In the history of television there have been a number of series which have brought joy and laughs to millions of people for years on end, and the hit ‘90s family sitcom Full House is definitely counted among that number. That show was so popular that the cast reunited for Fuller House nearly 30 years later, which continued the story of the Tanner and Gibbler clans for those with a Netflix subscription and wrapped its five-season run in 2020. It’s no secret that stars like John Stamos, Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber kept in touch over the years and like to reminisce, but now they’ve opened up about getting death threats during the original show.
What Did John Stamos And Jodie Sweetin Say About Getting Death Threats During Full House?
Considering how close the Full House cast has been over the decades, I never would have guessed that there was any real strife behind the scenes or danger to be endured for the actors. However, John Stamos recently revealed that he “pissed off” Bob Saget in the early days, and now he and Jodie Sweetin have talked about getting death threats during the show. Stamos sat down with Sweetin and Andrea Barber for their podcast, How Rude, Tanneritos!, and eventually asked the duo if they remember him getting death threats, to which Barber replied:
You were getting death threats, which was probably by letters in the early ‘90s. … So when they brought the audience in on that Friday night, like, they set up, metal detectors for the first time. This was unheard of back in the early ‘90s. And I could feel like this nervous energy all throughout backstage. And then right before you went out for your intro, John, you did the sign of the cross. And then I think it was Bob [Saget], maybe Dave [Coulier], but I think it was Bob who leaned over to you and said, ‘Can I have your parking spot?’
Well, if anything, that sounds like classic Bob Saget, doesn’t it? Obviously, this was a very tense time for Stamos, who was no stranger to the intense attention that can come from stardom because of his time on General Hospital in the early ‘80s. I don’t know if he was able to laugh at his co-star’s joke at the time, but he certainly had a good giggle about it while looking back on the incident. Stamos continued, explaining:
I had some deranged idiot, he showed up on the lot across the street, Culver Studios, and he told somebody, he said, ‘Where’s John Stamos?’ The girl said, ‘I don’t know.’ She said, ‘Why,’ and he said, “Because I’m going to kill him.’ And then she went to get security, and then he was gone. … And he was calling the hotline, and I had an FBI agent with me 24 hours a day, and it was so stupid, because I tried to ditch him.
Can you even imagine? Thank goodness the Uncle Jesse actor wasn’t around and the woman who spoke to his would-be attacker knew how to respond. Apparently, the next step was to alert the production, and Stamos said that he was called into the “Willy Wonka” like office of executive producers Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett for them to explain the situation, which sounds like it was a bit of a surreal experience, considering they called him “John John” and had “candy everywhere” and “weird little dogs” littering the space.
While Sweetin herself recently admitted to probably being “annoying” to co-star Candace Cameron Bure in the early years of the comedy, she also has an unfortunate death threat story, which she relayed to her co-stars:
I’d get death threats as a kid. … I had someone who was calling the stage floor and asking for my mom. They connected it to my dressing room and they were like, ‘Do you know where your daughter is right now? We have her.’ … I had a bodyguard in New York, because there was a guy that the FBI was following me because he was trying to kidnap me.
Ugh…I remember watching other kids on TV when I was young myself and thinking they must be having so much fun. Of course it never occurred to me that you could be a child on a sitcom with a classic TV catchphrase and end up getting death threats! Barber also explained that the young girls on the show frequently got “letters from men in prison asking for specific photos of us as children.” It clearly doesn’t get more gross or scary than that.
Luckily, no harm came to any of the cast, and they were all (minus those pesky Olsen twins, who did make up for turning down an appearance when they attended Saget’s funeral) able to safely bring fans a much beloved reunion.
