John Stamos didn’t like the Olsen twins, Bob Saget, or even Full House at first
In his new memoir, Stamos talks about trying to get both the Olsen twins and himself fired from the first season of the ABC sitcom
Aux News Bob Saget
While Full House is undoubtedly one of America’s most beloved sitcoms, the cast wasn’t always one big happy family. In his new memoir If You Would Have Told Me, John Stamos opened up about trying to get pretty much everyone—including himself—evicted from the show.
First on the chopping block was Bob Saget, who Stamos apparently didn’t think was right for the role since he was a comedian rather than an actor. Saget was also jealous of Stamos’ relationships with the Olsen twins and Dave Coulier, according to the actor.
“Bob is the humblest egomaniac I’ve ever met, but he undercuts his narcissism by being so damn lovable… he makes up for his self-inflicted insecurity by being a self-inflicted aggrandizer,” Stamos writes (via Variety). “Bob and I tolerate each other and attempt to avoid interfering with each other’s creative processes, though it can be challenging.” (Later in the memoir, Stamos provides a touching tribute to the late Saget, who eventually became like a brother to him. Per The Daily Beast, he writes: “I’m heartbroken he didn’t think he was good enough. He was and always will be to me and the rest of the world.”)
Not even the Olsen twins—who were only 11 months old when the show began—were spared from Stamos’ blunted ax. Stamos apparently tried (and obviously failed) to get the twins fired, telling producers: “It’s either me or them. They’re not going to work out. They’ll ruin this show and my career.” In a moment that must have been pretty awful for everyone involved (and we’re not totally sure why Stamos is putting it out there for all to see now), he apparently got his wish and a new pair of twins were brought in, but they were, in his words, “quiet, calm, and homely as hell.” This wouldn’t do for Stamos, and he quickly asked for Mary-Kate and Ashley, who were waiting in the wings, to come back.
All of this bitterness isn’t that surprising, however, when one takes into account the fact that Stamos seems to have just really hated Full House in general, at least when it began. Of the show’s first table read, he writes:
The final scene calls for the whole cast to gather around a baby’s crib and sing the theme song to The Flintstones. By the time we get to “Have a Yabba-Dabba-Doo Time,” I’m having a Yabba-Dabba-Don’t Time. The reading ends, thank God, and I head to the lobby as fast as I can, avoiding everyone babbling how great the reading went. I dig through my pockets for change. I jam a quarter into a pay phone, get my agent on the line, and gently suggest, “Get me the fuck off this show!’” I’m dying to pull the rip cord on this family-friendly hell, but I’ll fulfill my contractual obligation to shoot the pilot. Keep it professional. The thing will crash and burn faster than my reputation, and I hope I can salvage some dignity with my next project. For now, stay cool. Control what you can control.
The show’s ratings were initially pretty bad, and Stamos recalls that his agents called him midway through the first season to tell him that an exit might be possible. But by this point, he had experienced a change of heart and said that the cast had become like family. The bond was solidified when his, Saget’s, and Coulier’s sisters all got sick around the same time. “Bob, Dave, and I are no longer three guys who work on the same show; we are brothers worried about amazing women slipping away from us,” he writes. “We’re seeing not only what is important in our own relationships with each other, but also our relationships with the fans out there who are struggling with issues of life and death.”
27 Comments
“The show’s ratings were initially pretty bad”
Full House debuted in the top 10 for the week, right behind noted non-hit The Golden Girls.
Full House absolutely was a terrible sitcom. It had a pretty professional cast, but compared to other shows at the time it was written towards families with young kids. I can see why Stamos was such a hater towards the whole thing considering he was a prime age to be doing other and better things but ended up stuck in a hokey sitcom. Still kinda his fault for not quitting though?
When I was a kid I loved everything that aired on the TGIF block, so it must have worked perfectly. But pretty much everything on it suffered from the same problems, though none as much as Full House did.
Full House was the worst of the early line up. I could tell even as a child. Compared to Perfect Strangers, Family Matters and Step By Step, it was the corniest thing on there. And TGIF was basically one big cornfield. I don’t know how Dinosaurs survives on there for three years. It got a lot worse when the lineup later became all Disney Channel-style shows, but the aggressive family atmosphere of the early years was the template for 7th Heaven and other explicit Christian entertainment.
I remember Perfect Strangers being ok. It was pretty heavy on the physical comedy but it didn’t feel like a show that was children the way Full House was.
That’s why it was the best of the early shows.
Have Mercy!
Yeah I was really surprised by this article calling it one of America’s most beloved sitcoms. I was 7 when it debuted, and I watched it every Friday for pretty much its whole run (we didn’t have cable), and everyone I knew watched it and everyone I knew hated it. My sister and I used to loudly groan whenever the music started up at the end when it was time to learn The Lesson. It was absolutely the worst of the TGIF shows. That said, somehow it warranted a reboot/sequel, so maybe it must have been beloved by someone after all.
Yeah, that’s the thing about most “beloved” sitcoms: they weren’t “beloved” so much as…on. My family watched Home Improvement every week. I don’t think a single one of us particularly loved it hated it; it was just preferable to whatever was on the other networks. Occasionally you’d luck out and what was on was genuinely good like The Simpsons or NewsRadio, but other nights it’d be Suddenly Susan versus Grace Under Fire or whatever and you’d just shrug and take your pick, because what else are you going to do? Read? It’s going to be wild trying to explain to my kid what the pre-a-la-carte TV era was like.
Right, with so few choices it was easy to be “beloved” according to Nielsen which just measured what people had on rather than how they felt about it. I imagine all of us who grew up during that time period were watching the exact same stuff, as I too watched Suddenly Susan and Grace Under Fire. LOL And none of it was good! Except yes, The Simpsons in its heyday and I did enjoy NewsRadio. Cheers was good. The Cosby Show (we didn’t know about the rape). The Golden Girls. Some gems. A whole lot of crap.I like having more choices of TV now, but now that I think about it I miss the shared human experience of us all watching the same bad shows.
Suddenly Susan was kind of funny in the beginning when it was kind of a Mary Tyler Moore knock off. But they had to make some will they/won’t they with her boss and it kind of lost it’s appeal.
I don’t believe there’s much to overthink here. It was completely inoffensive, with a likeable cast that delivered the expected beats every week. Enough people grew up with it as youngsters that it is remembered fondly. And Lori Laughlin was an absolute heater, in an appropriately wholesome way.
Yeah but I mean I am the person who grew up with it as a youngster and I knew then and I know now that it sucked ass. I don’t know that “completely inoffensive” translate into “America’s most beloved”? But apparently it does by some definition.
“Beloved” is definitely overstating the popularity of this show.
And “most beloved,” no less! But, you know, I was shocked when of all the family shows from that time Full House was chosen for a reboot, and people seemed excited about it? So I’m questioning everything since then. lol Maybe it was beloved and just nobody told me. I just remember it being one of the first shows that even my child mind was like yeah, this is terrible.
Full House absolutely was a terrible sitcomNot to mention that it was little more than an effort to serialize the film 3 Men and a Baby, which was a pretty lame movie. But Hollywood at the time loved doofus leading men, surrounded by hot women and cute kids.
Full House premiered 2 months before 3 Men and a Baby hit theaters.
That is absolutely correct. It was a show for kids. That’s fine but I wouldn’t call it beloved because of the nostalgia some people have for it. It doesn’t exactly stand up with adult eyes.
John had a right to be so demanding. He had just done a movie with Gene Simmons and Vanity. I’m sure Hollywood was knocking down his door.
Yeah he didn’t just wake up one morning in a trailer on the ABC lot wondering where he was. He took the job because it was the best one on offer.
Dude really told a story about how he tried to get two infants fired and then relented when their replacements were too ugly? Wow.
I guess you can do that when you look like John Stamos.
If John Stamos told me my child was ugly I would throw it in the trash
Yeah, flush that turd ASAP
Yes, I remember hearing about this when it was widely reported earlier this year. Maybe even on this site?
I didn’t like any of them either… including Stamos!
In fact, I still don’t.