Saget would go on to portray the patriarch of the Tanner family in the show
Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Jodie Sweetin is opening up about filming the original Full House pilot with actor John Posey as Danny Tanner
- Bob Saget was the first choice for the role, but scheduling conflicts initially prevented him from joining the show
- Sweetin said creator Jeff Franklin fought to reshoot the pilot with Saget, believing he was the perfect fit for the role
Jodie Sweetin is opening up about filming the very first episode of Full House — without Bob Saget, who would ultimately become the show's fictional patriarch.
Speaking on an episode of Taboo's Comics & Kicks, Sweetin, 44, acknowledged that the show's very first episode featured actor John Posey in the role of Danny Tanner, as Saget was at the time under contract to host CBS' The Morning Program. The episode featuring Posey never aired, and Saget quickly replaced him before Full House debuted on ABC.
"We started doing the show and we'd shot an entire pilot actually with a different — with John Posey, who was a lovely human being and very sweet and wonderful," Sweetin shared. "But Bob was the first choice for Danny."
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Credit: ABC
She continued: "And so when he was no longer doing the show that was conflicting with Full House, we reshot the entire pilot which Jeff Franklin had to fight for so hard because that's a lot of money."
"And he was like, 'I just know it. I just know this is who we need as the dad. This is going to be it.' And he was right," Sweetin added.
Back in 2023, Sweetin and her former co-star Andrea Barber shared a never-before-seen photo from the unaired pilot, writing, “No need to adjust your phones – here it is: a shot from the first unaired pilot of Full House. Things were…a little different,” in the caption for a photo posted to their How Rude, Tanneritos! podcast Instagram account.
“Can you imagine this version of the show?” the caption added.
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The photo featured Posey standing next to an unnamed actress portraying his wife Pamela Tanner for a family portrait that also included Sweetin (Stephanie Tanner), Candace Cameron Bure (D.J. Tanner) and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (Michelle Tanner).
It was Saget, though, who would go on to portray the widowed father of three on Full House from 1987 until 1995, starring alongside Sweetin, Barber, the Olsens, John Stamos, Dave Coulier and Lori Loughlin.
In 2016, Saget and the rest of the cast reprised their roles for Netflix's Fuller House, with the late actor appearing in 10 episodes of the spinoff, which ended in 2020.
Saget was found dead at the age of 65 in his hotel room at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes in Florida on Jan. 9, 2022. It was later discovered that Saget had suffered blunt head trauma following an unwitnessed fall
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