Creator Jeff Franklin had originally pitched something different: a show called House of Comics about three stand-up comedians living together. ABC pushed him toward a family angle, and the concept shifted to a widowed father raising three daughters with help from his brother-in-law and his best friend. The title, as it turns out, was a poker reference — the three girls as “three of a kind,” Jesse and Joey as “the pair.” That’s a full house.
The show nearly didn’t make it past its first month. Full House debuted on a Friday at 8 p.m., which Franklin himself called a “death slot,” and the reviews ranged from dismissive to openly mocking — one of the more charitable notices described it as “cheesy, saccharine, mind-numbing.”
ABC pulled the show that aired after it, I Married Dora, within weeks, and held a meeting to weigh Full House’s future. Franklin made the case to keep it alive. The network gave him room, and the ratings gradually improved — enough that by season two, the show had settled into the top 30 and was building a loyal audience of kids and families that critics mostly weren’t tracking.
Bob Saget wasn’t even the original Danny Tanner. Franklin recast the lead role before the premiere, convinced that Saget — then known primarily as a stand-up comedian — was the right fit for the show’s straight-man center. It was a harder sell than it sounds; re-shooting the pilot was expensive, and ABC wasn’t enthusiastic. Franklin pushed until they agreed.
When Full House became the flagship program of ABC’s new TGIF block in the fall of 1989, that call looked pretty good. At its peak, the show ranked in the top 20 in prime time and dominated the 2-to-11 age demographic. ABC used it as a lead-in to launch Family Matters, Home Improvement and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper — shows that went on to do just fine on their own.
VIDEO | Full House TV show funny moments (all 8 seasons)
The cast was notably young when it started. Candace Cameron was 10 when she was cast as oldest daughter D.J.; Jodie Sweetin was 5 when she took on middle child Stephanie. Baby Michelle was split between twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who were 6 months old when the show began. Viewers watched Michelle grow up in real time — toilet training, first bites with a spoon, first time on a bike, all of it.
By the time the show ended, the Olsens were 8 years old and already had their own TV movie series and a recording deal. Their off-screen fame had grown roughly in parallel with the show’s popularity, and they were well on their way to becoming a separate industry.
By the mid-1990s, the economics had shifted. Full House had become one of the most expensive sitcoms on television — the budget had reached $1.3 million per episode, roughly double the average at the time, due to escalating cast salaries and producer fees after eight years on the air. ABC was also moving away from programming aimed squarely at young children, chasing the 18-to-49 demographic that commanded higher ad rates.
When the network decided to put Roseanne in the Tuesday 8 p.m. slot for the 1995-96 season, Full House was out — despite still ranking 25th out of 142 prime-time programs. The cast and producers found out while they were already rehearsing the season finale, which meant there was no time to write a proper series ending.
The producers added a curtain call to the last episode, where the actors stepped out from behind the set and took a bow. Several of them had tears. Dave Coulier later said the whole thing “left a little bit of a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.”
VIDEO | Full House‘s most iconic phrases
The cancellation turned out to be, in a practical sense, irrelevant. Executive producer Dennis Rinsler predicted at the time that Full House would become “the Brady Bunch of the ’90s,” meaning syndication would do what prime time hadn’t — give it a second, longer life with new audiences. He was right. The show’s 192 episodes cycled through Nick at Nite and other cable channels for years, reaching kids who hadn’t been born when it premiered.
John Stamos said at the time of the cancellation: “I don’t think people will really get Full House for another five or ten years. They just won’t understand the impact.”
The sequel series Fuller House launched on Netflix on February 26, 2016 — with Candace Cameron Bure returning as D.J., now a widow with three kids of her own, recruiting her sister and best friend to help out. The premise was, by design, almost identical. That same year, Jeff Franklin bought the San Francisco house that had been used for the show’s exterior shots.
The photos and clips collected on this page capture the cast across the show’s run — from the early seasons, when the Tanner household was still finding its footing, through the later years when the Olsen twins were a phenomenon and the whole enterprise had become one of the most-watched family shows on American television.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Bob Saget, John Stamos, Dave Coulier (Actors)
- Bill Foster (Director)
Looking back: ABC folds holding a Full House (1995)
Although the cast and producers of “Full House” were surprised when ABC canceled the popular sitcom three months ago after eight solid seasons, they were not surprised when nobody paid much attention.
After all, they know that the true fans of “Full House,” which ended Tuesday night in a one-hour episode, were never crotchety TV critics or industry cynics.
Nor were they ABC executives, who folded their dependable “Full House” to play a wild card come fall — “Roseanne” — in hopes of attracting more of the coveted 1840-49 crowd on Tuesday nights.
Who are the real “Full House” fans? Bob Saget has seen them with their faces pressed to the glass in the next car over.
“It’s a very loving show,” said the former stand-up comedian and the father of three girls, both on the show and in real life. “When a car drives by and the kid in the back seat waves and goes crazy, I can’t be cynical about that. You have a child who appreciates what you do.”
Candace Cameron has seen the real fans — anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 of them at a time — during her 15 to 20 mall appearances across the country each year.
“‘Full House’ meant a lot to families who grew up with the show,” said Cameron, 19, who was only 10 when cast as oldest daughter DJ Tanner. “So many of them are so disappointed that it won’t be on anymore. Parents just love their kids to watch, and they sit down to watch with them.”
John Stamos has seen the real fans, who made him a teen-magazine heartthrob.
“I went through phases with the show,” Stamos said. “In the beginning, I loved it and I was fired up and I wanted to do good stories. Then I got bored and I wanted to leave. Then I realized how important the show was to families and children, and I didn’t want it to end.”
Full House: Three dads, three girls
In “Full House,” Saget portrayed a widowed talk-show host whose brother-in-law, a rock musician played by Stamos, and best friend, a comic played by David Coulier, help him raise his three young girls in a sitcom that could have been called “My Three Dads.”
For years, “Full House” was ABC’s star player, routinely ranking among television’s top 20 prime-time shows and helping the network build its successful “TGIF” lineup of Friday funnies.
ABC used “Full House” to launch numerous hits, including “Home Improvement,” “Family Matters” and “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper.”
But that was then. Despite ratings good enough to rank it 25th out of 142 prime-time network programs this season, “Full House” has fallen out of step. The old “family hour” slowly has given way to programming for hip young adults, whom advertisers pay big bucks to reach.
Meanwhile, “Full House” had become one of the industry’s most expensive sitcoms to produce after so many years on the air, due to escalating producer fees and cast salaries. The $1.3 million budget per episode was easily double the average cost of most sitcoms.
Full House bumped for Roseanne
What “Full House” delivered was truckloads of kids, routinely ranking as the top-rated primetime program among children 2 to 11. Ultimately, ABC felt that “Roseanne” was a better early evening candidate because its cutting humor attracts adults as well as children — even though it has always been considered too racy for young children.
“The business is just changing. They’re not making shows for kids and families anymore,” sighed executive producer Marc Warren, one of several producers and cast members who agreed to take a cut in pay, but to no avail.
“The networks want to own a piece of their shows. All those factors came together and ABC made the decision — unfortunately too late to give the show a send-off that fans would enjoy.”
The cast was rehearsing for the season finale when news of the cancellation trickled down in February. They were frustrated that they were not properly notified of the show’s demise.
Coulier said: “In the end, the whole thing left a little bit of a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.”
No real series finale
There was no time to write a series finale, so the show’s season finale had to do. But at the end of the last episode, the producers added a curtain call, where the actors come out from behind the stage and take a how. The actors knew this was their final curtain, and many of them had tears in their eyes.
When “Full House” premiered in 1987, it followed a proud Friday night tradition of such family’ shows as “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “Partridge Family,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Diff’rent Strokes.”
“We look at ‘Full House’ as the family every kid wishes he could be in,” said executive producer Dennis Rinsler. “You have three dads — a rock star, a comic and a talk-show host — who never put the kids down, and always solved their problems with love and understanding.”
Mary-Kate and Ashley grew up in front of America
“Full House” was one of the only shows on television where a baby grew up on the show, providing a seasonal family photo album. Michelle, played by twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, was introduced at 6 months old, and viewers witnessed her toilet training, her first bites with a spoon and her first time on a bike.
The Olsen twins, now fabulously famous at 8 years old, have their own lucrative network series and recording deal.
The rest of the cast is also faring well. Saget continues to host “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and he’s executive producing a TV movie loosely based on the death of his sister last year. Coulier sold his Mr. Woodchuck puppet — seen on “Full House” — to Toys R Us, and he’s pitching an animated series based on the character.
John Stamos wants to get a gig with a bar band in Australia and then gun for a feature-film career.
Lori Loughlin, who played Stamos’ wife, has been cast opposite Tony Danza in ABC’s new fall sitcom “Hudson Street.” Cameron is shooting a USA Network movie, and the other girls are pursuing TV work.
Full House: The Brady Bunch of the ’90s?
“My guess is that the show will be watched more now that it’s gone than when it was on,” Rinsler said, referring to syndicated reruns.
“It’s ‘The Brady Bunch‘ of the 90s,” Rinsler said.
Indeed, how many adults really noticed when “The Brady Bunch” was canceled by ABC in 1974? Legions of loyal children did.
“I don’t think people will really get ‘Full House’ for another five or 10 years,” Stamos said. “They just won’t understand the impact. A generation of kids have been watching this show their whole life.”
Full House opening credits (season 8)
