By Nate Bloom
Contributing Columnist
“The Connors” Finale; “Celebrity Jeopardy”; Holocaust, 80 Years On
“The Connors” April 23 episode (ABC, 8:30 p.m.) is the series finale. Yes, the decades long TV odyssey of the Connors family has finally come to an end. “The Connors” is basically a sequel to “Roseanne,” a hit sitcom that ran from 1988-1997. Under the “Roseanne” series name, the program was revived from March to May, 2017.
That revival was cancelled after ROSEANNE BARR, 72, the series star, made online comments about Valerie Jarrett, an African American Obama administration member, and tied Jarrett in with the “Planet of the Apes.” The remark was widely viewed as racist and ABC cancelled the “Roseanne” revival.
Barr said she didn’t know that Jarrett was Black. Perhaps this is true — but it didn’t change things. Her remark immediately plunged her from being a star to being a minor, has-been comic actor.
The original “Roseanne” show featured the character that Barr created in her hit stand-up comic routines: a sassy, funny, working-class woman. Barr and hired comic writers ran with this character and the Roseanne series deftly showed the many problems (like money) of a loving working-class family.
The “Roseanne” revival was followed by a series called “The Connors” in October 2018. The premise was that Roseanne (the character) had died. The rest of the Roseanne revival characters reappeared as “The Connors” characters.
SARA GILBERT, 50, and MICHAEL FISHMAN, 43, co-starred in all three Roseanne-related series. They played the daughter (Darlene) and son (D.J.) of Roseanne and her husband, Dan.
I checked and I was astonished that Gilbert was 13 when she began acting on the first Roseanne show, and she’s now 50! She played Darlene for 18 years total. I’ve checked: no TV actor has played her type of role longer (child family member to adult member). She beats out Michael Fishman. He only appeared in the first four seasons of the original “Roseanne.”
As for Roseanne Barr: she was a leftist, who sometimes made antisemitic remarks(!), until about 2015. Then she swung to the right and became a strong Trump supporter. Frankly, Barr, now 72, is a mesuga who threw her career away by choosing to constantly make nasty, hurtful and often bizarre remarks.
Celebrity Jeopardy’s third season ends on April 23 (ABC, 9 p.m.) with the championship game. Each game has three contestants. All the players are playing for a cash payment to charities of their choice. They earn more (to donate) if they win their round(s).
30 celebs played in the first round (three players in 10 games). Five were Jewish (MAX GREENFIELD, 45, comic actor; JACKIE TOHN, 44, also a comic actor, SETH GREEN, 51, comic actor; SUSIE ESSMAN, 69, comic actor/stand-up comic; and DAVE FRIEDBERG, 44, a talented businessman who has had major roles in several innovative fields.
Greenfield, Green and Essman were eliminated in the first game. Tohn and Friedberg won their games and went into the semi-final game (four games, 12 players.). As I write this, just one semi-final game has aired. Sadly, Tohn lost in her semi-final game.
This leaves Friedberg as the last Jew standing. Friedberg was born in South Africa and he moved with his parents to Los Angeles when he was six. He’s a UC Berkeley grad (astrophysics, mathematical modeling). His first big accomplishment was creating and marketing workable crop insurance policies for farmers (“Climate Corporation”). Monsanto bought this company for 1.1. billion.
Google Friedberg for more info on his business activities and his podcast. I dug out that he’s married to ALISON BOURDE FRIEDBERG, 39. She’s a native San Franciscan and the couple live in San Francisco. They have 3 children.
Before their (2016) marriage, Alison taught kindergarten and at a San Francisco high school (“Aim High”) that held a summer school for disadvantaged students. So, it wasn’t a surprise that she and David told wedding guests to not give them gifts — they should donate to three charities the couple liked, including Mazon, a Jewish hunger advocacy organization.
“The Holocaust, 80 Years On” premieres on April 22 on PBS at 9 p.m. Here’s the PBS description: “Amid rising antisemitism around the world and 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Simon Schama traces the historical road of horror that culminated in the death camps. From Lithuania to Poland, the Netherlands and, finally, Auschwitz. [Narrator] Simon Schama confronts the enormity of the Holocaust as both historian and 80-year-old Jew, to understand how it happened and in the hopes of never again.”
Sir SIMON SCHAMA, 80, was born in and mostly raised in London. His mother’s family were Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Lithuania to the U.K. His father was a Sephardi Jew whose ancestors lived in Turkey and Romania.
Schama was knighted in 2018. He is an expert in art history and in the history of the Dutch, French and Jews. He teaches at Columbia University.