It’s been nearly four decades since Full House premiered on ABC, but the sitcom’s popularity has inexplicably endured throughout the years. Now, John Stamos, who played “Uncle” Jesse Katsopolis, has a 7-year-old son named Billy who watches the show.
However, he does so in order to “mock” his famous dad.
E! News caught up with Stamos at the Adopt the Arts and Let Music Fill My World charity event on Tuesday, Sept. 30, where he told correspondent Will Marfuggi how his son weaponizes the series against him.
“He watches Full House, but he watches it to mock me. Because I’ll be like, ‘Go put your Legos away,’” Stamos explained, adding that his son will sarcastically respond, “You got it, dude.”
“You know, he’s pulling catchphrases off of me,” he continued. When asked if his son ever works in a “Have mercy,” Uncle Jesse’s ubiquitous catchphrase, Stamos admitted, “Yeah, but mocking. Not like it’s cool or anything.”
However, when Billy isn’t taunting his dad over his most famous role to date, he’s using it as clout with girls, as Stamos further explained.
“He went to a new school, he said, ‘Dad, we had to write down all our things and they [asked] what’s your favorite TV show,’” the 62-year-old recalled. “And he said, ‘The girl next to me put Fuller House,’ and I said, ‘You know, that’s my dad, my dad’s on that show. And he plays Uncle Jesse.’”
Stamos recreated the apparent triple gasp the girl reacted with, having learned the news. “So he’s using it with the girls, which is fine,” he added.
The role of Uncle Jesse has been both a blessing and a curse for Stamos, though he did return for a recurring role in the 2016 Netflix revival of the series. However, it took some time for him to make peace with the character.
In an Aug. 31 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Stamos recounted the unwanted attention he received during a 1998 Broadway production of Cabaret. “Let’s go see Uncle Jesse,” he said, mocking fans. “And people were walking out … I said, ‘What am I doing wrong?’”
Stamos said that he thinks only when he “just let go of it all, like just let it all go” was he finally able to move past the role. He recalled being onstage with James Earl Jones (the two starred together in a 2012 Broadway revival of The Best Man) and being mortified at fans yelling for Uncle Jesse. That is, until another fan approached Jones and asked him to say the line from Star Wars, “Luke, I am your father.”
“And we both looked at each other, and I said, ‘F–k it, that’s it,’” he added. “I’m never worrying about Uncle Jesse and all that stuff again.”
