had always "wanted to do a TV show that talks about television."
Comparisons to the Arnolds
Critics drew many comparisons between the premise of The Jackie Thomas Show and Roseanne and Tom Arnold's real lives. Like Jackie Thomas, Tom Arnold had worked at a meatpacking plant and as a nightclub comic before realizing fame and fortune in the sitcom world. The Arnolds were also notorious for quarreling with Roseannes writing staff and firing writers on a whim, much like the fictional Thomas. The couple acknowledged the similarities; Tom Arnold was quoted, "We wanted to take the show-business end of our lives and mix the public perception of us and the reality of us and put them into the show--the images of what people think maybe we did or what they've read that we did."Roseanne said, "All the work we do is personal. It's based on my kids, my family. You just take it from real life. That's the funniest stuff."
Such comparisons were bolstered by a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary, Feeding the Monster, which depicted the backstage activity behind the writing, rehearsal and filming of the season four Roseanne episode "Santa Claus." Although the documentary didn't mention The Jackie Thomas Show, the Los Angeles Times Jeff Kaye said that "the documentary unveils a real-life, parallel universe to the new series." Kaye wrote that "the show's writers live in constant terror, their exhausting work-weeks punctuated by Pepto-Bismol
Pepto-Bismol
Pepto-Bismol is an over-the-counter drug currently produced by the Procter and Gamble company in the United States of America and in Canada to treat minor digestive system upset. Its active ingredient is bismuth subsalicylate...
swigging and all-night writing sessions. They are emotionally battered and their life expectancy on the show is short." The segment aired in Britain but was omitted from the documentary's American broadcast on the Showtime cable channel, due to Roseanne Arnold's relationship with Showtime's rival HBO.
Reviews
Tom ShalesTom Shales
Thomas William "Tom" Shales is an American critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize...
of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
wrote that The Jackie Thomas Show "seems a solid piece of comedy workmanship, yet remains stubbornly and unfunnily off-putting," largely blaming weak characterization; of the Jackie Thomas character, he said, "Thomas is a letdown when we meet him...a character smaller than life."
Similarly, Howard Rosenberg
Howard Rosenberg
Howard Rosenberg is a retired TV critic for the Los Angeles Times. He worked there for 25 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In recent years he has written the book No Time to Think: The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-Hour News Cycle with Charles S. Feldman and compiled an anthology of...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
felt that "the only time that "The Jackie Thomas Show" truly works is when other characters are describing and creating mental images of Jackie's bullying, authoritarian tactics. When Jackie actually shows up in the person of the one-dimensional Arnold, the image disintegrates." Rosenberg called the pilot episode "weak and unsatisfying."
Rick Kogan
Rick Kogan
Rick Kogan is a Chicago newspaperman, a Chicago radio personality and a noted author.- Early life and education :A native of Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, Kogan was born the son of longtime Chicago newspaperman Herman Kogan and longtime Chicago literary and journalism fixture Marilew Kogan...
of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
reviewed the show more favorably, calling it "as solidly crafted a sitcom as I've seen in some time." He praised the pilot for introducing "an attractively quirky cast" and "a wholly conceived, interesting environment." John Freeman
John Freeman
John Freeman may refer to:*John Freeman , character animator for Disney, Marvel Studios and others*John Freeman , Australian politician*John Freeman , writer and literary critic...
of The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
also approved of Jackie Thomas, writing that it was "nearly as brilliant" as HBO's The Larry Sanders Show
The Larry Sanders Show
The Larry Sanders Show is a satirical television sitcom that aired from August 1992 to May 1998 on the HBO cable television network in the United States. It starred stand-up comedian Garry Shandling as vain, neurotic talk show host Larry Sanders, and centered on the running of his TV show, and the...
, another series about a show-within-a-show.
Faxes sent to critics
Soon after the new show's premiere, Roseanne Arnold received widespread attention when she faxed vitriolic, profanityProfanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
-laced messages to three television critics who had reviewed Jackie Thomas: Ray Richmond
Ray Richmond
Ray Richmond is a globally syndicated critic and entertainment/media columnist. Richmond has also worked variously as a feature and entertainment writer, beat reporter and TV critic for a variety of publications including the Los Angeles Daily News, Daily Variety, the Orange County Register, the...
of the Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....
; Matt Roush of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
; and Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times. Roseanne told the media that the messages were sent in "self-defense" and that the critics in question had chosen to make personal attacks on the Arnolds instead of responding to the show itself. She said, "Generally what emerges in these reviews is fear and loathing of women. It's very misogynistic
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
. Something needs to be done. These people are affecting the revenues of the work Tom does and I do." She defended her use of the anti-gay epithet "faggot" in her letter to Roush, saying that her comments were "based on personal things I know about him." In a later interview, Tom Arnold said he supported his wife's efforts and said the epithet was an "anti-[Roush] term."
Ratings and scheduling
The Jackie Thomas Show debuted on Tuesday, December 1, 1992 at 9:30 PM ESTEastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
, the time slot directly following Roseanne; the Arnolds publicly acknowledged that they had used their clout
Social influence
Social influence occurs when an individual's thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing...
to have the show scheduled in what was widely considered the best time slot on television (although they denied rumors that Roseanne had threatened to quit her own show, with Roseanne saying "I didn't have to go that far"). To make room, the timeslot's former occupant Coach
Coach (TV series)
Coach is an American television sitcom that aired for nine seasons on ABC from 1989 to 1997. The series starred Craig T. Nelson as Hayden Fox, head coach of the fictional Division I-A college football team, the Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles...
moved to 9:30 PM on Wednesday, replacing the sitcom Laurie Hill
Laurie Hill
Laurie Hill was a short-lived sitcom that ran on ABC in 1992. It starred DeLane Matthews as Laurie, a pediatrician who tried balancing her roles as a doctor and a mother to her son Leo. Her husband Jeff was a writer who worked out of their home....
, which was cancelled.
Tom Arnold said in an interview before the show's debut, "There's pressure to be in that time slot we're in. We've got to get some numbers (ratings)
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
and maintain them. I think ABC believes in the show. And I think if it fails, if it's not meant to be, then we move on and I'll do another show for sure because, no matter what, doing the show has been good for me."
The Jackie Thomas Show debuted with the highest ratings of any network series premiere since Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
in April 1990, holding onto 90% of viewers from Roseanne. Its ratings were slightly better than Coachs season average in the time slot, and reflected the smallest viewer falloff from Roseanne of any show that had ever been in the time period. The two shows were the top-rated programs for the week.
For the Jackie Thomas premiere, the Arnolds and ABC experimented with a new technique called the hot switch
Hot switch
In broadcast programming, a hot switch or hotswitching is where the ending of one television show leads directly into the start of the show in the next time slot without a Television commercial break...
, in which there was no commercial break between two adjoining shows. The preceding episode of Roseanne ended with the Connor family watching a TV set playing the fictional "Jackie Thomas Show," and viewers were then transitioned to the real Jackie Thomas Show. ABC commissioned a special minute-by-minute ratings report from ACNielsen
ACNielsen
ACNielsen is a global marketing research firm, with worldwide headquarters in New York City. Regional headquarters for North America are located in Schaumburg, Illinois. As of May 2010, it is part of The Nielsen Company.-History:...
to measure viewer dropoff and found that most viewers stayed with Jackie Thomas for the entire pilot episode
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
.
In its second week, The Jackie Thomas Show fell to 18th in the ratings as it followed a Roseanne rerun
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...
, which placed 3rd. The following week, a new Roseanne regained the #1 spot and Jackie Thomas rebounded to #4.
"When a show gets that kind of time slot, it can be good news and bad news," ABC president Ted Harbert
Ted Harbert
Edward W. "Ted" Harbert III is currently Chairman, NBC Broadcasting. Before joining NBCUniversal, he was the president and CEO of the Comcast Entertainment Group.-Life and career:...
said at the end of December 1992. "The good news is that you have the best lead-in on television, and the bad news is that the network's expectations are higher because of that. But it has met our expectations so far."
ABC continued to utilize the hot switch for the programming block for the next three weeks before bowing to complaints from local stations and advertisers; once the commercial break between the two programs was implemented, dropoff between the two shows grew significantly.
Roseanne also featured a crossover
Fictional crossover
A fictional crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, or because of unauthorized efforts by fans, or even amid common...
episode in February 1993, in which the characters took a road trip to California and attended a taping of The Jackie Thomas Show. In the same month, the Roseanne cast competed against the cast of Jackie Thomas in a three-episode series of The New Family Feud, proceeds from which benefited the Arnolds' foundation for abused children
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
.
Renewal battle
In January 1993, the Arnolds began to publicly discuss a potential renewal from ABC for a second season of The Jackie Thomas Show, despite the network's repeated refusal to make a decision before May. ABC did order four more episodes of Jackie Thomas in early February, a few days after an ABC spokeswoman said the network was "very happy" with the show's ratings, which at that point had averaged a 15.7 (ninth among 121 series) since its December debut. Later that month, Tom Arnold told multiple sources that ABC had told the Arnolds that the series would be renewed; ABC declined to confirm the report.During an April 13 appearance on The Tonight Show, Roseanne Arnold told Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
that she was considering taking Roseanne to another network following the 1993-1994 season if ABC did not renew Jackie Thomas. Such a possibility had been previously mentioned—but immediately dismissed—by Tom Arnold on the talk show Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose (talk show)
Charlie Rose is an American television interview show, with Charlie Rose as executive producer, executive editor, and host. The show is syndicated...
in January. The morning after the Tonight Show interview, Roseanne repeated the threat in a phone interview on a KTLA
KTLA
KTLA, virtual channel 5, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, USA. Owned by the Tribune Company, KTLA is an affiliate of the CW Television Network. KTLA's studios are on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson...
morning news show, saying "We don't want to be in business with people who make bad decisions." Tom Arnold told KTLA that if Jackie Thomas were cancelled, he would star in a new sitcom on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, the same network that had wooed David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
from NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
a few months earlier.
In the KTLA interview, Roseanne repeated Tom Arnold's claim that ABC had previously told the couple that Jackie Thomas would be renewed. "I feel I deserve to be treated more honestly," she said. "Coming over to my house and promising me that the show is going to be on and then acting like they didn't ever say it...I am hurt, and I have given them a good show and product."
ABC president Robert Iger
Robert Iger
Robert A. "Bob" Iger is the president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company. He was named president of Disney in 2000, and later succeeded Michael Eisner as chief executive in 2005, after a successful effort by Roy E. Disney to shake-up the management of the company...
responded to the Arnolds in an April 21 news conference, where he maintained that the network would make no commitments until May and stated that the power to move Roseanne to another network rested with the show's producers, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner
Carsey-Werner Productions
Carsey-Werner Productions is an independent production company founded in 1981 by former ABC writer/producer duo Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner...
, and not with the Arnolds. Iger expressed his resentment that the Arnolds had made the issue so public. He also assessed Jackie Thomas as having performed "reasonably well under the circumstances" in terms of ratings. Although it placed 16th among 142 prime-time network shows for the season, The Jackie Thomas Show had lost about a quarter of Roseannes viewers on average, garnering a 23% audience share compared to the 31% share brought in by Roseanne.
In an interview published in the April 23 issue of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Roseanne said that her relationship with ABC was "absolutely over."
Cancellation and aftermath
On Friday, May 7, Tom Arnold announced that he would wait no longer for a decision from ABC and was quitting The Jackie Thomas Show to develop a new sitcom for CBS. Both networks declined to comment. The following Monday, ABC debuted its fall prime-time schedule and officially canceled Jackie Thomas along with nine other shows. "The cancellation was made solely on the basis of ratings performance in the time period," ABC spokesman Steve Battaglio said. Less than a week later, the Arnolds announced that ABC Entertainment had signed a multi-series deal, including "on the air commitments," with the couple's production company Wapello County Productions.On May 20, 1993, CBS confirmed that Tom Arnold would be starring in a half-hour sitcom, titled Tom
Tom (TV series)
Tom is an American sitcom which premiered in mid-season 1994 on CBS. Tom was cancelled after eleven episodes.-Cast:*Tom Arnold as Tom Graham*Alison LaPlaca as Dorothy Graham*Jason Marsden as Mike Graham*Andrew Lawrence as Donnie Graham...
, about a blue-collar worker
Blue-collar worker
A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...
living in a trailer
Mobile home
Mobile homes or static caravans are prefabricated homes built in factories, rather than on site, and then taken to the place where they will be occupied...
with his five children. CBS committed to a 12-episode on-air commitment for the new show, which was later scheduled for a March 1994 debut. Tom Arnold convinced his former Jackie Thomas co-star Alison LaPlaca
Alison LaPlaca
Alison LaPlaca is an American actress best known for the role of acid-tongued yuppie Linda Phillips in the Fox sitcoms Duet and its spin-off Open House, both of which aired in the late 1980s....
to leave her commitment to another series in order to play his wife on Tom, replacing another actress who had already begun work. Tom did not garner high ratings and was cancelled in May 1994.
In November 1994, Tom and Roseanne Arnold divorced. Roseanne remained on ABC until the show's finale in 1997.