The Conners Wednesday entered a new era, with Dan now a newly remarried man who lives with his second wife Louise. But the series’ opening titles haven’t been updated to reflect the change in family dynamics – and they probably won’t be updated anytime soon.
The fact that the roseanne offshoot has yet to change the main title order, seems very odd especially when you consider that A) roseanne switched things a whopping 11 (!) times over 10 seasons, and B) the scene shown in the conners opening credits represent the family’s first sit-down breakfast after Roseanne Conner died.
“We have not changed or modified it in any way [since Season 1]’ executive producer Bruce Helford acknowledged during a recent interview with TVLine. “Frankly, I imagine if we changed them, we’d include” [Katey Sagal]. But as far as she’s technically a regular, and whatever that means contractually, we’ll leave that open.”
Helford, of course, alludes to Sagal’s continued standing as a recurring guest star, despite Louise marrying into the Conner family and becoming stepmother to Becky, Darlene and DJ. But the EP previously assured us that Sagal — who appeared in 10 of Season 3’s 20 episodes, while also headlined ABC’s — has since been canceled. Rebel – will appear “quite regularly” in season 4.
“It’s always been the same. Even when she was doing Rebel, she put in her contract that she should be free to watch as many episodes of The Conners as she pleases,’ he clarified. “I don’t know if there’s a real number, but I know she’ll be in more than half the episodes.”
Sagal aside, the ABC comedy has had two chances to change its opening credits — first, when Maya Lynne Robinson (aka DJ Geena’s wife) was upgraded to a regular series after the pilot; and again when Jay R. Ferguson (Darlene’s blinker boyfriend Ben) was raised for season 3 – and neither took. (In The Conners‘ defense, though, nor Glenn Quinn’s Mark nor Johnny Galecki’s David has been added to roseanne‘s opening credits during the run of the original series.)
