Lorimar Telepictures / Courtesy of the Everett Collection
John Stamos is best known for portraying Uncle Jesse on the ABC sitcom Full House. While Stamos loves the recognition he’s receiving through the show, it wasn’t always like this.
The actor recently opened up about how he initially “hated” the comedy after realizing the show was more family-focused and not like Bosom Buddies as originally envisioned.
“Full House was … I hated that show,” Stamos said during an appearance on Hot Ones. “Obviously I liked it in the end, but it was kind of meant for me as Bosom Buddies… with a bunch of kids in the background. And while we were doing the casting, I was like, ‘They spend a lot of time casting these kids that are going to be in the background.’”
He continued, “We read it at the table and I was the star coming out of General Hospital … and we sit down and start reading and Jodie Sweetin, who plays Stephanie, starts reading her lines and people are laughing dead — I mean screaming.” And I was like, ‘What’s happening here?’ They couldn’t even hear my text, they were laughing so hard.”
Stamos said he ran into the lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel and called his agents and told them to “get the fuck off this show.” Then came Bob Saget because agents had advised him to check out the show.
“I fought it for a long time,” Stamos added. “And then I finally said, ‘What do I do?’ It’s a beautiful show that we built with love and kindness. I realized that there was no central character in this series. The central character was love and we were the best example of a loving family, not a normal family. And it was the new normal, now an unconventional family.”
Bosom Buddies was a 1980 sitcom starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari who pose as women in order to afford housing. Co-creators Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett produced “Full House” in 1987 from an idea by Jeff Franklin, who also wrote for Bosom Buddies.
Full House ran on ABC for eight seasons. A follow-up spinoff titled Fuller House was picked up by Netflix in 2016 and ran for five seasons.
Watch Stamos’ full performance on Hot Ones in the video posted below.