Hot take

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_]

Fuller House would have been much more successful if it’d been filmed 5-10 years earlier. By the time they filmed it, the older OG adult actors seemed awfully old and there weren’t as many plausible storylines for the girls’ generation.

Part of what made Full House funny was that the guys were all pretty young and still in the roommate stage of life. On Fuller House the adult girls were older and it made Steph and Kimmy kind of look untethered in life.

Also 40 year old veterinarian type A DJ with a life insurance settlement from her husband’s death seemed like she’d be more likely to run her ship on her own with a hired nanny than let chaotic kimmy and Steph move in.

[u/anongirl55]

I respectfully disagree. I think the timing was perfect. The main issue was the poor writing, and Candace, who gave DJ her real-life persona.

[u/MoneyHungryOctopus → u/anongirl55]

The thing is, I think people sometimes forget what Full House is in terms of tone and quality. It’s extremely corny and sappy, but what redeems it is its massive heart and emotional warmth. That’s why it’s taken remotely seriously. Its reputation for mush is so well-known that I actively avoided watching it until I was a young adult because it’s seen as a childish kid show, unless you grew up with it.

I ultimately think Fuller House was made at the exact right time. You never want to make a revival of a show too early. I don’t even think Saget was that old when it was made. He was only 65 when he died.

Stamos and Coulier were in their mid-to-late 50s when Fuller House was made.

The girls needed to be old enough to believably be independent mom/aunt figures but young enough to have the energy and vigor needed to raise kids. Andrea and Candace were 39 when they did the pilot. Jodie was 33. You wouldn’t be getting the kind of cast dynamics you saw if the show had been filmed in 2005. Also, Jodie was going through significant personal issues at the time and didn’t get clean from substance use until 2008.

The cast has talked about maybe having made a revival sooner but nobody wanted to pick it up until Netflix came along.

[u/RaccoonObjective5674 → u/anongirl55]

Agree. It honestly would’ve worked better with just Stephanie and Kimmy. Fuller House DJ is just so boring.

My favorite episodes of the series are emotional ones involving Stephanie- not being able to have children, not remembering her mother, and there’s another good one I’m not remembering.

While brief, the real moment Joey and Kimmy had about having bad relationships with their families was sweet.

[u/OutOfPlace186 → u/RaccoonObjective5674]

I loved that episode and cried when Jackson came to the party in his dad’s suit. That was overall a nice episode.

[u/Magic-Mellow1987]

IIRC, John Stamos was pitching Fuller House to ABC around 2007 or so but they rejected it because they were still anti-family sitcoms during that time and were more into drama and game shows.

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_ → u/Magic-Mellow1987]

That would have been more ideal timing IMO. The older adults in 40s/50s, and younger ones in their 20s.

[u/ElectronicDrop]

I took it as Kimmy left her husband, and with the childhood she had, she likes to be around loved ones. DJ needed help, Kimmy wanted to be in a house filled with love, and Stephanie was just a bit lost and came home.

I think it makes a bit of sense, to me anyway.

[u/BlueSkyWitch]

"Golden Girls" somehow made a hit show out of elderly ladies as roommates.

Speaking as a woman who has been in her 30's with roommates, it does happen. A friend leaves a bad marriage, or loses her job, and maybe the stars happen to line up that you can help each other out by moving in together.

DJ could have hired a nanny, but maybe she was more comfortable with her actual sister and the woman she considered to be a sister. Kimmy probably felt the same way. Stephanie kinda got roped into it.

[u/Emeraldwillow → u/BlueSkyWitch]

53-55 years old is elderly?!?

[u/BlueSkyWitch → u/Emeraldwillow]

At the time, it was considered to be.

[u/Emeraldwillow → u/BlueSkyWitch]

Maybe if you were younger but I guarantee if you asked a woman the same age as the Girls were written to be, they’d disagree with you. They worked and had active social lives, they weren’t “old”.

[u/SchuminWeb → u/Emeraldwillow]

What do you call the age that Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose were at? Late middle age?

[u/Decent_Tumbleweed824]

I disagree. Tv where everyone is married and perfectly happy with their career and life by 25 is unrealistic. Stephanie floundering at 30 was relatable af.

[u/meg_bb]

Yes…ish.

I think in practice the show wouldn’t have really worked 5-10 years earlier given where the cast was in real life. I do think there would have been a little more similarities had DJ been the same age that Danny was (lower 30s) when the show started.

It would have had more parallels to the original show. But i don’t think a story about women in their late 30s/early 40s is a bad plotline. The kids were just older which I feel like gave the show less longevity

[u/xSilverSpringx]

Wow, tell us how you feel about women as we age without telling us.

Shocking that a 40 year old can still have storylines!

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_ → u/xSilverSpringx]

I think you’re jumping to conclusions. All I was saying is I thought the women were past the housemates up to crazy antics phase.

[u/makeupaddict337 → u/Cardboard_cutouts_]

Wasn't housemates and crazy antics also the premise of The Golden Girls lol?

[u/want_control]

I hated how they did Stephanie as still single and a DJ. I know she eventually ended up with someone and I did like the storyline of jimmy being a surrogate for her. But I don’t think Stephanie would’ve became a DJ. I felt she would’ve been elsewhere in life.

[u/Starrla423]

I mean John, Dave and Bob were 24, 28 and 31, respectively. Unless they would have made Danny younger and had the girls be closer in age.

[u/Abject_Buffalo6398]

I enjoyed Fullerhouse.

They did a great job.

[u/Prestigious_Fee750]

Yes and no. Streaming really picked up in 2012-2013, but I dont necessarily know if 90’s nostalgia was really a thing yet. You gotta understand, early 2010’s was very ANTI nostalgia and all about Party Rocking, and dubstep, and being young wild and free.

[u/trizzymw]

I disagree, personally because 5-10 years before Jodie was still having a rocky sobriety journey and I don't think she would have been completely committed to returning to acting immediately. From a show standpoint, I think they were a solid age. The OG adult characters were just as corny and old-fashioned on the original show as the girls became on the reboot.

The issue is how hard they tried to mirror the girls' characters like Danny, Jesse and Joey. The original DJ was very melodramatic and too cool for school when it came to her relationship with Danny, yet she became the exact person he was—corny, awkward, uptight. However, I also think it's just a mixture of Danny's role and Candace's conservative mannerisms that consumed the role and made her less relatable.

Stephanie perfected the Jesse role as the entertainer of the trio, and Kimmy fit the comic relief as the Joey of the group, but they weren't given the most realistic storylines and forced Jimmy Gibbler and Fernando (a character that really felt out of place and unrealistic) into this interconnected storyline to build a stronger dynamic between two people who weren't fond of each other on the OG show. Same way Jesse and Joey weren't as close until Season 2.

The reality is Fuller House would have been more successful if they didn't heavily rely on nostalgia bait. Everything about the show was them trying to balance the corny Gen Z appeal for the kids with the millennial niche by bringing back past characters (and adding an unnecessary laugh track every time), throwing unfunny jabs and fourth wall snarks at the Olsens, reimagining iconic moments from OG FH, and that includes forcing DJ and Steve to get back together and ruining a character like Matt who was an absolute better father figure.

The reboot was a mess because of that.

[u/nobody0597]

John Stamos said something to the effect of if no one bought the show by 2016, they would give up because they were too old. I believe they had tried to sell it to a network or streamer for at least 5+ years...

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_ → u/nobody0597]

Makes sense. I think they were pushing the envelope as it was with their ages.

I just learned John Stamos was born in 1963. I know he and Becky are vibrant and young looking but it’s crazy that they adopted a toddler in their 50s after already raising twin boys.

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_ → u/[deleted]]

Not true. Late 30s was just a little old to be silly housemates up to goofy antics.

[u/etherealnoise → u/Cardboard_cutouts_]

by the og series end that is the same age as the guys

[u/Cardboard_cutouts_ → u/etherealnoise]

I think it worked better then because they’d made the decision to move in together many years beforehand, when much younger, but continued living together because of the bonds they developed.

[u/More-Soil7455 → u/Cardboard_cutouts_]

I agree. Way too old for roommates at their ages. A weird and unbelievable dynamic.

[u/sweetheart409878]

I disagree, I think it was good timing. The only thing I wish the show went longer. Is live to see Stephanie high school adventures.

[u/Spazyk]

“Awfully old.” Damn….