Trivia / Full House

• Billing Displacement: Going by the show’s premise and overall storyline, Danny is the main protagonist therefore Bob Saget should have received top billing. Instead, it’s John Stamos (Jesse) who gets top billing with a “Starring” credit across all eight seasons. Saget, on the other hand, is billed second to Stamos.^note Stamos’ crediting above Saget may be due to the former already having been known for his earlier role as Blackie Parrish (from 1982 to 1984) on fellow ABC series General Hospital and his role playing opposite Jack Klugman on You Again?, while Saget was a relative unknown outside the stand-up comedy circuit at the time they were both cast.
• Blooper: The panning shot of the Tanners, Jesse and Joey gathering for breakfast (starting with Danny picking up a sitting Michelle from the floor near the kitchen’s back door) that was featured in the opening and closing credits of the first two seasons sequences both have noticeable camera mistakes:
  • In the Season 1 version of that credit scene, the opening in the porch awning leading to the soundstage rafters is briefly visible as the camera zooms out while Danny carries Michelle to the kitchen table. The version shot for the original pilot, by comparison, managed to avoid such framing errors during the panning shot.
  • While the above mistake was corrected when that scene was updated for the Season 2 opening credits, a blown take of the re-filmed scene was actually repurposed for the final scene of that season’s closing credits. Unlike the take that was actually used in the opening, in the closing credit version, the camera shakes as it pans toward the table and was angled just high enough that part of the soundstage and the studio lighting above the back wall of the kitchen set (at stage left) are inadvertently visible for a few seconds.
• California Doubling: In a case where both setting and filming location are in California - studios in Los Angeles doubled for San Francisco (the former MGM lot in Culver City for most of the run, as when the show started Lorimar owned the lot; the WB lot in Burbank for the last two seasons). Only one episode was shot in San Francisco itseld (and both a Hawaii episode and the ones at Walt Disney World are on location). Then after production ended in 1995, the next show to use Full House's studio was Friends — Los Angeles doubling for New York! (The studio at the Culver City lot wound up being occupied by Married... with Children, as Sony Pictures had bought that lot after WB purchased Lorimar in 1989 {WB had been renting half their Burbank lot to WB since the 1970s}; when they moved in, they held an exorcism to rid the stage of the spirit of Full House.)
• The Cast Showoff: Two examples being John Stamos' music skills (Stamos has frequently toured with The Beach Boys and was a guest performer on their much-maligned album Summer in Paradise in 1992) and Dave Coulier's cartoon voice impressions, particularly Popeye and Bullwinkle and his hockey playing skills in a few episodes. In a sort of inversion, the show demonstrated Bob Saget's skills as a host on Wake Up San Francisco that led to his real-world gig as the original host of America's Funniest Home Videos. Also, Stephanie dances at every opportunity.
• Creator Backlash: Both Bob Saget and John Stamos were not excited to be stuck with a family sitcom. Saget enjoyed success as a foul-mouthed comedian before the show and was frustrated that afterwards people looked at him as a father figure. John Stamos tried to get the show behind him by taking on some of the most intense roles he could find, including those as a killer and rapist. Saget later found a niche by deliberately playing against his Danny Tanner persona, lampooning the show and shocking the audience by being as dirty as possible. It's notable, though, that the entire cast had a great time together, after its cancellation they would have private reunions as though they really were a family. The Sequel Series Fuller House came about mostly because they hung out with each other all the time anyway, with Saget and Stamos actually among the first to sign on.
• Completely Different Title: Was called in Padres Forzosos (Forced Fathers) in Spain due to a British sitcom that was also called Full House already being shown in Spain.
• Contractual Purity: How Bob Saget felt about his stint on this and his stint on America's Funniest Home Videos, both of which required him to act like a smiling, family-friendly milquetoast. He later claimed, in his extremely profane stand-up comedy act, "Those shows gave me Tourette's."
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: On any streaming service that has the show, the summary for "Stephanie Gets Framed" (the Steve Urkel episode) incorrectly calls Steve the Tanners' neighbor. The character lives in Chicago, and was only visiting San Francisco for a science fair.
• Executive Meddling: The season 6 finale "The House Meets the Mouse", which revolves around the Tanners taking a trip to Disney World, came about as a result of Disney's acquisition of ABC and their management commissioning a Very Special Episode that would show the family interacting with Disney. Thus why the episode can seem like a big commercial for a Disney vacation without much of a plot.
• Expy: Adult Kimmy Gibbler in Uncle Jessie's nightmare of being a Jaded Washout is Peggy Bundy in all but name.
• Friendship on the Set: The cast became close during the show's eight-year production and remained close years later. This is why they took Bob Saget's untimely passing in 2022 so hard. When Jodie Sweetin became addicted to meth, her fellow former cast members all helped intervene to get her into rehab.
• He Also Did:
  • John Stamos (Uncle Jesse) is also known for playing Dr. Tony Gates on ER and for playing Blackie Parrish on General Hospital.
  • Bob Saget (Danny) is also known for hosting America's Funniest Home Videos and for voicing the future Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother.
  • Dave Coulier (Joey) is also known for voicing Animal, Bean Bunny, and Bunsen in Muppet Babies and for voicing Peter Venkman in The Real Ghostbusters.
  • Candace Cameron Bure (D.J.) is also known for playing Summer Van Horne on Make It or Break It.
  • Lori Loughlin (Aunt Rebecca) is also known for playing Jody Travis on The Edge of Night and for playing Abigail Stanton on When Calls the Heart. Or was, until she got caught in a college admissions scandal in 2019.
  • Andrea Barber (Kimmy Gibbler) is also known for playing Carrie Brady on Days of Our Lives.
  • Scott Weinger (Steve Hale) is better known for voicing the titular character in Aladdin.
  • Alice Hirson had a recurring role as Claire Tanner, Danny's mother. Hirson is best known for playing Eileen Riley Siegel on One Life to Live.
  • In addition to his work on Full House and Fuller House, creator and executive producer Jeff Franklin is also best known as creator and executive producer of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.
• Hostility on the Set: Bob Saget and John Stamos initially didn't get along when the show first started. Stamos was said to have taken the acting seriously, while Saget had the tendency to make any person laugh. It was said the clashing styles didn't really lead the two to get along at first. They would work out their differences eventually by finding common ground and the two would become very good friends later on. When Saget died in 2022, Stamos appeared to be the most devastated amongst the cast members who publicly shared their grief.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The show's final curtain call is only available when someone recorded the series finale of "Michelle Rides Again"; finding it in high quality is a tough nut to crack.
• Life Imitates Art: Among similar shows, the cast became particularly famous for how close they became off-set. They regularly had "family" reunions, and were always guests for each other's various weddings and birthdays. Candace Cameron and Andrea Barber mentioned a house party where Andrea drank too much and Candace took her keys and had her lie down, remarking how it was so similar to a Golden Moment from the show. Even when Bob Saget tragically died in 2022, the surviving cast members reunited for his homegoing service. John Stamos and Dave Coulier served as his pallbearers.
• Making Use of the Twin: Michelle was played by both Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Child labor laws wouldn't allow one actor to work enough hours to play the part, so one would be swapped in when the other's time was up. Taken advantage of in four different episodes when the two appear on screen together for various reasons (character dream, hallucinations, identical cousins).
• Money, Dear Boy: Bob Saget stated in an interview that he played a clean role to earn money to support his family.
• The Other Darrin: Danny and Jesse's mothers are played by different actresses in the first few episodes.
• The Other Marty: John Posey played Danny in the original unaired pilot, which is available on DVD. At the time the original pilot was done, Saget was unavailable due to working as a "comic correspondent" on the CBS series The Morning Program.
• Playing Against Type: Bob Saget, who was an incredibly vulgar comedian with dirty language, played Danny Tanner.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: The Season 2 premiere "Cutting it Close" had Jesse end up getting his mullet cut off into a shorter style due to Stephanie cutting off a lock of hair during a game of "barber" with actual scissors. In real life, John Stamos (Jesse's actor) actually had his hair cut before Season 1 finished, as he felt the mullet was going out of style, and so in the last couple of Season 1 episodes and at the start of "Cutting it Close," Stamos was actually wearing a wig resembling his old mullet.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The Season 3 episode "Aftershocks" concerns Stephanie's lingering trauma after a major earthquake - it aired a couple months after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck San Francisco, which infamously disrupted the national TV broadcast of that year's World Series.
• Romance on the Set: Dave Coulier dated and later (briefly) married Jayne Modean, who played an adult Michelle on the Season 3 episode "Those Better Not Be The Days".
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: It was uncanny how Candace Cameron (D.J.), Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie), Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (Michelle) looked like sisters.
• Stunt Casting: With the Beach Boys as well as other sitcom stars like Kirk Cameron, Jaleel White, and Tahj Mowry.
• Technology Marches On: In the season three episode "Those Better Not Be The Days," the girls are missing the top 10 music videos on TV because they are making lunch for Danny, Jesse, and Joey. If the show came out today, they could just pause the TV and/or look up live feeds on the Internet of people saying what the videos are. Even back then, they could tape it. The season one episode "The Return of Grandma" had them talking about taping shows. However, Danny, Jesse, and Joey could say that these things are against the rules of the game they are playing.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The producers thought about replacing Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen after the first season because it was hard to work with babies. If that had happened they wouldn't be stars, and they managed to avert Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.
  • The show originally had plans for a ninth season on The WB. Candace Cameron who played D.J. was going to go to college and would be making sporadic appearances. John Stamos didn't want to switch networks (at the time, The WB was still a fledgling network that had yet to receive full national distribution), decided the eighth season would be his last and the show ended up being cancelled.
  • Paul Reiser was also considered for the role of Danny Tanner, but ended up being cast in another show featuring more than one dad.

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