Being a parent can easily turn into one of the most frustrating experiences in the world, to say nothing of all the amazing moments and memories. And that frustration can stretch beyond normal means whenever one is dealing with disruptive kids that aren’t even theirs, such as it went for Full House star John Stamos in the earliest days of filming the ABC sitcom. While his Elvis-loving, jolly-rocking character Jesse may have exuded coolness and ‘anything goes” vibes, the actor himself wasn’t necessarily such a free spirit at the time, as indicated by Stamos directly and intentionally getting Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen fired just for being babies, albeit of the screaming and uncontrollable variety.
To be sure, John Stamos has spoken about getting the Olsens fired before in the past, though he was perhaps a bit more spirited in going back down that specific part of memory lane while appearing on the Good Guys Podcast with hosts Josh Peck and Ben Soffer. As fans probably remember, Stamos and Peck worked together on the Fox comedy Grandfathered (which naturally featured a noteworthy Full House reunion during its single season), and so the sitcom and soap opera vet definitely wasn’t shy about taking responsibility for getting a pair of 11-month-old kids fired. Here’s how he put it when Peck asked if he’d “tried” to get the Olsens canned.
I did it. I didn't try. Well here's the pilot, right? We're doing that scene... Joey and I were changing the baby, and Danny's gone. 'Take care of the kids.' 'Yeah we got it, we got it.' And we didn't. And so we're carrying the baby downstairs, and I think I was holding her on the armpits and Dave was holding her little feet. We take her in the kitchen, and we hosed her down, we put a fan on her, we wrapped her up in paper towels and stuck her... She was screaming. Both of them. They wanted to be anywhere else but there, and so did I. They were 11 months old, and God bless em. They kept switching. 'This one's not gonna cry. This one's not...'
At that point, Josh Peck and Ben Soffer commented on the twins being so miserable, and joked that maybe Hollywood shouldn't put kids to work, and that maybe child actors should be protected more. (An idea that should probably be shouted from mountaintops in regards to Dave Coulier sharing a story about farting on one of the Olsens.) Which then led into more of John Stamos self-awarely griping about babies around 35 years after the fact.
I couldn't deal with it, and I said, 'This is not gonna work, guys.' I screamed at them. I said, 'Get rid of 'em. I can't work like this.' I sounded like such a... But it was obvious, because we had to loop everything. And so they got rid of them. They bring in these two redheaded kids. I'm sure their parents loved them and thought they were attractive. . . . It had nothing to do with them being redheaded, but they weren't attractive.
To be fair, Stamos was being mostly non-offending when bemusedly talking about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's replacements being not so attractive, but as soon as that came up, Peck and Soffer ran with the idea that redheads fall on both sides of extremes where looks are concerned, but not so much anywhere in the middle. Soffer also joked that you have to keep some of them in the closet, because "you just can't show these kids, I'm sorry," which made me laugh harder than I'd care to admit.
In any case, Stamos didn't make it sound like the ginger twins who were brought in were on the same kind of screaming-at-everything level as the Olsens, but he said it didn't last a week before he clamored for the producers to bring the original infants back into the role.
It was only a few days, but I said, 'Bring the Olsens back! These kids are terrible!' . . . It was a day or something. We tried the other kids. It didn't work.
Josh Peck was very curious to learn whether or not the redheaded twins' parents were knowledgable that their kids had just been fired due to Stamos' complaints, but the actor said he wasn't aware of what their situation was. But he did confirm, as it were, that the year-old twins were almost definitely clueless about getting shitcanned.
Maybe if we ever get another Full House spinoff, which Stamos has been wary about being open to, the producers can somehow talk the Olsens AND the unidentified redheaded twins into coming back. Not so likely, since the former duo were hard set against reprising the role of Michelle for Fuller House, but that's what dreams are for.
All eight seasons of Full House can be streamed with an HBO Max subscription, while the follow-up sitcom Fuller House’ five-season run is available for streaming with a Netflix subscription. And when you get to Season 8's episode featuring Shorty the Donkey, take a second to recall the guest-starring animal was particularly attracted to Stamos while filming, which he also wasn't very happy about.
