While The Conners season 5’s Halloween episode didn’t explicitly mention Roseanne’s funniest Christmas outing, the sitcom spinoff did revive a plot from its predecessor. The Conners have always had a strained relationship with their neighbors. The chaotic family means well, but even back in the Roseanne days, they couldn’t help annoying their more conservative, staid neighbors. The Conners season 5, episode 6, “Book Bans and Guillotine Hands,” leaned into this with a subplot that doubled as a hidden nod to Roseanne season 6, episode 12, “White Trash Christmas.”
Since The Conners season 5’s Christmas episode was more concerned with Dan meeting his mother-in-law than the holiday itself, it was the season 5 Halloween episode that brought back a classic Roseanne storyline. When Dan encouraged the Conner family members to decorate the house since he was busy working on Darlene’s new home, the clan felt terrible about the prospect of missing out on Halloween decorations but didn't have time to put them up. They were very invested in the tradition—particularly Dan—as, meanwhile, Harris made a point of protesting local book bans by putting contested titles in Darlene’s little lending library, a plot that reinforces the episode’s Roseanne homage.
The Conners Brought Back Roseanne’s “White Trash Christmas”
If those plots sound familiar, it is likely because “Book Bans and Guillotine Hands” borrows both elements of both these stories from Roseanne’s “White Trash Christmas.” Long before The Conners started killing off Roseanne characters, the sitcom staged a lighter, sillier take on the same story. In “White Trash Christmas,” the Conner clan blew the bank on tacky Christmas decorations solely because their snooty homeowner's association sent a passive-aggressive letter telling homeowners to keep holiday decorations minimal and tasteful. The gesture was an act of defiance against the snobby homeowner's association and a reminder of the family’s anti-authority ethos, both of which came back in “Book Bans and Guillotine Hands.”
In “Book Bans and Guillotine Hands,” Harris is righteously angry about the prospect of local schools banning books, and a snooty representative of the homeowners association wastes no time telling Darlene that she won’t fit in with the neighbors, thanks to her little library full of banned books. The Conners gives Dan a lighter role this time around, as it is Darlene who must decide between appeasing the neighbors and standing up for her daughter while, back in “White Trash Christmas,” it was Dan and Roseanne who decided to go all out on the decorating despite the protests of the homeowner's association.
Dan’s Love Of Decorating Comes From Roseanne
While Darlene sided with Harris, Dan still got a storyline in “Book Bans and Guillotine Hands.” The episode saw him bemoan the fact that his adult children haven't decorated for Halloween even though, as noted early in the episode, the Conners invested a ludicrous amount of money and effort into their collection of holiday decorations. While building Darlene’s house and life with his new wife Louise meant Dan was too busy for decorating in The Conners season 5, the fact that he was still so emotionally invested in the process—as proven when he secretly turned Darlene’s new home into a haunted house—shows how much the events of Roseanne’s funniest Christmas outing meant to him.