John Stamos Revealed He Got The Olsen Twins Fired From “Full House” When They Were 11 Months Old
On a recent episode of the podcast, Good Guys, John Stamos revealed that he got Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen briefly fired from Full House. According to Variety, the twins were booted when they were just 11 months old during production for the very first episode. John explains that he and Dave Coulier were trying to film a scene where they change Michelle’s diaper, but both baby actors wouldn’t stop crying. Babies? Crying?? Groundbreaking. But Uncle Jesse wasn’t having it, and he ordered the Powers That Be to “get rid of them.”
Here’s what John said via Variety:
“We’re doing the scene. Joey and I were changing the baby, right? And Danny’s gone and said, ‘Take care of the kids.’ ‘Yeah, we got it. We got it,’” Stamos said. “So, we’re carrying the baby downstairs and we take her in the kitchen and we hose her down. And she was screaming. Both of them. They wanted to be anywhere else but there, and so did I.”
Stamos continued, “They were 11 months old, and god bless them. They kept switching: ‘This one’s not gonna cry.’ I couldn’t deal with it. And I said, ‘This is not gonna work,’ and I screamed it 10 times. I said, ‘Get rid of them, I can’t work like this.’ And so they got rid of them.”
Damn, John. Screaming for babies to be fired on the very first episode of a family sitcom when you’re still a relative unknown? Ah, to have the confidence of a Greek-American heartthrob with ties to the Beach Boys. Fortunately, Uncle Jesse was proven wrong when the Olsens’ replacements arrived:
“They bring on these two redheaded kids…I’m sure their parents loved them and thought they were attractive…It had nothing to do with [them being] red-headed, but they weren’t attractive.”
Filming continued without the Olsen twins for “only a few days,” after which Stamos said, “Bring the Olsens back! These kids are terrible.” “It was a day or something, we tried the other kids, it didn’t work,” Stamos added.
Here’s John’s podcast appearance:
And the diaper scene in its final form:
Whoa. I don’t wanna live in a world where the Olsen twins weren’t stars. I’m one of those ’90s kids who were absolutely obsessed with everything Mary-Kate and Ashley touched. From It Takes Two to Passport to Paris to both of their one-season sitcom flops (Two of a Kind > So Little Time). Even after their retirement from show biz, both gals have continued to inspire me. From bowls of cigarettes at MK’s wedding, to their transformation into fashion-witches, to that one pic of Ashley walking through the woods with a beer and a machete… actual icons. Thank God those replacement babies were uggos!
Pic: YouTube