Carsey-Werner producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner sought to create a sitcom centered on a working mother as more than just an adjunct to the father figure, which led them to develop the concept for the show.

Tom Werner spotted Roseanne Barr on The Tonight Show and offered her the lead role because of her distinctive 'in your face' voice, even though her stand-up persona at the time was the 'domestic goddess' rather than a working-class heroine.

Under Writers Guild of America rules, only the writer of a pilot episode can receive creator credit, so Matt Williams—who solely wrote the pilot—was credited as the show's sole creator, with a subsidiary credit noting the work was based on Barr's stand-up comedy, despite Barr insisting the characters were based on her own family.

In 1993 it became public that Roseanne Barr referred to each of her 19 writers by a number instead of their name, and the writers wore shirts displaying their assigned numbers.

Establishing shots were filmed in Evansville, Indiana, the hometown of first-season producer Matt Williams, and the exterior of the Conner house was based on a real home located at 619 S. Runnymeade Avenue near Williams' alma mater, the University of Evansville.

Because Roseanne Barr's real-life brother and sister are gay, she pushed to introduce gay characters and issues into the show, saying her series sought to portray 'various slices of life' including homosexuality.

Early in the show's run, D.J. was played by Sal Barone in the pilot before Michael Fishman took over the role for the rest of the series.

Season 1 featured a running gag where the word 'corn' was used in every episode, while Season 5 had a running gag of each Conner family member (except Becky) wearing the same egg-and-chicken-printed shirt in different scenes.

Actress Sarah Chalke and original actress Lecy Goranson alternated playing Becky Conner starting in season six due to Goranson's scheduling conflicts with her academic studies.

For the ninth season, the show's theme song was re-recorded by the band Blues Traveler, replacing the original saxophone with a distorted harmonica and adding lyrics sung by lead vocalist John Popper.

John Goodman was largely absent during season nine because he was busy filming The Big Lebowski, and in the episodes he did appear in, he resembled his character Walter Sobchak from that film.

The 2018 revival's sets for the Conner house were rebuilt at the same studio where the original series had been filmed, and Sara Gilbert said a viral sketch she did with John Goodman as their Roseanne characters on her show The Talk inspired her to reach out to castmates about reviving the series.

The revival's premiere set Nielsen delayed-viewing records, gaining an additional 8.81 million viewers within a week of its initial broadcast, surpassing a record previously held by ABC's The Good Doctor.

Roseanne Barr was fired and the revived series canceled by ABC after she posted a tweet comparing former Obama official Valerie Jarrett to 'Planet of the Apes,' a remark widely condemned as racially insensitive; Barr later attributed the tweet to the sleep aid Ambien, a claim the drug's manufacturer publicly disputed.

Following Barr's firing, ABC greenlit a spin-off titled The Conners featuring the rest of the original cast without Barr, on the condition that Barr relinquish creative and financial rights to the show in exchange for a one-time payment.