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The Jackie Thomas Show ran from December 1992 until March 1993 on ABC.

Life on the set of a hit TV sitcom was itself a sitcom in this boisterous comedy starring Tom Arnold, which followed his wife's hit series, Roseanne on the ABC Tuesday-night schedule.

Parallels with real life abounded: Jackie Thomas was a Midwestern slaughterhouse worker and stand-up comic (like Tom Arnold) who got his own series and proceeded to drive his network and staff crazy (like Roseanne).

A big, grinning, egotistical, obnoxious guy, he was as innocent as a child and just as self-centered. His harried staff included: Jerry ( Dennis Boutsikaris), his head writer, a serious-minded man with impeccable credentials, as well as Laura and Grant ( Allison LaPlaca, Michael Boatman).

Rounding out the cast were Paul Feig as Bobby Wynn; Maryedith Burrell as Nancy Mincher; Breckin Meyer as Chas Walker; Martin Mull as Doug Talbot; Jeannetta Arnette as Sophia Ford; and Ann Cusack as Stephanie.

The Jackie Thomas Show was developed by Roseanne Arnold to give Tom his big chance; unfortunately the real-life series was a flop. Tom tried again the following season on CBS with Tom, which was no more successful.

A Review From The New York Times

Review/Television; The Arnolds Tweak Their Detractors' Cheeks

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: December 1, 1992

ABC's new Tuesdays-at-9:30 P.M. sitcom, "The Jackie Thomas Show," could be subtitled "Roseanne's Revenge."

Played with manic zest by Tom Arnold, Jackie is the menacingly lovable star of a top-10 comedy series, its backstage chaos bearing a remarkable resemblance to the weeping-and-wailing stories circulating behind the cameras of "Roseanne" a couple of years ago. Producers dumped, writers booted, an apparently power-crazed star on the rampage: it's all here. Only now, with Roseanne Arnold and Mr. Arnold as the executive producers, a new twist is given to the concept of based-on-reality television. Bad press is being transformed into hilarious television.

Tonight's premiere introduces this season's most promising collection of characters. Jerry (Dennis Boutsikaris) arrives as the show's new head writer, promptly putting a photo of Dick Van Dyke on his desk. Jerry's aspirations run to shows like "Barney Miller" and "Taxi." He will soon discover that Jackie's favorite series is "Green Acres," especially the scenes in which Arnold, the pig, turns on the television with its snout.

Jerry's assistant is Laura (Alison LaPlaca), who, as chief coffee maker, is probably the smartest employee in the place. When Jerry insists that everything is good so far, real good, she says encouragingly, "Denial: that's the spirit." The writing staff includes Bobby (Paul Feig), Jackie's old drinking buddy and now the show's joke guy; Grant (Michael Boatman), who doesn't want to submit story ideas because a bad one might get him fired, and Nancy (Maryedith Burrell), a veteran hack who once worked on "The Brady Bunch" and insists that "I'm the one who gave Marcia her depth." Doug, the network representative, is played by Martin Mull, perfectly cast as the kind of sniveling loser who once turned thumbs down on "Cheers." "Bunch of slobs sitting around in a bar," he says. "Who knew?"

Jackie himself is a bigger-than-life slob, wearing his crassness as a badge of honor. He once worked in a slaughterhouse and proudly recalls triumphing over the cattle with just a sledgehammer, a gun and the will to win. The bits and pieces that are shown of "The Jackie Thomas Show," the show within the show, indicate that it's a dopey domestic sitcom in the dumb-pop, patient-mom style of "Growing Pains." Off camera, the atmosphere is closer to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Bullying, suspicious, insecure, Jackie suddenly decides that he wants the character of his young son (Breckin Meyer) killed off the next week. The youngster is getting too much fan mail and turning into, as smarmy Doug puts it, the biggest heartthrob since Michael J. You-Know-Who. "I turn on my TV, and I see people dying all over the place," Jackie warns Jerry. "And you're telling me you can't kill one crummy little kid?"

Mr. Arnold's Jackie is plucked shrewdly from first-rate sources, including Jackie Gleason, whose offstage nastiness was often the stuff of legend, and Dabney Coleman's "Buffalo Bill," a master of beady-eyed paranoia. This Jackie navigates a perilously thin line between being oddly lovable and almost sinisterly vulgar. If the series can maintain his initially impressive momentum, television will have a winner even as television itself goes under Jackie's sledgehammer.

Underestimate the Arnolds at your peril. After emerging from its own months of chaos, "Roseanne" became a far stronger show, not to mention the nation's most popular weekly comedy. The Jackie Thomas Show ABC, tonight at 9:30 (Channel 7 in New York) Directed by Andrew D. Weyman; written by Roseanne Arnold, Tom Arnold and Brad Isaacs; produced by Peter Segal for Wapello County Productions in association with Lorimar Television; Ms. Arnold, Mr. Arnold and Mr. Isaacs, executive producers. Jackie Thomas . . . Tom Arnold Jerry Harper . . . Dennis Boutsikaris Laura Miller . . . Alison LaPlaca Bobby Wynn . . . Paul Feig Grant Watson . . . Michael Boatman Nancy Mincher . . . Maryedith Burrell Chas Walker . . . Breckin Meyer

A Review From Entertainment Weekly

TV Review
HIS SHOW OF SHOWS
SELF-EXILED FROM ROSEANNE, TOM ARNOLD'S BACK, PLAYING A LOUDMOUTH SITCOM STAR IN ABC'S THE JACKIE THOMAS SHOW. HERE'S HOPING IT FULFILLS ITS GREAT POTENTIAL

By Ken Tucker

Tom Arnold, who has had himself written out of Roseanne by being beamed up into an alien spaceship-twice-has returned to prime time as Jackie Thomas, an obnoxious comic with a top 10 sitcom called the jackie thomas show (ABC, Tuesdays, 9:30-10 p.m.). The idea is that TV viewers love Jackie because he's such a loud, lovable dope. But those same qualities are what make him such a headache for his writing staff, headed up by new recruit Jerry Harper, portrayed by Dennis Boutsikaris. Playing off the tabloid tales of temper tantrums and staff firings that lingered over the first few seasons of his wife's series, Roseanne, Arnold struts through The Jackie Thomas Show barking orders and driving everyone crazy. In the initial episodes of Jackie Thomas, as much time is spent introducing us to Harper as to Jackie himself, which might be a miscalculation. Boutsikaris, who starred in the short-lived 1991 sitcom Stat, always seems like a dramatic actor who has wandered into comedy-he's earnest, he reads his lines with feeling, but he's never funny for a second. Much better are Martin Mull, also fresh from Roseanne and doing his patented smarmy-weasel act as a network representative who, more than a decade ago, passed on the concept of Cheers (''Buncha slobs sittin' around a bar -who knew?''), and Alison LaPlaca, as Harper's smart, wry assistant. No TV actress can do wryness like LaPlaca, who, after being wasted in bad shows like Open House and-well, whaddya know -Stat, may have finally found the series that showcases her properly.

As for Arnold, he's good, using his usual physical tics-the shifty eyes, the incessant lip-licking-as comic mannerisms to convey Jackie's nervous desperation. Jackie is a funny guy who suspects he's really not that funny, who has somehow lucked into a show that millions of people watch every week. Jackie vents his insecurity by doing things like inserting the word bastard into a punch line during rehearsal and crowing, ''Hey, everybody, I wrote a line!'' At the same time, Jackie's not an unlikable guy; he has the courage of his vulgar convictions. When Harper tells Jackie he used to write for Barney Miller and Taxi, Jackie snarls, ''I hated those shows!'' Jackie's favorite series? Green Acres. As the character's name suggests, Jackie is an updated version of an old- fashioned kind of comic-big, braying joke machines like Jack E. Leonard, Jack Carter, or early-period Jackie Gleason. Those performers were primarily nightclub entertainers who made their reputations before it became common to plug a comedian into a sitcom the minute his stand-up act makes him popular. Arnold's Jackie is the result of what might happen when a comic of the old school encounters the new generation of TV-weaned sitcom writers. There's a fundamental difference in sensibilities, and the writers' comic rhythms, timed to the beats in a half-hour sitcom minus the commercials, don't match the expansive, toss-out- a-lotta-jokes-and-see-what-works approach of a Jackie Thomas. This is an extremely promising premise, but it's one that, so far, The Jackie Thomas Show has barely explored. Tom and Roseanne Arnold are executive producers of the show, and it is as if they're so unsure of Tom's potential charm, or lack of it, that they've decided to dole out his character to us in small amounts. Right now, the bulk of the series revolves around the Jackie Thomas Show writing team, which in addition to Boutsikaris consists of China Beach's Michael Boatman, Maryedith Burrell (Fridays), and Paul Feig. They spend long, fitfully amusing scenes sitting around pitching ideas and punch lines to each other, whenever they're not wishing their dictatorial boss was dead. In the series' debut, Boutsikaris' Harper puts a picture of Dick Van Dyke on his desk the day he begins work on the Jackie show-we're supposed to think that Van Dyke, who played a comedy writer in the old Dick Van Dyke Show, is Harper's patron saint. But Boatman and Burrell, though perfectly charming, aren't yet quite up to the standards of Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie; in fact, they're usually upstaged by LaPlaca's arched eyebrows and droll comments. The comedy-writer scenes really come to life only when, say, Jackie pops in with a pizza and a giggling bimbo of a date and orders the staff to leave the room so he can ''use the couch.'' There's a level on which Tom Arnold is playing Roseanne-if Roseanne Arnold had no talent and was stuck in a mediocre sitcom. (Whenever we actually glimpse a scene from the Jackie Thomas show-within-this-show, it's revealed to be a huggy little bore on the order of Growing Pains or Who's the Boss?, with Jackie as a dumb-but-plucky dad.) Whether viewers will enjoy these little in- jokes week after week-scheduled by no coincidence at all right after the great Roseanne-remains to be seen. But in the meantime, I hope future episodes will have more of Jackie Thomas in them. This is no time to get modest on us, Tom. B

Posted Dec 04, 1992

An Article from The New York Times

THE MEDIA BUSINESS; ABC's Extra Careful Look At 'Jackie Thomas Show'

By BILL CARTER
Published: December 7, 1992

ABC executives were so concerned about the performance of the network's new comedy, "The Jackie Thomas Show," that they commissioned a special minute-by-minute ratings report on the show's premiere episode last week.

In a twist on real life, the comedy stars Tom Arnold, husband of ABC's biggest star, Roseanne Arnold, as an abrasive, abusive star of a network comedy show. The series is extremely important to ABC because it occupies the most favorable time period on ABC's schedule for a new show, immediately after "Roseanne," the No. 1 show in television. ABC's goal with the period is to capitalize on the enormous audience -- and revenue -- "Roseanne" generates. A Strong Success

The main fear for ABC, and any network with a hit show, is that a following show will suffer from what the networks call the falloff factor, a steep decline in viewers from a hit to the show immediately following it.

ABC had some reason to be concerned about the appeal of "The Jackie Thomas Show" because of some poor results in audience testing before the show went on the air. But in its premiere episode "The Jackie Thomas Show" was a strong success. It had a 21 rating, following on "Roseanne's 23.3 rating. Each rating point represents 931,000 homes with television.

That was the best performance by any show following "Roseanne" since 1989 when the series "Chicken Soup" began with a 21.8 rating. But that program's popularity quickly faded.

ABC said "Jackie Thomas" had the smallest falloff from "Roseanne" of any show that has ever been in the time period.

The Arnolds, co-executive producers and part owners of "Jackie Thomas," had devised, along with ABC, an especially effective way to segue from "Roseanne" into the new show. At the end of "Roseanne," her fictional family, the Conners, sat around a TV set that was playing the fictional series "The Jackie Thomas Show." Then Mr. Arnold's show began.

ABC used no commercial break between the two shows, having moved the usual local station break back into the last few minutes of the "Roseanne" episode. Viewing Pattern

In paying the A.C. Nielsen Company a special fee for a study of the minute-by-minute ratings, ABC was trying to determine whether the "Roseanne" viewers would follow the unusual transition between the shows and would stick with "Jackie Thomas" during its half-hour on the air.

The results were encouraging for the network. Most viewers stayed with the show from start to finish, a sign that for at least one entire episode, they were not bothered by the abrasiveness of Mr. Arnold's character.

In an earlier use of the technique, ABC commissioned a minute-by-minute ratings study in 1990, when it began an experimental drama series, "Cop Rock," which had several segments in which the police characters broke into song. The research quickly discovered that every time the cops started to sing, viewers started to tune out.

An Article from Time Magazine

Abc's Star Wars
Monday, May. 24, 1993 By RICHARD ZOGLIN

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."

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."

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."

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.

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."

And now they're CBS's problem.

With reporting by Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles

For a look at a crossover between The Jackie Thomas Show and Roseanne go to http://www.poobala.com/jackieandroseanne.html