Then there are the newbies, DJ’s kids, Max ( Michael Campion), Jackson ( Elias Harger) and little baby Tommy ( Dashiell and Fox Messitt). Throughout the rest of the episode, Jesse and Becky’s forgettable twins come back into the picture ( Blake and Dylan Tuomy-Wilhoit) and even DJ’s old flame, Steve ( Scott Weinger) is re-introduced. DJ has hired her for Danny’s going away party - which included a dance number to New Kids on the Block’s “The Right Stuff”, which echoed the painfully enjoyable dance routines performed by Stephanie in the original. Kimmy ( Andrea Barber) barges in with her signature “Hola Tannerinos!” and has announced that she is a party planner. When she surprises the family she has just arrived from England and talks in a fake accent - which is as annoying as it sounds. She is now a DJ and goes by the name of DJ Tanner (funny, huh?) and travels the world. When Stephanie ( Jodie Sweetin) enters, things get really interesting. As soon as he comes on to the seen, he wastes no time in doing that irritating, albeit adorable-for-kids Bullwinkle impression. Joey ( Dave Coulier) is back as well and he continues to be a beacon of stand-up comedy as a headliner in Las Vegas. DJ is a veterinarian, Danny and Becky ( Lori Loughlin) are headed to Los Angeles to host their new show Wake Up U.S.A. and Uncle Jesse ( John Stamos) is going down to SoCal with his wife to be the musical composer on his favorite soap opera, General Hospital (ummm, OK). It’s a blatant roll call of the entire family where they say their name and where they are in their lives since we last saw them. In the first episode, the story is very unapologetically color-by-number as the kitchen is filled with old and new cast members. Sound familiar? It should, because in the original, Danny ( Bob Saget) is trying to raise three girls after his wife passes away. In Fuller House, DJ Tanner, now Fuller ( Candace Cameron Bure), is all grown up and trying to raise three boys in her old childhood home, which is about to be sold, after her husband has passed away. And that is exactly what FULLER HOUSE is - but would you expect anything less from a show that was originally cheesy, corny and packed with eye-rolling “Dad” jokes? That said, it should be embraced for what it is and not what it should be. But if a sitcom in the same vein were introduced today, it would immediately get dismissed for being cheesy, corny, and packed with eye-rolling “dad” jokes.
Now, in the 21st century, Full House has become an ironic sitcom joke and a source of nostalgia porn. Like it’s “TGIF” multi-camera sitcom peers, Full House was pumped with so much saccharine that you couldn’t help but embrace this bizarre fantasy world of canned laughter and super-sanitized stories and dialogue that would even make Jesus Christ demand more edginess. It was also a time when people were less cynical and willing to accept a family sitcom where a problem is resolved in less than half an hour. The internet didn’t exist so there wasn’t a platform for people to get on their soapbox to hear themselves talk. When Full House was first released in 1987, it was a different time.
Some of these jokes work, but the laughs are few and far between.Tweetable Takeaway: Fuller House is a pot of ’90s nostalgia that bubbles over with tons of cheese people will refuse to enjoy. It does have bits of weird grown-up moments with jokes about semen, lesbians, and masturbation which feel a bit out of place, and it also adds in a lot of self-aware jokes like about Elizabeth and Ashley Olsen’s absence, what the cast has been up to since 1995, and the ideas of relaunching tired old shows. The laughs are cliché, predictable, pandering and the awful studio audience/laugh track that explodes with every joke. The good news for Full House fans: Fuller House is faithful to the original series…it is awful.
Flash-forward almost thirty years to Fuller House for which I had no excitement or anticipation…and it turns out I was right. I can remember the promos for Full House when it was coming on in 1987, and I was excited for it as a lover of bad-family friendly sitcoms like Perfect Strangers and Facts of Life…but quickly found out that I had outgrown awful sitcoms and found myself longing for Diff’rent Strokes.