Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - We Chat To The Creator Of Full House!

Episode Date: May 4, 2025

We chat with Full House creator Jeff Franklin! He tells us why he ended up buying the show’s iconic San Francisco home, the real reason Bob Saget wasn’t the original Danny Tanner, and which twin refused to do the first full week of filming (spoiler: it wasn’t Mary-Kate). Plus—Ben totally loses it when Jeff reveals which celebrities (that he’s a massive fan of!) are building a house right next to his!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the Jono, Ben and Megan podcast. Thanks to HelloFresh, your home advantage for delicious midweek dinners that everyone will love. You've got a beautiful view out your window there, mate. Oh yeah, that's the city. That's LeBron James' house. That's LeBron James' house? No. Yeah. Is it? He's being built, yeah. Oh my God, I'm a super fan of Lebron that's oh wow you can see his house being built right now ben i couldn't if i lived in your house i'd just be staring at that window

the whole time it'd be weird yeah oh she's gone with a uh timber decking there yeah we're here to talk about another house not lebron james's house full house yeah there's the tie-in now jeff we were running a competition for the best theme song of TV shows, and Full House got, I think, into the semifinals. And unfortunately, we need to break the news to you, it didn't win, but it got through to the semifinals out of the hundreds and hundreds of entries. Well, that's upsetting. I was on here to collect my flyers.

Yeah, sorry. We had booked you a while ago, and then the results came through. Yeah, it's a loser segment. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. So we're phoning everyone, and we're just telling them they didn't win. Sorry about that, but thanks for catching up. Now, you, of course, creator, writer, director, producer,

also helped create the theme song but you also pitched the show and it was quite a different show i understand it was about three comedians at the start was that right yeah the show i originally pitched was called house of comics and it was about this was way before reality tv and it was about let's find three stand-up comics that are really funny and put them in a house together. And basically, they play themselves and try to make it in Hollywood. And I thought, that's a great show because I don't have to make up characters. I don't have to write anything. What a great idea.

And it was just way ahead of its time. And they looked at me and said, oh, that's really cute, but we don't want to do that. Can you make up, you know, a traditional family show? That's what we're looking for. And so it kind of morphed into Full House by accident. Yeah. So no idea.

I mean, it ran for 192 episodes. 30 years later, it's still getting played. People around the world, you did a spinoff as well. Did you have any idea back in 1987 that the show you created was going to be a phenomenon yeah i knew i knew i was set for life right from the start well megan you were you were surprised megan found out that uh bob sega wasn't the original cast correct yeah i i was friends with bob when i before i came up with the show and i just love the guy i always thought he despite his filthy act yeah he could be a uh you know one of these classic sitcom dads and i really wanted him and he was under contract to a morning program as kind of a man in the street guy doing interviews.

And they wouldn't let him do the pilot. So we cast another actor. We shot the pilot. They ordered the show. And then Bob got fired for, I think, saying the word anus. Well, he was a comedian that was very different from his character on Full House. Chris. Yeah, it drove him nuts.

He hated being the anti-terrorist. Anyway, so he got fired. So suddenly he was available and I caused a lot of trouble. I asked the network in the studio to let me reshoot the pilot, recast the pilot, spend a million dollars. And it all over when the they were perfectly fine with the guy that was doing it so i i was obsessed i just really thought he was going to make the show better how did that guy take it the original oh yeah i mean he was he's such a sweet man and i've been wracked with guilt still to this day, you know, that his life would have been quite different had he been the star of that show.

And I actually hired him to do a bit part on another show. He came in and I was just fumbling, apologizing, you know, on and on and on. And, you know, he gave me a hug like you know he made me feel better oh well you know just anyway sweet guy and uh it sucks to be that close to something that turned out to be so big and yeah have it away it sucks yeah now mary kate and ashley olsen obviously uh blew my mind as a kid watching the show going what this was two people playing all these how did that come about because they would have been very very young like babies when they first got the role as they were they were uh

five months old when i met them wow we cast them and uh yeah well, this is sort of interesting that most people don't know. Everybody thinks that they shared the role of Michelle and we would swap them in and out and they would take turns playing the lights. She hated all of it. She screamed her little heart out. And Mary-Kate had a great time. So she carried the show by herself for the first six episodes. And then she got pink eye. Oh, really? Yeah, the night of show seven. And we couldn't shoot her. All these people march up to little ashley

said okay well ashley it's your turn tonight you get to go up and you get to do the show isn't that exciting and we're gonna put you in wardrobe and we just figured we were it was gonna be a disaster and she went out there and crushed it did an an amazing job. And from that moment on, they both loved it. Wow. And were you the first show, were you the pioneer to get a workaround for those fiddly child labor laws by hiring two kid twins? Was this a genius move? Yeah.

We paid them each a salary. So I don't think we skirted any laws i'm sure it's all about board yeah we're not we're not here there's not some undercover sting ready to go do you still keep in touch with them to this day yeah i talk to them now and then i'm not as close to mary kate nationally as i am to the rest of the cast. They have very busy lives and they, you know, I don't want to say we drifted apart because we still get along great when we see each other, but I wish we saw each other more. Now, obviously you're involved not just with the show itself,

but with the theme tune. You helped create the theme tune. Now, what were you looking for? Because that was so iconic, the theme tune. Things that kids would watch today and go, what's a milkman? What's a paperboy? But, you know, just so iconic for the time. They might know what milk is. People are aware of milk. There's no way they know what a newspaper is.

That's like a song from another dimension, I would think, to kids now. But it's still catchy. Yeah, it really is. We know all the lyrics. Can we tell you something, Jeff? Our producer, Ellie, who I think organized this interview with you. Can we bring Ellie in? Ellie is a huge fan. She's got her Full House t-shirt on today.

She's wearing Full House t-shirt right now ellie you tell you told you what you what you did when you were in san francisco my partner and i um we went to san francisco last year and we went around and tried to find all the spots that the theme song was filmed at and we recreated it and put it on my instagram so i can send that to you later if you want to have a look she recreated the show title he's seen the original but thank you that's lovely but that must be thank you. That's lovely. But that must be something. You're not alone in doing that. That's, that's.

Yeah. You know, I, I don't know if you know this, but I, I bought that house. Yes. I bought the full house. Really? So for a while, yes. I am a bit obsessive and I asked the owner if we could go up there and shoot you know and do new exterior shots and I wanted I had this dream where the cast would walk out of the house on the soundstage in Burbank

open that door and then be in San Francisco and walk out of the real house and be on the front porch and play a scene and walk into the city of the streets of San Francisco anyway so I really wanted to do that and they were so upset that Full House was coming back on the air and little by little more fans are coming to the house and he ended up being really upset and putting the house up for sale and i've got a hat and a fake mustache and i went up there and i bought the house and uh just so i could shoot that that scene oh my gosh wow is that the world's most expensive scene you had to take a mortgage to buy a house

to shoot a scene yeah i don't think that's ever been done nobody's ever bought a location it's incredible because i've been to san francisco as well and you line up with people you stand outside the place across the road in the park and so many people were taking photos of the outside of the house that was using the titles. Yeah, which I loved actually, I would, you know, but the people on the block really came to hate me. I had this great idea that I was going to turn it into like a full house museum and make the inside of the house look just like the show have tours and let people spend the night and it was going to be this whole thing and they got they went to the mayor and i mean it was a

whole thing that it's a tourist attraction for the city yeah it would have it would have yeah but you know they are very tenant friendly there in San Francisco. Right. So the tenants have rights and homeowners have rights. And it wasn't zoned for a commercial purpose, which I did not know. So there went that dream. And I basically said, I'll sell the house if you'll give me a film permit and let me shoot some stuff up there. And so that's what happened.

PC madness, Jeff. Because you put together Fuller House, obviously, quite a while after Full House ended. But it took like about 10 years, is that right, for someone to actually say, even though the show was still successful, for them to say they wanted the reboot? No, it took seven years for me to get it set up um actually and i you know nobody nobody wanted it nobody under they all underestimated the size of the audience the loyalty like i knew this was gonna you know there was a hunger for the show but nobody i couldn't convince anyone. And I just had to wait for Netflix to be invented and streaming.

And that, you know, they they the reason it sold is because Full House was airing on Netflix and they couldn't believe, couldn't believe how many people are watching the show. So they got it. But if that hadn't happened, yeah. So did you have Fuller House written for seven years, ready to go? Yeah, I had the whole idea, and I pitched it all over town, and nobody bought it. Wow. Geez, they'd be kicking

themselves yeah yeah that was that was the time that was that was the moment why do you think it resonated so much why do people love it why do you think people loved it so much i mean you watch it now you know there's no cell phones there's no internet there's a lot of mullets i mean it's a but it's still such an enjoyable show i it's because of the cast the fact that we became this is really unusual in in our business we everybody says they're a family when they're working together and then they finish the project and they all go their separate ways. And we've fell in love with each other and we've been, you know, it's our second family to this day. And that comes across, uh, on the show. It feels

authentic, feels like these people really love each other. And the most important thing is we raised a baby from six months in front of America, and we have the cutest babies in the history of television. We also have the only babies in the history of television to be raised, so we win by default. Yeah, well, you didn't really fake in there yeah i really think it was you know the fact that we had we took that on and you know showed a little baby grow up in front of america you know no one's ever really done that before or since and i know why

you know what because raising babies is hard especially when you need them to remember lines takes a village or a whole car what was that what was the one thing that was uh you were like wow this is so much easier doing the show so many years later what technology had obviously advanced so many things were different in tv what was the one thing you were like, wow, I wish I had that the first time around? Oh, well, the cameras, you know, the cameras that we shot on, you know,

on Fuller House were great. You know, we shot on videotape on Full House and it just doesn't look the same. You know, it doesn't look as good I wish we had this back then but you know otherwise no regrets well listen this has been

really nostalgic I know Ellie have you got any questions you want to ask oh now you've put me on the spot I just want to say thank you for creating my favourite show of all time and I love Fuller House as well I've honestly been a big fan since I was a kid. So thank you. I love it so much.

Well, thank you. You probably, the money that I made from you probably bought this show. This show. You're welcome. See that view of LeBron James' house there? That's what you helped. That was all me. It helped you.

It helped you get that view. Are those all scripts in the background, are they? No, those are bills. He's got some bills. Oh, that's depressing. You love bills to pay. You really should get onto those. They really get in the way.

There's a big pile behind you there. Lovely to talk with you, mate. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you.