‘Full House’ Adult Cast Members Were Supremely Immature and Inappropriate On Set
Viewers watched Full House for the kids. Sure, Bob Saget was endearing as the single dad, and everyone had a crush on John Stamos as Uncle Jesse. But the cute kids made the show.
After all, the children, now adults, were the ones starring in the reboot. Before the spinoff ended in 2020, Fuller House featured the Tanner kids all grown up.
However, the Olsen twins decided not to reprise their role in the new revival. They’ve never revealed why, but Bob Saget’s book detailing life on the Full House set holds clues as to why.
The adult cast members misbehaved on the ‘Full House’ set
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen landed the role of Michelle on Full House when they were just babies. They quickly became the best part of the series. Michelle’s cute catchphrases had fans cracking up, and the twins shone onscreen.
However, because Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and the other child actors on Full House had to abide by strict child labor laws, they couldn’t be on set for as long as the adults. That meant they weren’t usually there for all the rehearsals, either. When the twins were there, the crew had to shoot their scenes quickly.
Producers sometimes used a 4-foot-tall rubber doll as a stand-in when something needed to be done while the kids were off-set. The comedians on the show — Saget, Stamos, and Dave Coulter — made inappropriate jokes using the doll as a prop. The men would even imitate sex acts on the doll, Bob Saget recounted in his 2014 memoir, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian (via the New York Post).
Though that seems bad, it’s nothing compared to the long list of inappropriate behaviors on the Full House set.
The ‘Full House’ set was no place for children
Pretending to have sex with a rubber doll was one of the tamer things the Full House adults did on set. Coulier, Stamos, and Saget also used whippets between takes. That’s slang for nitrous oxide, found in aerosol containers. The three men inhaled the chemical from whipped cream cans stored in a prop room backstage, Sagat claimed in his book before his death in January 2022.
In addition, Saget would draw pictures of penises on his notepad during meetings and then try to get a laugh from his castmates by showing them off. The three actors would even take their pants off as a joke and rehearse entire scenes that way.
Although the children weren’t always on the Full House set for these pranks, sometimes they were. Other times, they were watching on the monitors.
Though the kids didn’t understand the jokes, their guardians reportedly intervened to urge Saget, Stamos, and Coulier to tone down their inappropriate behavior. The parents were especially upset about the pantsless scenes, though producers got the joke.
John Stamos tried to get the Olsen twins fired
Not many children would be able to perform as the Olsen twins did on Full House, but the scenes that everyone loved were not easy to shoot. It turns out the girls were average babies. They threw tantrums and didn’t always want to do what producers needed to get the shot.
Though not necessarily inappropriate in this case, Stamos was so frustrated by the twins that he asked producers to fire Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. The showrunners actually toyed with the idea and even had some stand-ins, but it didn’t work out. No other babies could do what the Olsen twins could do, and producers kept the girls on the show.
Still, being on set with adults who didn’t want them there couldn’t have been fun for the twins.
