If you’ve ever met or known a petulant toddler with no filter who knows or at least, thinks that they’re just the greatest person ever – then you’ve met Jackie Burkhart from That ’70s Show. Played by Mila Kunis for the entire run of the show, the character was easily one of the more popular, but at the same time polarizing characters on the show. That is in no small part thanks to Mila’s likeability as a person in real life.
On a sitcom, characters are always forced to be involved in one another’s lives, otherwise, there’s not a lot of situations for the series to explore. Despite being part of the basement crew, in any other world, Jackie is sitting at the “mean girls” table with the rest of the so-called popular girls’ club. But on That 70’s Show, she fit in (begrudgingly), with the rest of the crew.
Like any other of the characters on the series, there are plenty of things that make no sense about Ms. Jaqueline Beulah Burkhart; thanks to the nature of how sitcoms work. More than any other character, she was actually allowed to grow and mature as a person as opposed to the usual no one learns anything from week to week. There’s still plenty that makes no sense about her, or just choose to ignore.
Here are 20 Things Wrong With Jackie We All Choose To Ignore.
20. She’s Really Young
The producers of That ’70s Show were looking for 18-year-old kids to star on their show. When Mila Kunis tried out for the show, she famously told the producers of the show that she will be eighteen. She just neglected to tell them when. She won the role and was 14 at the time, but by then everyone loved her.
Her being pretty young got written into several episodes but was something that completely dropped by the end of the show, and Jackie was treated as the same age as the rest of the kids.
19. She Constantly Puts Up With Kelso’s Antics
The reason that Jackie started hanging out in the basement in the first place, was because she was dating Kelso. She was clearly smarter than the guy, but the two bonded over the fact that they were both superficially pretty. No matter the reason, Jackie shouldn’t have been putting up with her boyfriend’s pranks, antics, and treatment of her.
Kelso was unfaithful to her with Pam Macey, and Eric’s sister Laurie. If for some reason that’s not enough, how about making Jackie walk home while he drove his van right next to her, but technically she was the one who started that fight.
18. She Makes Fun Of Donna
As the only other girl in circle, you’d think Jackie would want to be a little nicer to Donna. But then you haven’t watched a sitcom in about…ever. Everyone on That ’70s Show isn’t very nice to one another. But Jackie’s especially not nice to her friends, particularly Donna.
Jackie finds just about every way she can to comment on Donna’s “stringy” hair, or her giant-sized frame, even her wanting to be with Eric. Like most self-centered people, Jackie mostly teased Donna to make herself feel better.
17. Despite Being Happy With Hyde, She’s Jealous Of Annette
When Jackie and Hyde finally started dating, it was something that fans didn’t even know they wanted, until it happened. They actually seemed to compliment each other and both seemed to actually be tailor-made for each other. She made Hyde want to not be a complete slacker, and Jackie wasn’t as self-centered as she normally was.
Jackie even actually seemed to be happy, until she saw her ex, Kelso making out with his new girlfriend. It caused an almost automatic, “get off my boyfriend!” and led to a very heated argument that almost ended the couple before they could get going.
16. She Dates Fez
Sitcomland is a strange place sometimes…most times…all the time. But this kind of stuff sometimes does happen in circles of friends. Jackie became part of the group by dating Kelso. She became a real person by dating Hyde. But the entire time on the show, Fez was trying to win her affections.
During the final season, with Hyde married, and Kelso off in Chicago; she finally gave in to Fez’s incessant whining. It was what plenty of shows do in their declining years, or final season. Smash two people together for the heck of it, which is exactly how this relationship felt. The writers tried to say she always felt something towards him, but it just didn’t click, like the rest of the final season.
15. Starts Liking Hyde
Perhaps Jackie saw Hyde as a challenge at first. Since she knew how beautiful she was and Hyde seemingly couldn’t care less about Jackie. As a matter of fact, during the early days of the show, he emphatically didn’t like her. Then he didn’t like the way his friend Kelso was treating her.
Jackie mistook this as Hyde liking her, and in return decided that she liked him. Despite his protests; which even Mrs. Forman saw right through, he asked her out and they would date for a few weeks.
14. Hangs Out In Eric’s Basement
She became a de facto member of the group by dating Kelso. But once they broke up, she still hasn’t exactly endeared herself to the rest of the group. Yet, she was allowed to keep hanging around Kelso and all of his friends.
On the flip side of that coin, there’s no way that Jackie would actually want to continue to hang around the ex and his friends. Even if she had proclaimed Donna as her bestie, who also wasn’t a fan of Jackie’s, she just wasn’t going to mean to her.
13. Friendship With Donna
For all her supposed smarts, Jackie was actually the typical ditzy valley girl that populated a lot of sitcoms. That was part of her charm. Even as she was being mean to all of her friends, she’d proclaim that Donna was her best friend. Donna seldom agreed, until one day she realized that it was true.
Donna had always, even when she didn’t really want to, act like a big sister to Jackie. When her mom split town, she even convinced her dad to let Jackie move in with them. An interesting friendship of one person constantly insulting the other one’s beauty.
12. Friendship With Eric
Not only did Jackie think that Donna could do world’s better than Eric, she openly and outwardly mocked the guy. That isn’t necessarily the strangest thing to happen, since all of his friends made fun of him on the show. But Eric would give it back to her in kind. Every so often though, he would follow his girlfriend’s example and treat Jackie nicely.
Of all of the friendships on That ’70s Show, this pairing always seemed to have come from left field. But still, Eric is the one guy in Point Place to not try to hook up with her, and despite his misgivings, he was always trustworthy whenever Jackie came to him.
11. Relationship With Red
Even though they all hang out in his basement, Eric and all of his friends know that Red really doesn’t like kids. Still, he does show the proper amount of affection any father would show to the several kids who show up at his house seemingly every day.
For some reason, maybe because her own father split, Jackie isn’t terrified of Red at all. She even dives in to hug him on more than one occasion. Even Red couldn’t believe or fathom it – “When the hell did this start? The kids all used to run away from me! That’s the way I liked it!”
10. Starts Dating Hyde
Jackie and Hyde became one of the great couples on the show. More than TV fairytale, Donna and Eric (even though it wasn’t a fairytale), certainly more than vapid Kelso and Jackie, Hyde and Jackie felt like a real teenage couple. But even after they tried it once in the early seasons, it was strange seeing them together at first.
Perhaps that’s why they hid it from everyone at first, only hooking up when no one was watching. While they complimented each other completely, Hyde on the surface was someone that Jackie would have never gone for.
9. She Never Truly Opens Up To Anyone
Unless you’re a giant amazon redhead, Jackie never really opened up to anyone during the show. If she had learned to open up and be more honest, honest even with herself, she might have been with Fez a lot sooner than the last five minutes of the series.
But for whatever the reason, she had a really hard time expressing herself. When she did, it was often too late – it’s what led Hyde and Jackie to break up permanently; sending Hyde to Vegas to down his sorrows and get married.
8. Almost Instantly Forgives Michael while she Seldom Forgives Hyde
When Jackie started dating Hyde, she began to be a little more tolerable as a person and started to grow into a real-life person as opposed to a stereotypical character. But she gained a flaw in doing so – she would be a little too harsh on her new boyfriend, where she fairly readily allowed her ex, Kelso to railroad her.
Maybe it’s because of the fact Kelso was a moron, or because he was pretty, but Jackie was always very quick to forgive him being unfaithful to her, and all of his other antics, but with Hyde she basically broke up with at every major infraction.
7. Her Two Moms
One of the fun things about That ’70s Show was it’s casting choices. They usually paid homage to some icon of the decade. Jackie’s mom was no different – ’70s style icon Brooke Shields was cast to Pam Burkhart in later seasons to play Jackie’s man-hungry mother. But she wasn’t the first star of the decade to play the role.
Eve Plumb was originally Jackie’s mom in a few early episodes. Eve’s name might not be household, but her iconic character – she played middle Brady girl Jan for years on The Brady Bunch.
6. Incredibly Self-Centered
Being self-centered is not an attractive trait at all, thankfully, for the most part, Jackie’s selfish nature was usually played up for comedy and everyone around her would call her out on it and/or roll their eyes at it.
Jackie had no real reason to be self-centered, other than her own pride in herself. Not that the group was deemed unpopular by the rest of the school, nor did anyone live in an affluent neighborhood, but someone with Jackie’s self-esteem would feel bad about herself hanging out with these kids, and act like she was better than them all the time.
5. Modeling Vs. School
Jackie wasn’t your typical “dumb blond” character, but she also wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box either. She did date Kelso after all. Nevertheless, she also knew the importance of a good education…or did she? Her idea of higher education wasn’t that inspired.
Jackie was always concerned with her looks more so than getting decent grades. At one point, she even thought it would be a good idea to go to college in Dallas so that she could be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.
4. Bosses Kelso Around
Jackie must’ve been a lot more superficial than anyone noticed at first. Why else would she date someone like Kelso, other than his looks? Which, in the beginning, was probably his only redeeming quality.
He couldn’t even realize what a decent girl he had, then again maybe he knew she wasn’t that decent to him at all. Jackie spent the better part of their relationship just bossing him around, yelling “Michael.” Most high school boys have no interest in being bossed around. While it shouldn’t be condoned, perhaps that’s why doofus Michael always found a way out of dating Jackie?
3. Wants Kelso To Marry Her While Still In High School
If Kelso didn’t want to be with bossy Jackie during high school, he certainly wouldn’t want to be with her for the rest of his life. Even Kelso wasn’t that dumb and irresponsible. Jackie was probably feeling a little lonely and thought it would be a good idea to ask her first love, Kelso to marry her – while they were still in high school.
Of all the hair-brained ideas of a hopeless romantic like Jackie, marrying anyone while still in high school would have to be on the list of bad ones. Bolting for California might have been a bit extreme, even for Kelso, it was at least a clear “no” which effectively ended their relationship.
2. Little Miss Popular
Jackie’s self–centered and confident, she knows that she’s beautiful. That could be grating – and is extremely grating since Jackie doesn’t have a shred of humility about her good genes. For all of her physical beauty, she thinks that it means that she’s Point Place’s most trusted confidante and adviser.
It is never warranted and seldom asked for, but Jackie is always ready to give anyone and everyone her “sage” advise. Her real self comes through when necessary, but on a surface level, the Little Miss Popular act is exactly what makes Jackie not popular at all.
1. Knows Her Way Around A Car
Jackie and Red become friends in the episode, “Career Day.” Just like a lot of TV show’s career day episodes, the characters find out that they’re capable of doing things far different than their stereotypical characteristics allow them to have any other week.
In this episode, Jackie is able to help Red fix his car. Considering how little Eric knows about cars and how handy he isn’t, Jackie instantly endears herself to Red. She’s not going to become a mechanic any time soon, but besides Steven, she is one of the few characters to have earned the guy’s respect.
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Is there anything else wrong with Jackie from That ’70s Show? Let us know in the comments!
