EXCLUSIVE – Jackie Mason: Donald Trump Responsible for ‘Roseanne’ Show’s Huge Ratings

NEW YORK — Comedy legend Jackie Mason posited that Donald Trump is responsible for the huge ratings success of ABC’s revival of Roseanne.

Speaking during his regular segment on this reporter’s weekend talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, Mason gave fellow comic Roseanne Barr the ultimate Borscht Belt compliment, calling her “a brilliantly talented yenta.”

Still, Mason attributed the Roseanne reboot’s staggering ratings to the television audience’s hunger for a show where the main character approves of Trump.

“Trump is responsible for the new revival,” Mason said. “If not for Trump, I don’t think they would have a show at all. Even though Roseanne is a brilliantly talented yenta.”

Mason continued:

And the premise of this show is such a sensation because you can’t hear one kind word about Trump any place else. And the country is so frustrated because they can’t find any place that you can hear anything about Trump without hearing his name mentioned with so much hate and venom and hostility.

If you watch the Academy Awards show, ordinarily you would hear about what is the best picture award. And over here, it turns into who could hate Trump the worst.  The hate Trump award for the biggest hater of Trump. They forgot to even mention the best picture, they’re so busy attacking Trump.

…

And you see the crowd there? The whole audience are perfectly dressed with a perfect dress and a perfect pair of pants. Everybody has 3 million dollars’ worth of jewelry.  And nobody is watching. You see the Roseanne show? They’ve got six dollars’ worth of clothes. They all look like rejects from the Salvation Army. … And they are 10 times more popular in 2 minutes with shmatas and rags then the whole Academy Awards business.

The revival of Roseanne premiered two weeks ago to 18.2 million viewers. The second episode had 15.4 million viewers.

CNN reported on the ratings of the premiere:

Roseanne also scored TV’s highest rating for the 18 to 49 demo for any comedy telecast since 2014, the year that the season 8 premiere of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory held that title. Arguably the most impressive stat is that Tuesday night’s episode actually topped the show’s original finale 21 years ago by 10% in total viewers.

The only scripted show to have a bigger audience this season was the post-Super Bowl episode of NBC’s This Is Us, which brought in 26.9 million viewers—a number that benefited from a big bump from the game.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.