Some time with… Jeff Franklin (Part 1)

Published Jan 18, 2024, 5:00 AM

Every cast & crew member played a part in making Full House the legendary sitcom it was - but without this guest…it never exists. Jodie & Andrea are thrilled to welcome the man who started it all: Full House creator, Jeff Franklin.

Jeff breaks down the unreal origin story of the show and why they spent millions of dollars recasting Danny at the last minute, changing family television forever. And we get the final word on what the worst episode is (spoiler: Jodie’s mom will be THRILLED).

All this and memories from their surreal trip to Japan on an all-new, and essential, How Rude, Tanneritos!

Our guest today is someone I like to call the heartbeat of Full House. He is the man who made a pivot in a pitch room and ended up creating one of the most iconic family sitcoms of all time, and we are eternally grateful to him for bringing together our Full House family. Please welcome the one and only mister Jeff Franklin to the show.

How long is? How long do we do? I have to do this?

See, we're gonna hold hostage right and the torment has finally turned around. No, we're so excited to have you on this show though, Jeff, I love this.

Jeff, Welcome to How Rude Tan Rito's.

Did we start?

We start?

Yeah?

It's this is that?

Yeah, it's just like to jump right in and uh and run.

It's a big adrenaline adrenaline rush, just like you're on action.

Wow, guys, don't mess around.

We don't mess around.

But Jeff, the last time we saw you, I think was in Tampa in September for nineties con Is that the last time the three of us were together.

I think so. I think so.

Yeah, I think so.

And that was September.

That was your first fan convention.

As I have great pictures of mobs of people in front of everyone else's table, and then my area is like it's like a desert tumbling through. Uh, it's it was pretty funny.

Well, I know, just send people over to your table, Jeff.

It was.

You know, there were a few people, a few people who came by with specscribs and good see.

They were very excited.

Does it have just said that you were one of the like you were a long lost Olsen or something, and you and and nobody would have known the difference and.

Made up something. I was like, cousin, Fred, don't you Yeah, sure.

The real fans know who I am.

Yeah, Jeff, are you surprised still that, thirty six years later, we still have such a devoted fan base that shows up to these conventions and listens to these podcasts.

It is, It is a little surprising, but it's all. What we had on that show, honestly, was was something that was really captured lighting in a bottle. I mean, it had was It's really a special, special group of people, and and we did something that was never done before. We actually raised an infant on television and no one had ever done that.

Oh wow, Yeah, it would skip you'd have like a baby and then like halfway through the season you were like, oh my god, it's a toddler, or you know, or they just aged.

Like a five years old.

Yeah, uh yeah, we actually we did that, and that alone makes the show unique. But the fact that we had, you know, the most amazing kids on that show.

Whose idea was it to do it that way and to not or was it just the fact that, like the that Ashley Mary Kate sort of gelled so well with the rest of the cast that it was like this, there's obvious chemistry or was it an intentional thing? Were you like, no, we want to see what happens if you do this?

Well, I you know, I was just naive. I had no idea what I was doing.

You know.

Now there's there's I think would be good if there's three kids, but even better if I only have to write dialogue for.

Two of them.

There you go, that's smart.

Yeah, yeah, so you know, uh and three, that movie Three Men and a Baby was coming out that time, and I think it was just in the air, and uh, you know, I really wrote it in without thinking anything about the consequences, you know, not thinking this show was ever going to sell or.

Turn into anything.

And next thing, I know, I've got you know, got screaming babies on the set.

Yeah, but no regrets, no regrets about adding kids to the show. Right, there was kids and dogs, kids, kids and dogs.

It's in dogs, Golden Retrievers.

Yeah.

So it wasn't always meant to be a family show.

Right.

You had a different idea in mind when you went to pitch this show.

Tell us that story.

That's a weird story, how this happened.

I mean, I don't I can tell it now, but I you know, for years I didn't really tell the real story of you know, whole House. I had another speech where that made me sound really smart, where I talk about how, you know, there's this myth that every family in America has a mom and a dad and two point three kids, and you know it was this wonderful, you know, family unit, and the truth is that, you know, that wasn't the case. Most kids were growing up in single parent homes and we're either you know, divorced, or they were living with relatives or friends, or you know, there's all sorts of weird families out there, and those kids had, you know, had no role models.

You know they were there.

Weren't those kinds of oddball families on television, So you know, wouldn't it be great to have a show that, you know, that made those kids feel good? And it's not about you know, it's not about who you live with. It's about you know, are you are they loved? You know, are they fully supported? So anyway, that was that was the speech I gave. But that's really not how Full House happened.

But that was the speech you would have given had you had time to prepare it.

And well I gave that speech for years. Why I can just rattle it off.

But that was your acceptance speech if we had right.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

It was the speech you wrote after, not the heat of the moment, right right, right speech.

I just do it night by myself. Yeah, thank you.

We all have those. Every single person in the world has that speech.

So No. I actually was in a weird dispute with lor Mar. They had I was there as under a screenwriting deal and they decided to get out of the movie business through no fault of mind, but they put out about six losers in a row and lost a billion dollars and said, oh, let's just concentrate on television where we're making all this money. So they I had to deal with them, and they didn't want to pay me. They wanted to They just wanted me to go work on the TV side. And I said, no, I'm I'm not a sitcom guy anymore. I'm a movie guy.

I just had a couple of movies come out, and so we went back and forth, and finally they said, all right, just pitch something, pitch a show for us, and if it doesn't sell, we'll pay you.

And fine.

So I really wasn't crazy about working for that company. And I thought, let me just figure out a show that won't sell, and let me come up with the worst idea ever for a sitcom. And I came up with this idea that now would be is really smart, Like somebody can take this and sell it in a heartbeat. I came up with this thing out of comics, and wouldn't it be fun to find three up and coming young guys and put them in a house together and let them play themselves, you know, And this is nineteen eighty six, where there's no shows like that, nothing like that exists. Now everybody's a star and they can make a show about anyone, and you know, reality is everywhere, but back.

Then that didn't exist.

So I had a meeting with Laura More and they're like, Okay, what do you want to pitch?

I said, well, it's about three.

Guys who were going to cast and they're going to live in a house and they're going to try to make it a stand up comics. Okay, well, who are the characters? Like, I don't know whoever we cast? Well, what are the stories? I don't know whatever's going on in their lives? So that's all you got. I'm like, yeah, well this pitch is only going to last thirty seconds. I can do it in twelve. And they are looking at me like what who is this guy?

What? This is someone professional?

So they call me back and they're like, well, ABC wants to meet with you, but you know, they really want a family show. Can you take this half baked idea of yours and turn it into you know, a normal show? And you know they it's like, ohh, I don't know. I guess I could. I didn't really want it. And that sort of evolved in the three guys and then one's a widower and then there's kids, in the House, and then the three comics morphed into one comic and two other guys, and it just, you know, it's a series of of okay, okay, all right, you know, and they were kind of pushing me to do a traditional sitcom and it just sort of morphed into in the Full House, and somewhere along the line, I just went, oh, this is this is good, This is a fun idea, This actually could be a cool show, and you know, my whole attitude kind of flipped. But in the beginning, I was just trying to come up with something that was terrible.

Well, and there may be some critics out there that said that you.

Did through.

Mission accomplished in both ways a success.

That's so funny.

Yeah, I've got a big I've got a big drawer full of reviews that that.

Yeah, that proved that.

And you and you have and you also have a lovely house full of proof. So yes, one drawer of reviews, a whole hill worth of proof.

Yeah, somebody was nice enough to give me some money at the.

End of I mean, look, you know what you really like. And I hear this all the time from fans.

Though, like you created a show that raised like a generation of.

Kids of people and like and now has done it all over the world. I mean, you know going to Japan was it is incredible?

Was yeah? Was that? What was that like for you to realize?

Like, I mean, I know for us it was like, oh my god, like going to another country is mind blowing. But like as the person who sort of has shepherded this whole thing, like when you see it go out into the world like that, like I can't imagine what that feels like to sort of have that effect.

You know. Every now and then I would have a little a little hint, like I'd be in uh, France and some little small town and I'd go into some cafe and I'd give them my credit card and suddenly somebody would be like not Jeff Franklin from you know whatever, and you know, in the middle of nowhere, I'm getting free food and people are taking pictures, and you know.

It was just like what how did how is it possible?

But that Japan trip was was shocking because that was the first time I was actually you know, that was it was like little you know, I don't know if it was staged or what, but there was like pandemonium at the.

At the airport, the airport we.

Got off the plane. It was the craziest thing, and it was just it was so fun. I mean you can hear like, like I know, the show has been syndicated and streamed in every country in the world except for China, I ran, and one other one North Korea.

Yeah.

Really three places. I'm surprised.

Yeah, but you just you know, so there's like over a billion people that have watched most of the episodes of Full House.

It's like one out of every eight people.

It's a lot, that's why.

And then to see all those happy faces, you know, they were happy, they really happy to see us, and.

They were crying. They were so like they were so.

Thrilled to see us in Japan. It was really amazing.

I felt like the Beatles walking off the plane and everybody's like.

Waiting to remember though.

You got off the plane and you were like, oh no, and Cannie and I were like like I had like sort of like fixed it, and you were like, oh no, it's just almost like a thirteen hour flight hours like.

I wasn't camera ready.

No, no, it was definitely like oh sunglasses. Yeah, I am fascinated by how you got into the business originally. I think it's just such an interesting story how you started working on la Vernon surely and like sort.

Of came up and.

Wound up doing you know, this show, and like, you know, you created a family when you were such a young person that like that wasn't part of your experience.

No, no, not at all. I was.

I was well at that point, I was thirty two, that's you know, I've never been married. I didn't have kids. My sisters didn't even have kids. At one point. I do have teaching credentials, and I thought, oh, I was going to be a teacher at one point, and then I did my student teaching and I taught first grade believe it or not, in ten weeks with you know, thirty first graders. Convinced me, you know, that's it. I'm not having children, know.

That, Jeff.

I also was going to be an elementary school teacher. That was when I got my undergrad degree, and I had no idea you.

Were going to be in the teacher Wow.

Yeah, yeah, so but I you know, but I pivoted. But yeah, I was sort of the most least likely person to have created the show. And you know, it was sort of just a happy accident. But you know, my family life was not perfect by any means. And you know, I think there's a part of me that sort of wanted to create a family that an oddball family that I would you know, that I'd never quite got to be a part of, but would have loved to have been a part of. You know, I think, you know, my dad was very it was just that typical nineteen fifties leave it to Beaver dad, you know, with the suit and tie, disappears at seven in the morning and comes back at sixth night, and you know, the nice guy, you know, but not super emotional and war and all that stuff until much later in his life when he you know, he kind of discovered that side to him. But as a kid, you know, that was you know, that's maybe a part of it. You know, It's like having guys around that are you know, that are warm and affectionate and you know, I mean those those guys were not only these three guys were not only amazing people and actors, but they were you know, I mean they were watching them with you guys was just incredible. It was like, you know, this is this was perfect accidental perfect casting.

I mean we've talked about that before when John was on the show and stuff too, and.

We've talked about how, like, really you.

Got three guys who were family guys, even though they didn't have families of their own yet and didn't have kids, but like they had that heart there, that that was who they were, and so it was like they got to I mean, I keep saying as we're watching the show, it's like I keep saying, the reason that people fell in love with it is because you're actually watching us all fall in love with each other, you know, and grow and learn and actually kind of weirdly become the people that are that were reflecting on screen in our own ways, and like it's it's I had no idea the impact and like sort of that real mirror reflection that we had between ourselves and those characters, and like.

Especially the first you know, I mean it came across very authentic, even in the first episode. Yeah, you know, it didn't take long for this group to sort of fall in love with each other. You know, it wasn't like, oh, it wasn't until season four that you know, everybody sort of decided they liked each other, right, It was instant. You know, even those early episodes, which weren't you know, weren't great compared to you know, when we sort of figured out the show.

Those early ones were a little rough.

Sea Cruise.

I was like, are we talking about episode three? Z?

Do you remember Sea Cruise where the three guys go on a fishing boat to fish and a guy.

That is the single worst episode.

So we have it on record now that you think it's the worst too.

I think it's the worst. It's definitely the worst show that I was a part of.

Okay, okay, yeah, and and and the running joke is that my mom had always been like that that third episode just was it was so out of pocket, it just seems so So that was like the running joke. When we watched that one. I was like, this is gene see worst worst episode, and now I can tell them guess what.

No contest it was.

It was some kind of full house fever dream.

Yeah, there were and there were a lot of those, but that was the first.

And I can't argue that either. That was that was painful to rewatch.

You know what, though, I having never watched the.

Show, never watched the show, What do you mean when.

I was a kid. I never watched. I mean I watched like the I've seen the pilot.

I'd seen, like, you know, bits and pieces of scenes that I was in and the but I didn't watch.

I never watched the show.

And I watched a few episodes but not definitely short too.

But it wasn't that I wasn't proud of it. It was I was a kid, and.

I was like, yeah, I did that already.

I don't like, I know, I don't need to worry about it, and I'm not a big TV watcher.

Well, but and being a child actor too.

I never that must have been why I never heard from you saying why did you use take two instead of two?

Three?

Exactly? Now I've got notes. I'm going back and I have some Oh.

We have we have pages and pages of notes.

Yeah, I've got thoughts.

But as child actors do, we're we've spent so much I'm on the set, having a full time job and being in school full time that by the time the weekends came around, we didn't want to watch the show.

We wanted to go hang out with our friends. So it was yeah, we had no reason to watch it until now, I.

Actually love that, because you know, if you watch yourself, you start to critique yourself and start in your head, and I don't.

Do that without watching myself.

I'm actually pretty good at just being just being like this is terrible as it's going on.

But no, it's true.

And I think as a kid, it was like it was just more I enjoyed it.

I loved it. It was fun. It didn't I didn't.

Feel the need to like watch it back. I enjoyed the doing, not necessarily the end product.

Like that was sort of.

I guess, did your mom and dad's watch?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, my mom. Of course my mom would not miss it. My parents would not miss it. I mean, to this day, if I don't tell my mom that there's like a KTLA interview that I'm doing and she misses it, it's a thing.

So yeah, she watched. She watched every episode at.

My parents' house and they no longer. They don't live there anymore. My brother lives there.

But at my parents' old house there's still VCR tapes.

Yes, of every f under my parents bed is actually that I might have They finally might have given him to me and been like just take these please.

But in VHS tapes that I had.

Yeah, well, you can't watch those anymore.

They Yeah, I think I did.

I had them transferred to DVD somewhere around twenty years ago. So yeah, at least those might hold up before you could just buy them, you know, at like best buy.

Yeah.

So, Jeff, is it true that Jody is the only cast member to not audition for Full House?

No?

Oh okay, what's the truth.

Then there's two of them? Oh, oh okay, Jody for sure?

Jody for sure?

Okay, because I've stumbled onto that a tape of her from Bowery h And that was your first job, right, the first It was my.

First TV job.

I had done commercials up until that point, but that was my first like TV job.

Yeah, yeah, and it just I mean that was you know, that was that was one of the happiest days of my life.

Like, oh my god, who is this girl?

This is Shirley Temple incarnated incarnated But Shirley Temple is still alive, so how is this?

It was?

That was shoe to you, you know, as there's nobody I've ever experienced that was so you know, at that age, that was thank you could not only just light up the screen, but was so you were so on top of everything.

It was crazy.

It was your life was upside down, like to have it together so much at age four and now look at you.

Really right, it's true what happens just well, you know, you can only hold it together for so long.

But it's still true.

I can go on to set and like remember everything where everything was exactly. A mark of this is that I cannot leave my house without coming back in at least two to three times because I left my keys, my phone. I think like it, But on set it's I am just totally hyper focused and can remember everything.

But I leave there and I'm like, I don't know my name. So yeah, so somethings haven't changed.

Vision.

After I saw the tape, I'm like, okay, you know, let's offer her the part. And I got nervous, like I had this vision of you, you know, at four years old, sitting behind a big desk, smoking a cigar, you know, reading this show.

I mean I was, yeah, I started early, two is a week, I don't think.

Basically it was the baby from Roger Rabbit.

For me.

The things you could do at I mean, at age five, there was a show I don't know if you remember it really early on where everybody had chicken pox and you were trying to sneak out of the house. Yes, oh yes, And we wrote this. It was like a half page monologue for a five year old with all these twists and turns in it where you're trying to act like, you know, you're not Stephanie, but you know, I'm just sneaking out of the house. And and then the whole thing on wines and you see, you know, you just fall apart and the truth comes out.

I mean it's a whole you know.

Yeah, it's a major piece of act. Yeah, like the first day of rehearsal, you're off book and had it and it was just it was I never see anything like it anyway.

Yes, Jody did an audition and then John Stamus did not audition.

That's why he was so pissed im.

Yeah.

He we just offered him the part. And then then I had a we had a lunch together.

Okay, And I'm sure.

I'm sure you guys read John's book, by the way, which is phenomenal.

Yes, so great.

Yeah, we had him on like the week the week after it came out, I think, and he was talking about it and we were just, yeah, I'm so proud of his journey and his writing.

It was amazing.

It's just mind blowing how good it is.

Uh yeah, I'm trying to write a book, and now I'm totally discouraged after reading John's book.

It's like that.

He's like, Wow, No, but you're you're an actual writer, so like you have the skill and the talent. John's was great, I have no doubt about that. But you've been writing your whole life, and so I think it's going to do this. You can absolutely do this. Will be the first in line to buy it, Yeah, and get it autographed and give it a there.

Yeah, well not with the lines that fan on that you got, you know what I mean? They have that done a little better.

It might be given out.

That's the point.

So tell me how Okay, tell me the John Posey Bob Saggot because Bob Saggat wasn't the original Danny Tanner, so why not.

What happened there?

Well, that's you know, we every all the other roles fell into place beautifully, and I just couldn't find the right guy for Danny and I had when when the show was first picked up. I said to our casting directors, I said, I have two names on my list. You know, I want either Paul Reiser, a really hot actor at the time.

Great, yeah, that would have been a big get. At that point, he was thinking about it.

He was he was weighing either full House or this other show called My Two Dads, which you know that was the season of single dads, right right, I.

Just came out.

So there was another show on NBC that's the one Paul took. And I called you know, I knew him, I was. I called him up. I'm like, Paul, what are you doing? Like three dads are better than two? And we got three kids, you only got one, you know, And it was.

My numbers alone were winning, So ye.

Can't you see?

And it was it's also kind of an unsavory premise to that show.

It was weird, like the mother.

Had had an accident sleeping with both those guys like thirteen years ago, and she and so both of them thought they were the dad, and they decided not to find out and just moved in together and raise the girl together. So yeah, it's a weird. It's a weird promise.

Well yeah, and it's also one of those things that now you'd be like, we'll just go to CVS and get one of this paternity test and we'll solve this.

Get twenty three and me right, yeah then yeah anyway, and.

Wow that.

Anyway.

So, and the other name was Bob Saggott and I knew Bob from UH. I produced a show called Some Buddies. Bob Saggot was the warm up guy the audience and that's how I first met Bob. And uh, you know, because who else can talk.

For three I'm gonna say that's the perfect It's amazing. Once you give him a microphone and there's a brief pause in action, he is gone, Yeah.

It was really it was hard to get him to stop talking.

I was going to say, how to actually get to shooting when he was doing the warm up.

I mean we would turn the bike off.

And then that's I was going to say, yeah, that's yeah, and he'll still go be like it's not working.

Yeah, oh well I'll keep going. He couldn't possibly want me to stop talking. But yeah, And I even said to Bob, I go, you know, one of these days, you know, I hope we get to work together. I hope, you know, I would love to create a show someday and have you star in it, you know, And he's like, as long as I still get to do the warm up.

You know, I'm pretty good at this.

Is that why you always took the mic from Bob Purlough doing our targent.

He just wanted to be the warm up guy.

It's his dream job anyway.

So so Bob couldn't do it because he was under contract to this CBS morning show and he was there man on the street guy. He eventually got fired for being Bob. He was just a little little too risque.

First, I was gonna say, yeah, like I feel like Bob being given free reign to like, hey just go up to people on the street and like riff it just is a lot. No, yeah, we've made a mistake.

So my first two choices were were unavailable. And then we started reading everyone in town and we're basically out of time, and I was kind of lobbying to like maybe wait, like let's not shoot it now, Let's wait till we have the right guy at the studio. Was very nervous, so like sometimes they just pull the plug and you never get to make it, and you know, so we found this guy, John Posey, who was a dramatic actor. He wasn't you know, he wasn't a comedian, he wasn't really hadn't done any comedies. Just a likable, sweet guy and a good actor, and you know, we just sort of ran out of time and everybody said, Okay, let's try this guy and hope for the best. And you know, it was fine, It was fine. It wasn't you know, nothing bad happened that the pilot tested through the roof. You know, he was probably he was the lowest testing character, but that's because the straight basically the straight man and surrounded my idiots.

So yeah, so you know that was to be expected.

And then the show gets picked up and there's pictures everywhere of the cast and John Posey's in them. And suddenly I get this call from Brad Bray, who was managed Bob Dave and Gary Shandling, like three really pivotal people.

In my life.

And Brad says, hey, you know, so you know, Bob's around in case, you know, just in case, you know, you want to go reshoot that pilot, you know, and you know, I knew what he was saying, and saying, Bob would really like to do this if there's any way, And so I arranged for a secret chemistry test on the Perfect Stranger stage with Michelle Dall and John.

And Dave and we shot a se I wish I had it. I don't know.

Yeah, it's probably somewhere one of my brothers probably hasn't, but.

You know, and it was it was fine.

But there were just a couple of moments where Bob, you know, had this spark, and it makes such a difference to have somebody who's really funny things really funny.

You know, Bob had no heat. Bob was not a star yet.

You know, he was just a guy, you know, on the circuit trying to trying to get going. But uh, I just felt like he could be one of those TV dads you know.

He was he was.

He had this cuteness and sweetness and likability and you know, he really like clicked all the boxes for me, and I just you know, So then I started lobbying. You know, I'm like, I know this is crazy, but we got to do this all over again. We gotta we got to make a change. I mean, we've got to spend a million dollars. We I mean it was. People looked at me like I had lost my mind, and I just was relentless. I just didn't give up. And it sucks because you know, we had to let somebody go and break their heart.

And he was.

He's been a working actor for you know after that. But still, you know.

What a horrible hor Oh it's the worst as an actor when you're like, yeah, that was almost Did.

You have to have that? Did you have the conversation with John Posey?

Did you have to fire him yourself or did you send a producer to do it?

Talked to his agent and his agent told him no, that was was.

Yeah.

Like five years later, I had hanging with mister Cooper on the air and I actually gave John. I was scared of death, but I wanted to do something nice for him all those years. It's kind of weird to have him on Full House, but I had him on that show. Oh good, sir, It's like I get it, you know, all good, Thanks for thanks for the three liner.

You know.

Well, fan of Rito's.

I hope, just like us, you want to hear more from Jeff because we're going to finish it up with him next week in part two of his interview and in the meantime, if you want to follow us on Instagram, make sure and follow.

Us at how Rude Podcast.

You can also send us an email howardpodcast at gmail dot com. We'd love to get your questions, find out what you guys are loving about the show, what you want to know more about, and make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast so you can keep hearing more of how Rude Tannerito's and remember you guys until next week.

The world is small, but the house is full.

Wow.

Wow, this is Jody Sweeten. It's twenty twenty four.

Yep, no, no,

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