'One Day at a Time' crew: If you liked working-class 'Roseanne,' maybe you should watch us

Kelly Lawler | USA TODAY

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – There is more than one show on TV about working-class Americans, and the cast and creators of Netflix's "One Day at a Time" want you to know that.

Specifically, ABC's canceled "Roseanne" (and its spinoff "The Conners") aren't the only sitcoms tackling working-class issues. "One Day" has done it for two seasons on the streaming service.

"I wrote and deleted about 10 tweets (about 'Roseanne')," says series co-creator Mike Royce. "We were all like, ‘If you like that show, you should maybe watch (our) show.' "

"One Day," renewed for a third season, is a reboot of the classic 1970s Norman Lear sitcom and follows a Cuban-American, single-parent family in Los Angeles that often deals with issues of financial struggle, race and class.

Speaking about the series at the summer Television Critics Association press tour Sunday, the cast and creators reacted to the controversies surrounding "Roseanne" since the revival stormed back on ABC this spring.

"It’s a shame what happened to ‘Roseanne’ because I’m a fan of the show," "One Day" co-creator Gloria Calderon Kellett told USA TODAY. "I loved seeing the Conner family. I loved seeing (a family that is) not perfect, super-skinny, (where) not everyone looks perfect out of a magazine shoot, people talking about real-life issues, family. I think what people are responding to (on 'Roseanne') is real-life stories."

"One Day" also deals with those things, she said. "I wish that ('One Day') had been in that conversation too of course, but I think that people want to be seen, people want visibility, everyone."

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Royce explained it was an ad for the "Roseanne" revival that referred to the Conners as "the family that looks like us" that got him almost-tweeting.

"It was bad wording on ABC’s part," he said. "I think in some ways they were referring to when ‘Roseanne’ came out in the first place (that) most of the families were glammed up, so I understand the context. To try to give them credit, they weren’t trying to say it in the way most people took it, but it was enormously tone-deaf, and it was bad."

Royce also found a much-maligned "Roseanne" joke, in which the character referred to "black and Asian sitcoms," to be equally tone deaf.

"I kept trying to do the etymology of what led to that joke, and all I can think of is she prides herself on her ‘un-PC-ness’ so she wanted to make an un-PC joke about ‘Oh, it’s all the same (stuff),’ " he said. "That’s the generous version of it. All those shows, the reason that they’re good is that there are both cultural differences and similarities that we’re Americans, but we also come from our family culture and our nationality culture."

Rita Moreno, who plays "One Day" matriarch Lydia, had the last word on "Roseanne" and its eponymous former star:

"We work in a strange business, it’s so contrary in some ways. But I don’t like her anyways."

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