ABC
If you’ve already exhausted your syndicated TV options – heavy on the Friends, light on the Family Matters, some Seinfeld thrown in for good measure – we’ve got the throwback news you’re apparently pretty hungry for. New Full House. No, really. And, no, it’s not suddenly 1997, so stop shaking your calendar (and making that joke).
TV Guide reports that “Warner Bros. TV is mulling a new take on Full House, with some of the original cast intact.” WHAT. Well, it turns out that Full House continues to perform exceptionally well on the syndicated market (it does seem to be on all the time) and that measurable audience interest, combined with the actual cast’s apparent desire to come back from some more family-friendly hijinks, means that little dollar signs are positively dancing in the heads of the Warner Bros. brass. Honestly, who could possibly blame them?
The outlet also shares that John Stamos (Uncle Jesse, or “the hair” of the show) is “leading the charge,” and for an obvious reason: he has an ownership share in the show (smooth financial moves, dude). But Stamos isn’t alone, as creator Jeff Franklin and original executive producer Bob Boyett are both back for more (Franklin is reportedly writing the new series himself), and a bevy of other stars are set to come back in various capacities. Both Bob Saget and Dave Coulier are “involved in some way” and Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber are “on board.”
What, you didn’t think that they’d make a new Full House without Kimmy Gibbler, did you? That’s her entire role on the show: to be a hanger-on. (Barber, it seems, hasn’t done anything in the acting realm since the show ended in 1995, aside from appearing in a Funny or Die sketch about Full House alongside Coulier, so yes, she’s probably pretty pumped about this.)
As TV Guide notes, the cast has never been shy about their desire to come back for more fun. Stamos himself even appeared on Watch What Happens Live this past winter, where he announced, “We’re sort of working on a twist on a sequel…But we don’t know if it’s going to happen yet or not.” What’s that twist? Well, with this casting list heavy on the female stars and very vague on the involvement of the father figures, we’re guessing we might see a new wave Full House featuring the Tanner sisters and Ms. Gibbler setting up their own offbeat living arrangement. Are they single moms now? Widows? You can see where we’re going with this. And, no, it doesn’t sound too terrible.
Interestingly, TV Guide also clues us into the fact that this revival is kind of old news: “insiders say the studio pitched a Full House revival last year that would have been set up like FX’s Anger Management, in which the network that airs it must pick up a 90-episode slate (produced at an accelerated pace) if the initial 10 episodes hit a certain rating. Ultimately that idea didn’t pan out.” That’s okay, because ninety episodes sounds like a lot, and we’d rather spend a little bit of time getting reacquainted with the clan. Or just yelling “everywhere you look!” on a San Francisco hilltop. Whichever, really.
One burning question: how do you bring back baby Michelle, now that stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are totally grown up (and totally not identical)?
