This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Weirdly enough, Roseanne Barr's family sort of reminds me of my own.
They're loud. They argue. They're pretty funny. And yet, clearly, they love each other.
My family, however, does not include a former television icon who might be, well, a little bit unbalanced. And if Roseanne's new reality show, "Roseanne's Nuts" (Wednesday, 7 and 7:30 p.m., Lifetime), is actual reality ... well, then, clearly she's a little bit nuts.
The title is a not terribly clever play on words. The show is about how Roseanne - a Salt Lake native - moved to Hawaii, bought a macadamia nut farm "sight unseen," and is trying to "learn how to live off the line and just have a natural life."
She lives there with her boyfriend of eight years, Johnny. And they make kind of a cute couple, in a weird sort of way.
"Let's face it. She's challenging," Johnny says. "You are a total bitch sometimes."
Hard to argue with that.
"Roseanne's Nuts" is also about how Roseanne is, well, nuts.
"I was a big deal in Hollywood," she says. "After a while, I started thinking it was all (expletive), and that I was addicted to (expletive). I got real scared and I do not want to go to hell. And that came in my head. Whoo - you're going straight to hell.
"I can't lie anymore. I'm too old. I can't act like I'm interested in somebody who's boring the (expletive) out of me and I don't want to because I'm too (expletive) rich.
She is not, however, too rich to do battle with wild pigs, which are causing problems on her farm.
"I'm at war with these pigs," Roseanne says. "They want my nuts. They keep coming for my nuts. And they don't give up."
"They're the Jehovah's Witnesses of the animal kingdom," says Johnny, who's pretty funny.
Roseanne shoots at the pigs. She sics dogs on them. She has them captured. But then she has difficult doing away with them.
"I think I have to call my psychiatrist or something," Roseanne says. "I don't think I'm going to survive this."
As reality shows go, "Roseanne's Nuts" is pretty mild. Oh, she's bleeped a lot. And there's some blurring of nudity. (Ick.) But mostly it's just Roseanne being Roseanne on a macadamia nut farm.
How much of this is real, of course, is open to question. Does she really believe it when she says she's "attempting a psychic connection with an animal"?
And is this the real Roseanne or the Roseanne she wants us to think is real for the TV show?
"I sure like (Hawaii) 'cause it's not L.A," she says.
"You've got eight camera guys here," her son, Jake, says with a laugh.