John Goodman Says Roseanne Barr is 'Missed' on 'The Conners'

As the Conners family is slated to return to the small screen without its matriarch Roseanne Conner on October 16, actor John Goodman explained how The Conners set feels different without his former TV-wife Roseanne Barr's presence.

"She is missed, definitely. After that many years, it's like a family," Goodman, 66, told host Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday. "Last year was so miraculous and so unreal that when it went away it was almost like a dream. I thought, 'OK. I'll be a big boy and handle this.' And I just crashed for a couple of weeks. All kinds of weird stuff happened. My wife got sick right after that. Then I fell down the stairs."

Barr was pulled from Roseanne after sharing a seemingly racist tweet that compared Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Barrack Obama, to a byproduct of Planet of the Apes and an Islamic group. After ABC initially renewed the show following a wave of stellar ratings, the network quickly dropped it due to Barr's scandal.

In order to help her former colleagues, Barr relinquished her financial stake and creative involvement in Roseanne. ABC subsequently ordered 10 episodes for a forthcoming spinoff series and Barr's character will be written off. Barr hinted during a September appearance on Brandon Straka's show Walk Away that Roseanne would suffer from an opioid overdose, but the character's cause of death hasn't been confirmed.

Fans will "have to wait until next week" to find out how Roseanne's death will be handled. The show's setup would be the "same family, minus mom."

"It was very weird doing the first show without her because she's my buddy. We'd just sit there and she'd make me laugh and I'd make her laugh, which was always fun because there's always a danger of her peeing herself," Goodman told Kimmel. "...She gave up a lot for us to be able to do the show, and I can't thank her enough."

Goodman isn't the first Roseanne alum to address how the set's dynamic differs without Barr. He joined fellow castmates Sara Gilbert and Laurie Metcalf for a joint interview published by People October 3, where they addressed how Barr's absence affected them.

"Sara and I had this scene in the first show where we addressed the grief," Metcalf, 63, told People. "Sometimes when you're an actor and you have to go to that place, you substitute something, but in this case there was no need to do that, because it was there. And it was real. And still makes me choke up, because that part of it's been really hard."

Gilbert equally explained how the show's "always been able to deal with heavy topics, particularly for a sitcom" and that "it's been kind of built into the mix."

The Conners will debut October 16 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.