What was once a show about three dads is now about three moms. The TCA Fuller House panel featured stars Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin, and Andrea Barber, as well as show creator Jeff Franklin and executive producer Bob Boyett, to talk about the gender swap and the enduring legacy of the original Full House.

“I’ve never wanted to do a reunion show,” said Boyett. “They’re mostly lousy.” In the years since the show went off the air, he and Warner Brothers have been approached “at least two or three times a year with some form of follow-up for Full House,” he said. But it wasn’t until Franklin brought them the idea of seeing what happened to sisters D.J., Stephanie, and their friend Kimmy, that the time seemed right. “What happened to these three young ladies whom everyone was very, very interested in? How did they grow up? What happened to them?”

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The first episode is full of winks and allusions to the original show, but Franklin says it’s not like that all the way through: “We wanted to create an episode that was for the fans that in essence was almost the last episode of Full House that we never got to do.” As the series progresses, the original “dads” — John Stamos, Dave Coulier, and Bob Saget — appear less and less often, and the show becomes more itself and less referential.

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Barber said the first day was “sort of like walking onto an archaeological site that had just been unearthed after 20 years. It was overwhelming.” But they instantaneously picked up their old rhythms. “We have stayed so close together over the years,” said Sweetin. “Working together again — without missing a beat — it was the same jokes and the same sort of things we shared collectively as a group.”

“Even when we were young,” Barber said, “the characters were, in some ways, a reflection of who we actually were.” This time around, nothing’s changed. The writers “really took into consideration the women we had become. We met with the writers and really were able to share stories about our parenting and our lives and what’s going on with us,” she said.



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That’s the key to the ongoing success of the show, Boyett added. “We never lost that human connection between these actors and characters. This is a family of people who have stayed close all through the years and that comes through on the screen.”

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Not only is this next generation connected to the previous on TV; they’re also connected in real life. Sweetin brought her children to set the first week. “I have a picture of me and my two daughters sitting on the couch in the set. That was a moment that I never in a million years thought that I would be able to have and I cried after,” she said. And Barber is the set mom to their TV children. She has a “mom voice” that keeps them in line. “I really, honestly treat them like my own,” Barber said.



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