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  • Accidental Aesop: In the first season, Jesse feels like a failure because he didn't achieve his unlikely dream of having a record deal at age 24. Despite this, he still achieves a stable life with a beautiful and independently successful wife, a loving family, and a good job as a radio DJ and club owner. This sends the message that just because you didn't achieve your high goals in life doesn't mean you can't be successful.
    • In the sequel series, we learn that he eventually found greater success working as the composer for General Hospital.
  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • In the episode "Silence Is Not Golden", Charles to Stephanie: "You know, when your dad's pounding you!".
    • From "The House Meets the Mouse: Part 1":
      Michelle: Two things can make you gag.
      Stephanie: Correction, Michelle: Three things can make you gag.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Are Kimmy's struggles at school pure laziness/stupidity, or does she have an undiagnosed learning disability?
    • Are Joey's motives for moving in purely altruistic or is he just cynically exploiting Danny's situation just to mooch off of him because his comedy career has not taken off? While Uncle Jesse's presence can be explained by his familial ties to Danny and the girls and he genuinely acts as a parental figure towards them, Joey doesn't seem to contribute anything meaningful to the household and it's not out of bounds to question why he's even there. On the other side, he's maintained several well-paying jobs over the course of the series for reasonable period of time, only losing them because of a falling out with the boss for justifiable reasons (workplace bullying during his Ranger Joe stint or defending Jesse from sexual harassment while in advertising). Once the girls became old enough to take care of themselves, Joey talked about moving out a few times only for the family to plead for him to stay so it's clear they like having him around regardless.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Michelle, especially in the later seasons. Fans either love her for her wisecracking humor and find her adorable or see her as a bratty Karma Houdini who always gets what she wants and steals attention from the other characters. The fact that she was the reason for the show's Tone Shift doesn't help.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • In the Season 5 episode "Crushed", there is a part where Stephanie and the guests break into a choreographed dance to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibrations" in the middle of her birthday party. The sequence itself is out of the blue and doesn't play any part in the story, but them all knowing and doing the same choreography is justified as many of the dancers were part of Stephanie’s dance team in a previous episode.
    • The first part of "The House Meets the Mouse" also had this short sequence where Joey visits one of the Animation Studios in the now closed "Magic of Disney Animation" attraction at the Disney MGM Studios park and draws a sketch of himself on a pad. The sketch suddenly becomes animated, and starts a conversation with Joey before bouncing around playing basketball. Afterwards, Joey leaves the studio to resume the special's actual plot. Soooo... money well spent on paying the Disney animators, guys?
  • Character Perception Evolution: Midway through the show's run, Michelle Tanner became the show's most popular character, with "Michelle" merchandise outselling all other show merchandise by a notable margin. This prompted the show's writers to give her a more prominent role in the series. However, they took it too far and she quickly became a divisive Spotlight-Stealing Squad who was the main cause for turning the show from family-friendly sitcom into aesop-dropping kid's show within the last three seasons.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • The show got a surprising cult following in Spain, known there as Padres forzosos (Forced Fathers).note To the point that Netflix advertised the sequel, Fuller House, as one of its stellar shows of the service, and even got back the vast majority of the voice actors from the original dub after 20 years, the only exceptions being Stephanie and Kimmy. And the former was because her voice actress had sadly passed away. And even then, their replacements were A-list voice actresses Marta Barbará and Graciela Molina, respectively.
    • The show is also hugely popular in Japan. To the point that it is seen as the FACE of sitcoms in that country over far more popular stuff back in America such as Friends and Seinfeld.
    • In-Universe: Jesse's version of The Beach Boys’ song "Forever" only reaches number 99 in the United States, but it reaches number 1 in Japan.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • The episode where Stephanie makes friends with a smoker and is pressured into trying cigarettes became this when Jodie Sweetin came out as a recovering drug addict.
    • The episode where D.J. stops eating when you learn about Mary-Kate Olsen having similar problems. Candace Cameron Bure herself also struggled with bulimia during production.
    • The coddling that Aunt Becky showers on Michelle and later Nicky and Alex came to bite Lori Loughlin in the butt in 2019 when she was exposed as one of many privileged parents who bribed coaches at Ivy League-level schools to get their children in as students.
    • In one episode, Jesse jokingly pretends to bite Joey's puppet Mr. Woodchuck's face after it tells a bad pun. A couple years after the show ended, Dave Coulier's dog chewed up the original Mr. Woodchuck puppet's face.
    • When Michelle dresses like a punk to make a bad impression on Claire, who's just started dating Danny, she starts the conversation in a manner that's not so funny now that the Olsen twins, especially Mary Kate, have developed smoking habits since growing up:
      Michelle: So, you must be the babe who's hittin' on my old man! Got a smoke?
      Claire: No, I'm sorry. I quit.
      Michelle: Too bad. I'm trying to start.
    • Season 7's "The Last Dance" (revolving around Papouli having died in his sleep the night before he was to do a Greek dance with Michelle for show and tell) also becomes harsher considering Bob Saget died in his sleep following a head injury.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • In "A Pox in Our House", Danny says Jesse's suit makes him look like he's spinning from a ceiling disco ball, which he does many seasons later in the grand opening of the Smash Club.
    • Lionel in "Our Very First Christmas Show" bears a resemblance to William Barr during his term as Attorney General in the Donald Trump administration.note  Barr resigned from his office on December 23, 2020, ultimately traveling home for the holidays and then not coming back.
    • In "Lust in the Dust", Stephanie tells DJ to put on the music from her dance class because "[her] name is DJ." Stephanie becomes a professional DJ — and takes the professional name DJ Tanner — on Fuller House.
    • Stephanie commenting about how she keeps feeling "Little Earthquakes" in "Aftershock".
    • The entire episode "Crushed", since Tommy Page was revealed to be homosexual upon his death in 2017. When Stephanie reads too much into him signing his autograph on her CD "Love, Tommy", Joey reveals that Tommy signed his autograph the same way. Page later remarks that he sometimes "accidentally" signs "Love, Tommy" to male fans as well, to which Joey replies, "You should watch that". Earlier in the episode, DJ remarks that she had a crush on George Michael before "his earrings became bigger than mine," six years before he publicly came out as gay.
    • In "Wrong-Way Tanner", Joey gives Derek a team jersey that's worn by the goalie as his reward for praising Joey after Derek claims he heard that "goalies get most of the girls". The jersey in question has rainbow stripes on it. While it may be unintentional, rainbow flags are heavily associated with the LGBT community; now add the fact that the actor playing Derek came out as gay later in life, nearly a decade after the series was wrapped up...
    • In "Beach Boy Bingo," DJ tells Danny that she chose Jesse over him to go with her to the Beach Boys concert because he has a music background and that if she had won a date with Oprah Winfrey, she would have asked him. While Oprah was undoubtedly successful at the time of the episode's airing, she was not yet the billionaire cultural icon and media mogul that she is now known as, and was more associated with the tabloid trash TV genre. While not quite a Take That!, the line is meant to be a throw-away joke to make Danny feel even worse than he already did, but safe to say - these days - most people would prefer to go on a date with Oprah over the Beach Boys.
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Candace Cameron was criticized for being too chubby and was pressured by the show to lose weight. Luckily, she didn't let it get to her. Her character also went through some eating disorder storylines.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Three guys living together raising kids in San Francisco... someone is bound to get ideas. Joey's and Jesse's boss in the advertising business, for one. Word of Saint Paul on the subject can be found here.
    • There's also slight Les Yay between Kimmy and DJ.
  • I Am Not Shazam: A lot of people refer to Dave Coulier's character as "Uncle Joey", even though he only gets called that after Nicky and Alex are born, and only by Jesse, Becky and the boys. It's something of a Berserk Button for the show's fans who will emphasize how he's not blood related to anyone else in the family.
  • Informed Wrongness:
    • In "Fogged Inn", Jesse is treated as in the wrong for getting mad at DJ for accidentally writing over his tape. Never mind the fact that she was in his room without his permission, had overwritten a jingle he was writing for a client, he had worked all night on it, and used equipment without his permission.
    • The series's last Christmas special has Jesse being portrayed as a Scrooge for being bitter on Christmas Eve. However, considering what he went through that day: getting in a fight with 20 guys getting Santa costumes, being sold overpriced parsley instead of mistletoe, being practically held hostage in a store, being on the receiving end of several annoying jokes, and nearly missing Christmas time with his family, it's pretty easy to see why he'd be pissed off.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Kimmy is loud, obnoxious, and disrespectful, but she's also a big Butt-Monkey who is always being insulted and mistreated by the Tanners. Even the adults are unnecessarily mean to her.
  • Memetic Molester: Fans have noticed how Jesse seems to love kissing toddlers, seeming to lose interest in Stephanie when she gets too old and starts kissing Michelle.
  • Narm:
    • While Jesse's "Forever" song (sung as a duet with Becky at their wedding and again sung to Nicky and Alex, which became a hit) is beautiful and touching, both of the videos for it (the first being an ill-advised Aladdin-inspired rap song and the other filled with your basic 90s videos kitsch and embarrassing visuals) are this.
    • Nicky and Alex's restaurant tantrum in "The Producer" qualifies. The twins don't scream, cry, act violent, or do anything remotely similar to an actual toddler tantrum. They begin their fit by stoically chanting "We want dessert! We want dessert!" repeatedly. Then they get out of their seats, walk over next to the table, and lie on their stomachs while weakly kicking and continuing their chanting. Soon, the chanting starts to sound like gibberish, and by the time Jesse decides to lay down the law, the twins "scream" by continuously saying "aaaaaaaah" (like opening their mouths for a doctor) while drumming on the floor with their palms.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Steve Urkel's appearance in "Stephanie Gets Framed" is considered one of the show's funniest moments and is beloved even by people who aren't particularly fans of either show.
  • Periphery Demographic: Similar to The Brady Bunch, the show is, for better or worse, very popular among people who had abusive or otherwise difficult childhoods. What better escape from that could there be than a show where every conflict is, at worst, a minor inconvenience that can be easily solved within twenty minutes?
  • Questionable Casting:
    • John Stamos, who had gotten his start a few years earlier on General Hospital, as a character who wasn't too dissimilar to Uncle Jesse, but was definitely darker.
    • Bob Saget. People who have seen his stand-up routines would be shocked. His comedy style is rather vulgar, but in the show the worst you get is him saying "hell" in one episode. Those who only knew him for portraying Danny Tanner would also be shocked. Below are a few shocked comments from YouTube users.
      "I will never watch Full House the same again"
      "He... he actually knows those words?"
      "My childhood is ruined."
    • Dave Coulier, on the other hand, has built his entire career around clean, family-friendly comedy, and was a perfect fit for the show.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Marla Sokoloff had a recurring role as Gia Mahan, Stephanie's best friend. Sokoloff is best known for playing Lucy Hatcher on The Practice.
    • Tahj Mowry also had a recurring role as Teddy, Michelle's best friend. Mowry is best known for playing T.J. Henderson on Smart Guy, Tucker Dobbs on Baby Daddy, and for voicing Wade Load in Kim Possible.
    • Jurnee Smollett also had a recurring role as Denise Frazer, Michelle's best female friend. Smollett is best known for playing Jess Merriweather on Friday Night Lights, Nicole Wright on True Blood, Black Canary in Birds of Prey (2020), and Leti on Lovecraft Country.
    • Miko Hughes also had a recurring role as Aaron Bailey, Michelle's classmate. Hughes is best known for voicing Tommy Anderson in Life with Louie.
    • Jason Marsden also had a recurring role as Nelson Burkhard, one of D.J.'s love interests in the final season. Marsden is also known for playing A.J. Quartermaine on General Hospital and for playing Rich Halke on Step by Step. Nowadays he's best known for his extensive voice acting career.
    • Danielle Fishel made a guest appearance as one of Stephanie's classmates pre-Boy Meets World.
    • Scott Menville had a brief role as Duane. Like Marsden, he is best known for his voice acting.
    • Rich Correll directed four episodes. Correll is best known for co-creating Hannah Montana and for playing Richard Rickover on Leave It to Beaver.
    • Dennis Rinsler and Marc Warren wrote 33 episodes. Both are best known as creators and executive producers of Cory in the House and Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher.
    • Tom Burkhard wrote nine episodes. Burkhard is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Zeke and Luther.
    • Rob Dames wrote eight episodes and Bob Fraser wrote five. These two are best known as creators and executive producers of Wipeout (1988).
    • Russell Marcus wrote seven episodes. Marcus is best known as creator and executive producer of Brandy & Mr. Whiskers and Corn & Peg.
    • Mark Fink wrote six episodes. Fink is best known as co-creator and executive producer of Hang Time.
    • Leslie Ray and David Steven Simon wrote four episodes. Both are best known for co-creating The Wayans Bros..
    • Scott Spencer Gordon wrote two episodes. Gordon is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of City Guys.
    • Arthur Silver wrote an episode. Silver is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Unhappily Ever After.
    • Charles Pratt, Jr. also wrote an episode. Pratt is best known as developer and executive producer of The Lying Game and for co-creating Sunset Beach.
    • Carolyn Omine was a writer for seasons 7 and 8. Omine is best known as a writer and producer on The Simpsons.
    • Malachi Pearson, who played Stephanie's friend Brian Kagan in seasons 2 and 3, would later go on to voice Casper the Friendly Ghost.
  • Rooting for the Empire: A lot of fans love Davey Chu, Stephanie's opponent in a spelling bee, because somebody finally beats a Tanner at something and he gets some good competitive trash talking digs in at her. Outside of that, he's also never rude or obnoxious to anyone in the episode, is a good sport throughout both spelling challenges, and Danny points out in-universe he's the Designated Villain to Stephanie's poor sportsmanship.
  • The Scrappy: Michelle's whiny posse of friends Aaron, Lisa, and Derek fit this trope perhaps even more than Michelle herself. Special mention goes to Aaron Bailey, generally portrayed as the most obnoxious of them all, though he's at least purposely written as a bratty kid.
  • Seasonal Rot: It's generally believed that it sets in during Season 5 when Jesse and Rebecca have kids of their own and is in full swing come season 6 for plenty of reasons. The addition of new characters to the main cast, the existing characters becoming heavily Flanderized while Stephanie gets Demoted to Extra, and Michelle becoming a Spotlight-Stealing Squad as the show became more targeted towards children.
  • Special Effects Failure: Common in the final season (1994-1995):
    • In "Dateless in San Francisco", the hot-air balloon flying over San Francisco is obviously a still image electronically being moved across the sky of a still of the city.
    • The storm in "Up on the Roof" has lightning flashing very slowly, almost looking like someone switching a light on and off at intervals. It doesn't help that some of the thunder Stock Sound Effects sound like they're coming from a tape recorder!
    • All we see of Kimmy's pet ostrich in "All Stood Up" is the head behind their fence, and it's clearly obvious it's a large hand puppet.
    • Perhaps the worst offender would be Michelle's feet-growing nightmare in "My Left and Right Foot", with Michelle's growing feet obviously being still photos of said large feet superimposed onto Michelle being zoomed up. Then when the rest of the family is in the living room, one of the large feet sticking out the door appears to be a huge plastic prop.
  • Spiritual Adaptation: The 1989 Made-for-TV movie "Those She Left Behind", starring Gary Cole as a young, affluent single dad who lost his wife during the birth of his daughter, was inspired by the plot of Full House. The creators said the idea behind it was basically taking the premise of Full House into a serious, dramatic direction.
  • Sweetness Aversion: An increasingly common criticism is that the show is too sappy to tolerate even watching. On an interesting note, any moment on a show that is overly sappy (even if the show itself is not normally) is called a "Full House Moment" outside of TV Tropes. The actors on the show had this response while the show aired, too. The humor could get pretty rough when the cameras weren't rolling as a way to fight off the spiritual diabetes.
  • They Changed It, So It Sucks: In-Universe example, where Stephanie's classmate Nelson constantly protests during Joey's pilot taping as the host of the children's educational show Mr. Egghead because he wants the old host back.
  • Tough Act to Follow: The entire main cast, save for the Olsen Twins (who have their collection of 90s/early 2000s videos for that), has this show as their most notable contribution to pop culture. While many of them have seen success elsewhere in the realm of entertainment, most notably Bob Saget note  as well as Candace Cameron and Lori Loughlin note , they have yet to top Full House's success, individually or as a group.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The fact that this show is a half-hour late-80s/early to mid-90s time capsule may explain its current popularity with adults, who enjoy the show as a nostalgia piece.
    • One example is the 1993 episode "The House Meet the Mouse" where the Tanner family visits Walt Disney World. The current film at the time was 1992's Aladdin (in which Scott Weinger voiced the titular character), and later attractions such as Disney's Animal Kingdom (opened in 1998, five years after the episode premiered) are not mentioned. Later in the episode, Danny and Vicky are in a restaurant where the former is about to propose to the latter, until the restaurant staff informs them he has a call that Michelle is missing. Back then, cellphones were a luxury item, so payphones and landlines are still in use and DJ and Steph have to know Danny was at the restaurant at that time in order to reach him. While losing a child is still a great concern, but with cellphones being more affordable nowadays and even some kids around Michelle's age carry them, the problem could be resolved quicker by simply calling her, being able to track the phone with a locating app (depending on the type of cell phone), or at the very least DJ (who as a teenager would very likely have some type of cell phone) being able to keep Danny up to date during the search.
    • Speaking of calling, Kimmy's personal phone, which she uses to talk to Danny when he calls her in the episode "The Apartment", which is yet another 1993 episode, is one of the Sports Illustrated Sneaker Phone, which was given away as a promotional item with subscriptions to their magazine for a time in the early 90s. It was an actual working corded phone built into a sneaker.
    • In "Happy Birthday, Babies", Danny tells Michelle her party will be in two and a half hours. When she asks how long that is, Danny says it's "two Sesame Streets and a Mister Rogers". In 2016, Sesame Street was shortened to a half hour, so now it's five Sesame Streets.
    • In Season 8's "All Stood Up" Stephanie is playing with some Lego Duplo blocks as she's waiting for her school dance date to pick her up. Because her date never arrives, she ends up creating the then-skyline of the New York City skyscrapers with Danny pointing out the two World Trade Centers.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The three Tanner girls come off like this, but particularly D.J. and Michelle.
    • D.J tends to look her nose down on anyone who meddles in her life or threatens her "coolness" through their "embarrassing antics" (especially Danny and Stephanie, and with Danny usually in comparison to what Jesse may be doing) while in reality, the other person may just be out of touch with what is "cool" or is just curious about her life as she spends more time with and tells her secrets to Kimmy or Steve. Also, while the show tries to portray her as just a typical teenager who's trying to find her way in the world, many times she comes off as a snooty bitch.
    • Michelle, meanwhile, constantly does whatever she wants with little to no consequences for her actions, the adults virtually catering to her every whim, and even her sisters are made to look wrong or insignificant in contrast to anything she does. This is especially prevalent between the time she's a baby and when she's just starting school. As she got older and had more instances of actual punishment, such as Jesse refusing to give her the lead in the school play and substitute teacher Joey disciplining her for acting up in class, she got very little sympathy from the audience, in spite of the use of "Aww" track and the show trying and failing at making her appear as undeserving of this.
    • The audience is suppose to feel bad in Season 5's "Take My Sister, Please" for Stephanie moving into the bathroom by claiming how neither DJ nor Michelle want to share a room with her, so this was her only option. The problem is that Stephanie was particularly pushy, rude, and bratty in this episode. She repeatedly and obnoxiously butts in on DJ's study date, being hypocritical on how it's her room and she can do as she pleases while ignoring that DJ has the same right as it's also her room, finally ending with her recalling an embarrassing moment of DJ's at an amusement park ride, the same place DJ is trying to have the potential date, which is enough for the guy decline the offer and leave. This is the last straw on what convinces DJ to request her own room. When the family discusses Michelle swapping rooms with DJ, they allow Stephanie a chance to present a counter-argument, but all she does is insult and name-call Michelle and how this isn't fair to herself. But the story tries to paint DJ and Michelle as the bad guys with Danny almost changing his mind about the arrangement despite them having very valid reasons for being against sharing with Stephanie.
  • Unpopular Popular Character:
    • While Kimmy herself is fairly popular (she was Promoted To Opening Titles after all), nearly everyone (save DJ) seem to only tolerate her. It's implied that not even her parents like her much.
    • None of DJ's family seems particularly fond of her boyfriend Steve (who is nothing but the quintessential nice-boy-next-door) either, but fans loved him. Being the voice behind Aladdin helped.
  • Values Dissonance: A minor case; Joey was often teased for liking cartoons as a grown man. Nowadays, this is a lot more accepted, especially with the rise of cartoons appealing to adults as well as children.
    • In "Secret Admirer", Kimmy is flattered at the idea that Jesse is in love with her, instead of, you know, completely freaked out and disgusted that a grown man is supposedly writing a preteen girl a love letter—something well-known as a grooming tactic.
    • The show's views on education come off as outdated. During the arc about staying in school, the show seemed to have the mentality that if someone drops out of high school it's entirely the students' fault and refuses to consider the fact they don't accommodate possible learning disabilities or a teacher's teaching methods or behavior when the dropout rate is exceedingly high for a middle-class area. Also, season 3's "And They Call it Puppy Love" has Jesse studying to retake his driving test while listening to music and it's treated as a bad way to study and the reason he failed the first time, as if there is only one effective way to study and no different ways to learn or that people have never gotten distracted while studying (which was what happened when Jesse got "caught").
    • The way Jesse was treated by a director in "IQ Man" would result in a major sexual harassment lawsuit nowadays, and Jesse and Joey's boss would be in trouble too for firing them for Jesse's insubordination. If Jesse were a woman, of course.
    • Danny talks about how, when they were in college, he and Joey would lie their way into high school girls' pants. He presents it as something he's not proud of, but on the order of maybe copying someone else's homework rather than a literal crime, which it was if they were in California, where they live as adults.
  • Values Resonance:
  • The Woobie: In general, Stephanie always has the most hardships of the family. Whether it be getting treated as a serious shoplifter just for misunderstanding a sign, fearing her family will no longer love her because she accidentally drove Joey's car into the kitchen, being traumatized she might lose Danny the same way she lost Pam after an earthquake, and just the fact that unlike DJ who was old enough to experience more of her life with Pam or Michelle who at least didn't get to experience the trauma firsthand, she doesn't have the fortune of either.

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