It’s been nearly 40 years since Full House premiered on ABC, and the cast remains as close as ever these days. That’s partially because the TV family came together after Bob Saget’s unexpected death in 2022, and after seeing how much John Stamos specifically has stepped up to keep the comedian’s memory alive, it’s hard to imagine there was a time when they “didn’t get along.”
While the actors who played the young Tanner sisters had their own sibling rivalries going on — Jodie Sweetin has said she was closer to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen because Candace Cameron allegedly thought she was “lame” — the three guys making up the adult contingency of the Full House cast had some tension of their own. John Stamos opened up to Bobby Bones on The BobbyCast about the heartbreaking events that bonded them for life.
John Stamos Found Bob Saget And Dave Coulier’s Comedy ‘Distracting’
It makes sense that John Stamos didn’t see eye to eye with his adult co-stars at the beginning of Full House. Both Bob Saget and Dave Coulier came from a standup background, while Stamos got his start on the soap opera General Hospital before joining the short-lived sitcom You Again?. As the actor explained to Bobby Bones:
I was coming from a show with Jack Klugman, who's a famous sitcom guy and so I was, you know, coming to it with more of an actor's point of view of these scenes and trying to work these scenes. And [Saget and Coulier] were just trying to make the guys, you know, the crew laugh. It was especially Bob, and it was distracting for a lot of it, and we didn't get along at all for the first couple of years.
John Stamos clarified that he loves standup comedy and is fascinated by the art of it, but it’s not something he can do. However, in addition to Stamos not appreciating Bob Saget and Dave Coulier goofing off on set, he also “pissed Bob off” by nurturing the relationship between his character Uncle Jesse and the Olsen twins’ Michelle.
The Full House Stars Became Close After Family Tragedies
The cast of Full House will say today that they are just like a real life family — bickering and all — but it was apparently tragedies in their real lives that ultimately brought the Danny Tanner, Joey Gladstone and Jesse Katsopolis actors together. John Stamos said:
I think it was maybe the third year or fourth something like that season, Bob's sister got scleroderma, which he spent the rest of his life advocating raising money for this horrific disease. Dave's sister got cancer, and my sister had gotten diagnosed with a brain tumor. And so all of a sudden, we weren't three guys on a show, we’re three brothers grieving our sisters. And, sadly, Bob and Dave lost their sisters, and my sister made it. It turned out she had MS instead of a brain tumor.
What a wildly tough thing for all of them to have to go through, but it’s pretty amazing that they had each other to lean on. It’s no wonder the trio became friends for the rest of the series and after. John Stamos continued:
So we became really close then, and then we just started to, you know, realize that there was a lot to learn from each other, I think, and I had a lot to learn. I learned a lot from those guys. But then Bob — we just ended up being best friends, and then we were just there for each other through every, you know, all the ups and downs of life, divorces and marriages. But I just loved [Bob] so dearly, and it was such a tragic loss.
It’s obvious how much Bob Saget’s death still hurts John Stamos, as he said the comedian was “bombastic with his love”:
He would text you 50 times a day and then call you 20 times to make sure that you got the text and then leave messages. He was that kind of guy.
Whether fans remember him most for Full House, his raunchy comedy or any of Bob Saget’s other movies and shows, it’s clear that Saget loved the people in his life very much, and it was reciprocated — even if it took John Stamos a while.
