While Full House is undoubtedly one of America’s most beloved sitcoms, the cast wasn’t always one big happy family. In his new memoir If You Would Have Told Me, John Stamos opened up about trying to get pretty much everyone—including himself—evicted from the show.
First on the chopping block was Bob Saget, who Stamos apparently didn’t think was right for the role since he was a comedian rather than an actor. Saget was also jealous of Stamos’ relationships with the Olsen twins and Dave Coulier, according to the actor.
“Bob is the humblest egomaniac I’ve ever met, but he undercuts his narcissism by being so damn lovable... he makes up for his self-inflicted insecurity by being a self-inflicted aggrandizer,” Stamos writes (via Variety). “Bob and I tolerate each other and attempt to avoid interfering with each other’s creative processes, though it can be challenging.” (Later in the memoir, Stamos provides a touching tribute to the late Saget, who eventually became like a brother to him. Per The Daily Beast, he writes: “I’m heartbroken he didn’t think he was good enough. He was and always will be to me and the rest of the world.”)
Not even the Olsen twins—who were only 11 months old when the show began—were spared from Stamos’ blunted ax. Stamos apparently tried (and obviously failed) to get the twins fired, telling producers: “It’s either me or them. They’re not going to work out. They’ll ruin this show and my career.” In a moment that must have been pretty awful for everyone involved (and we’re not totally sure why Stamos is putting it out there for all to see now), he apparently got his wish and a new pair of twins were brought in, but they were, in his words, “quiet, calm, and homely as hell.” This wouldn’t do for Stamos, and he quickly asked for Mary-Kate and Ashley, who were waiting in the wings, to come back.
All of this bitterness isn’t that surprising, however, when one takes into account the fact that Stamos seems to have just really hated Full House in general, at least when it began. Of the show’s first table read, he writes:
The final scene calls for the whole cast to gather around a baby’s crib and sing the theme song to The Flintstones. By the time we get to “Have a Yabba-Dabba-Doo Time,” I’m having a Yabba-Dabba-Don’t Time. The reading ends, thank God, and I head to the lobby as fast as I can, avoiding everyone babbling how great the reading went. I dig through my pockets for change. I jam a quarter into a pay phone, get my agent on the line, and gently suggest, “Get me the fuck off this show!’” I’m dying to pull the rip cord on this family-friendly hell, but I’ll fulfill my contractual obligation to shoot the pilot. Keep it professional. The thing will crash and burn faster than my reputation, and I hope I can salvage some dignity with my next project. For now, stay cool. Control what you can control.
The show’s ratings were initially pretty bad, and Stamos recalls that his agents called him midway through the first season to tell him that an exit might be possible. But by this point, he had experienced a change of heart and said that the cast had become like family. The bond was solidified when his, Saget’s, and Coulier’s sisters all got sick around the same time. “Bob, Dave, and I are no longer three guys who work on the same show; we are brothers worried about amazing women slipping away from us,” he writes. “We’re seeing not only what is important in our own relationships with each other, but also our relationships with the fans out there who are struggling with issues of life and death.”