The Conners’ Bosses Tried To Get George Clooney’s Roseanne Character For The Final Season, But I Honestly Totally Get Why He Said No

The original ABC run of Roseanne made it one of the most popular sitcoms in its day, and it’s since become one of the most popular sitcoms ever. Its follow-up The Conners has followed in those footsteps. Many of the original shows’ cast and regular characters have made appearances in the follow-up series, but when The Conners comes to a close tonight, it will do so without bringing back a few notable names, including George Clooney.

It’s something of a piece of historical TV trivia that one of George Clooney’s earliest roles was as Roseanne’s supervisor, Booker Brooks, on the first season of Roseanne. While he would go on to bigger and better things, in everything from Batman movies to Oscar wins, the producers of The Conners revealed they did try on more than one occasion to get Clooney to return, but he turned them down because it would have opened the TV guest star floodgates. Executive Producer Bruce Helford told TVLine: