(Singing) Whatever happened to predictability.
The milkman, the paperboy, the evening TV.
Did I get delivered here, somebody tell me, please.
This whole world--
This is Danny Tanner.
My angels.
Mom's got to go.
She's going to be late for her plane.
Sweetheart--
Grandma's gonna be late.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Danny owns a home in San Francisco
with his brother-in-law, best friend, and three kids.
You lost my daughter?
I went to work for seven hours and you
lost 33% of my children?
Didn't you notice a very small person moving everything
she owns out of the house?
Danny is the main character of a sitcom that
will spend eight seasons, be one of the most
syndicated television shows of all time.
You lost my daughter?
I went to work for seven hours and you
lost 33% of my children?
No.
Wait.
Who the [BLEEP] is this guy?
What is a Bob Saget?
(Singing) Whatever happened to--
Full House is one of the most iconic pieces of the 90s.
It was full on family friendly comedy starring slender man
and that one kid he had that was constantly being swapped out
for a lookalike.
For who between the ages of 6 and 20
in late 90s or early 2000s and you stayed up past 8:00 PM,
it is almost impossible that you didn't see
this on a near nightly basis.
Is this working out great or what?
Full House made having a massive family seem
like a significantly better time than it really is and most
importantly, it proved just how excellent its three
leads really were.
What do I mean by that?
One of these two is a significantly better Danny
Tanner than the other.
In 1986 an ABC producer called a comedy show in Georgia.
In it was a man named John Posey and ABC representative
like Posey a lot, so he brought Posey out to LA where ABC told
him they'd make him a star.
He was going to be their guy moving forward.
Well, suppose he says.
Not sure how much I can believe fake Danny Tanner here,
but I digress.
It's at this point ABC gives Posey
the lead role on a new sitcom.
This sitcom was going to be big for the network.
This one was one they believed in.
It was called Full House.
And by give it to him, I mean, they really
handed Posey the show, contract and all.
Now, if you're thinking to yourself,
how does this 5' 9 Southern Chia Pet
end up growing a foot and a half tall into the Danny Tanner
we know and love?
Well.
OK, quiz time.
How's everything going to work out?
Posey, ABC, and the entire cast of Full House,
shot the pilot all the way through.
Cut it together, edited it, and handed it
to the execs of the studio, who quickly greenlit the show.
The show was picked up.
It was going to be made, Posey in all.
A month later, Posey packs up his things in Georgia
and starts the drive to LA to move into his new life
as Danny Tanner on a prime time sitcom,
when his beeper goes off.
That's right.
Beepers were a thing, boys and girls.
The least convenient technology imaginable.
And it beeps literally in the car
in the middle of Mississippi, while he was driving to LA.
As his beeper was going off, this was being shot.
This is the exact same pilot Posey
shot and was picked up for.
Literally, shot for shot, the same pilot.
In fact, Bob Saget here is wearing the exact same outfit
as Posey was in his version of the episode.
Unbeknownst to Posey, ABC settled for him.
They never really wanted him at all.
What they wanted was two other people, one of which,
was Bob Saget, who at the time the pilots for shooting,
was not available.
Posey hears the beeper, he pulls over,
finds a pay phone, calls his agent.
Well, Sagat is available now.
How rude.
Bob Sagat would finish shooting his version of the pilot
and it would be the exact same episode,
but this time it was well, better.
So you might be wondering, it's really expensive
to shoot and prove these pilots.
Why would the studio recast their star character
after greenlighting and picking up the show?
Bob was Danny.
All it takes is a short look at the two pilots side by side
to see just how much better Saget really was.
Posey's pilot isn't just unfunny,
it's uncomfortable at times.
Take this scene with Jesse for example,
when he's introducing him to his new room, pink bunny and all.
Jesse says.
You know what would look adorable over here
by the window?
Barbie's dream house.
And Posey, over-excitedly and over-dramatically
makes the dream house quip.
We've got one.
It's very forced and it feels like a sitcom character
ready to laugh at his own joke.
Now here's Bob.
You know what would look great over here by the window?
Barbie's dream house.
We've got one.
This shouldn't have been all that surprising to ABC.
At the time of the pilot, Posey was an incredibly inexperienced
actor who had never done anything even remotely
like a family sitcom.
He was a comedian working in comedy troupes
doing what he referred to as SNL style fast-paced comedy.
And you can see it in the original Full House pilot.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
That's correct.
DJ to tie, how's everything going to work out?
Posey's Danny Tanner only had one mode
and it was full on fast-paced funny guy.
That version of Danny would have created
a significantly different environment
for the show's future.
Instead of being the calm, grounding presence
in a frenetic house, there would have
been two Joeys running around shoving their hands on anything
covered in cloth.
And it wouldn't have worked.
Even Posey himself told interviewers
later that shooting the pilot, he
wasn't sure how well it could have gone
and was surprised that this show was
the one they put in his lap.
Saget's on the other hand, was just
the right amount of America's dad
to perfectly balanced the gruffness of Stamos
and the comedic relief of well, this version of Dave Couliet.
That's pine with me.
Full House ended up struggling in his first season,
regardless.
The first batch of episodes were lit on fire by critics.
Most critics thought the show was
a poor, unexciting, and downright boring attempt
to recreate the family comedies that had defined
the previous two decades.
Its aggregate review score to this day
sitting at 31 out of 100.
Critics believed that there was nothing particularly
special about the series.
And with Posey as Danny, that might have remained true.
But what made Saget's Full House work eventually, was character.
Was the almost unbelievable level of balance
the casting choices of nearly everyone in the show
brought to one of the largest episode to episode
casts in sitcoms at the time.
And Danny Tanner was the planet that those characters
revolved around.
He was the gravity.
The grounding, the reason, the giraffe.
Posey, was the polar opposite, from acting style
to personality.
So much so the opposite that by the time
his son finally saw his version of the pilot years later,
he actually called it disturbing.
It's worth pointing out that at this point,
I would return my son to the store.
But Posey would be all right.
He'd go on to play roles on shows like CSI.
He'd be a tongue obsessed doctor on the most successful sitcom
of all time, Seinfeld.
Posey would go on to play roles in over 54 different TV shows
and films over the next three decades, in fact.
He not only became a good actor, but a great one.
He'd also produce this guy.
So that's a pretty good accomplishment, I guess.
As for Posey's version of the pilot,
it actually remained un-aired The episode never saw
the light of day and sat within the walls of the studio
for years.
Until finally, the DVD release of the series
saw ABC stealthily drop the original pilot on the season
one disk as a bonus.
The show itself would obviously live on
to become a staple of nearly every home for the next 30
years, but for one day, just one day of the Tanner's life,
their father, their friend, their brother,
was someone else entirely.
To this very day that original pilot
plays out like a strange fever dream.
So the next time you're feeling down, maybe you failed an exam
or dropped your baby, just remember,
you could be this guy.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is it for today's episode.
Did you watch Full House?
Do You still like Full House?
Have you seen Fuller House and if you have,
what do you think about that?
Use the comments down below to tell me
what you think of any and all of those things.
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