If it was a Friday night- or later on, a Tuesday- between the years of 1987 and 1995, you knew where you were. Sitting on your couch, staring at the Tanner family’s blue plaid couch. Full House was that unicorn of a show which transcended demographic, because we all loved it. We were all of us Tanners.
Which is pretty crazy, if you think about it. I didn’t have a whole heck of a lot in common with Danny, Jesse, Joey, DJ, Stephanie, Michelle, Rebecca, Kimmy, Alex, Nicky, Steve, or even Comet. (Especially not Comet.) My Dad’s best friend was not a stand-up comedian. San Francisco was this nebulous idea of a place that featured a huge bridge. I had never, ever, lived with that many men. But…I was surrounded by sisters. I, too, had a curfew. And if my bangs didn’t rival D.J. Tanner’s, well, it sure wasn’t for lack of trying.
To that end, when I was invited by Netflix to chat with the cast and crew of the upcoming Fuller House at the TCA conference, it was all I could do to keep from saying “Have mercy.” (Oh, give me that. I promise I won’t do it again.)
Full House was- and is- a family show. About a family, meant to watch with your family. Not to get all Ed Sullivan and/or Howdy Doody on you here, but can you remember the last time the entire household gathered around and experienced half an hour of programming? Let me take it one step further: Can you remember the last time the aforementioned situation occurred without the presence of reality TV? (No disrespect to my beloved House Hunters: International, but sometimes you really just need an emotional through-line, a cliffhanger, or a relationship that doesn’t involve central air.)
As Netflix’s Director of Kids and Family Programming Brian Wright puts it, “[we] looked across the TV landscape, and saw that today that experience between parents and children is often happening with reality television, or a competition show like The Voice or something like Cupcake Wars. There’s a few examples here and there on network television of truly great script programming for families but not a lot of it and we decided, you know, nobody can do this like Netflix–We want to take our premium big bets and put that against content that is fantastic for people of all ages that they can view together.”
And Fuller House is leading that charge with a walloping mix of nostalgia, family-friendly humor, and a return to- as the original theme song so plaintively requested, “…predictability, the milkman, the paperboy, evening TV.” Even more refreshingly, the show knows exactly what it is and what it’s supposed to be. “I think the writers did a great job of balancing out this great creative new show but also not taking ourselves too seriously,” Jodie Sweetin (who played Stephanie Tanner) says. “We know we’re Full House. We know that there are catchphrases, and we know that there’s going to be a hug at the end of every show…Those are the things that the fans sort of expect.”
The series reboot revolves around D.J. Tanner- now Fuller (a role reprised by Candace Cameron-Bure), a veterinarian and recently widowed Mom of 3. Returning to the old family homestead to regroup, she soon realizes she can’t go it alone. Thankfully, she doesn’t have to; little sis Stephanie, an aspiring musician, isn’t one to leave D.J. hanging, nor is gal next door/forever friend Kimmy Gibbler (played by Andrea Barber). And with those three ladies, a gaggle of kids and, of course, the occasional helping hand from those grownups we know and love, the house is starting to feel blissfully…well, you know.
And if I may be permitted a moment that’s less hard-hitting interview and way more US Weekly, I have to confess three things:
- Candace Cameron-Bure, Jodie Sweetin, and Andrea Barber are ridiculously beautiful, gracious, and cool people in person. (It made my younger self’s heart so happy to know these gals- whom, let’s be honest, I grew up with- are exactly as fabulous as you’d hope they’d be.)
- I took a selfie with Jodie Sweetin and thanked her for being my middle-sister spirit animal. She was very kind, faced with that statement.
- After informing Cameron-Bure that her hair (yes, I’m still talking about the hair), was an inspiration then and now, she confessed that the “high-hair standard was very real.”
Oh, this? Just a Sunday.
Okay. Back to the show. So how did it feel to leave and then get to return to the House?
According to Sweetin, “it’s like when you move out of your childhood home, you look around and you take this mental snapshot and you say, ‘This is what it was, and this is what it will always be in my mind and now it doesn’t exist anymore.’ So when we walked back in and saw that thing that we had left 20 years ago existing again, [it was] a really mind-blowing, wonderful, warm experience.” Cameron-Bure agrees. “…To see the sets- and they weren’t even finished at the time- but to see the living room and the kitchen, I was so overwhelmed by emotion, I started crying. I just had to stop and was like ‘You gotta give me a minute.”
“It was almost like walking through an archeological site that had been dug up 20 years later,” says Andrea Barber. “And it was all dusty and I’m just like ‘Oh my gosh did they find the Full House set?’ They did a remarkable job recreating the set. I think it was almost rebuilt from scratch with the exception of the couch, the couch is the original couch.”
A question that had been on my mind from the moment I learned of the show concerned how Cameron-Bure, Sweetin, and Barber felt transitioning from the middle ground age range of the show- not the babies, not the grown-ups- to now being the parents. And does that change what they think the actual experience may have been like for the grown-ups at the time?
“We have an incredibly unique perspective that we bring to this,” Sweetin says. “We know what the kids on our series are going through. When I see Elias, who’s 8, having a moment on set where he’s just ‘I’m tired’ or ‘I’m this,’ or whatever it is, we have the ability to look at them and go, ‘Dude I get it.’ That’s not something – as amazing and wonderful and compassionate and as much of a family as we were on that show – none of the adults had been child actors. They had never gone through missing a field trip you really wanted to go on because you were working, and all those sorts of kid moments that you have…[and we have an] understanding for these kids and what that experience is like to really go through. And [it’s] kind of awesome to be the adults on the set; we have more input, we don’t have to go to school, I can go lay in my trailer and take a nap for 20 minutes and not have a teacher chasing me around, so those sorts of things are nice.”
In addition, the vibe on set is different because the grownups are different. “We’re Moms,” all three unanimously confessed with a laugh. (Cameron-Bure’s three kids are teenagers, while Barber’s daughter is a tween and Sweetin’s two little girls are 8 and 5.)
A lot of the behind-the-scenes humor admittedly went over the girls’ heads back in the day. “Lots of things that were said on set that we as mothers would be horrified if our children were listening to,” Cameron-Bure says. “…Wow! Uncle Jesse, he had a lot of girls coming in,” Sweetin remembers. “I didn’t think about that.”
So how do they keep the storylines wholesome yet relevant as they bring this series into 2016?
“That’s always been the challenge of this series,” says series creator Jeff Franklin. “We try to entertain kids at the same time we entertain adults; it’s a balancing act, we’re doing it all over again. We’re trying to figure out where the line is, and the line has moved since 1987. So this show feels a little bit more adult than the previous show, but we still think it’s great for kids [and] it’s fun for adults to watch.”
“We’ve been able to bring a lot of those experiences [as mothers] to Bob and Jeff and to the writers, and they’ve been really wonderful in taking our input as moms and as dealing with these issues like social media and pictures, and what you say… all those kinds of things and bullying, and things I think we’ve had to go through with our own kids and what that looks like,” Sweetin says.
Regarding those real-life inspirations, producer Bob Boyett jokes, “Well we’re now going to put recording devices in all of your homes.”
“Trust me, we’re all at home and I’m like- when anything happens to my kids- ‘It’s a good episode idea,” Cameron-Bure laughs.
***
Truth time: Although I was brought on board to the TCA conference by Netflix as a #StreamTeam member, all thoughts, opinions, and wholly evident moments of hair-envy are entirely my own.
Fuller House premieres exclusively on Netflix on February 26th, 2016. Are you ready? Oh, Mylanta. (Sorry.)
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