Hey hey hey, Otters! This is Ottavia Paluch from Things You Otter Know. Yes, a second consecutive Monday post. I know these are supposed to go out on Sunday morning, but I had, like, 3948793487 things to finish Saturday night. And I also had a Leafs game to watch. Oops!
Today I was supposed to send you the very first edition of Otterbiography, my monthly fake blog post column thing, but I got caught up in…well, you’ll see. So instead you’ll be getting a bonus essay from me, in a newly invented column that I have decided to tentatively title Bonus Thing You Otter Know. It’s a bonus because it falls outside my usual bi-weekly schedule. It also usually isn’t a thing that you ought to know, but whatever, you all signed up to read my stupid thoughts.
If you have a better name suggestion for this thing, let me know. I’m desperate.
I have no set schedule for these. If I happen to abandon my homework write something extra in the days leading up to a Sunday, then I’ll just send it that Sunday and push the usual schedule back a week.
A quick note before we get started (no, the one above doesn’t count):
Substack basically destroyed the last newsletter I sent out, the Liz Hellmes essay. So here is the version I wanted to send out but couldn't.
I encourage you to follow my Medium page in case Substack screws me over again in the future. But hopefully that won’t happen because I applied for their Substack Go thingymajingy that they announced at the top of the month. Hopefully the Substack Gods are reading this and decide to let me in.
Okay! On with the show!
January’s been weird, but this week has been especially weird. My parents are fighting, I’m stressed over literally everything ever, AND I now have a crush on John Stamos???
WTF, Ottavia?????
Okay, listen up, kids. This might take a while.
Full House, for those who don’t know, is a sitcom that aired from 1987-1995. It’s all about this guy named Danny Tanner whose wife dies, so he gets his Elvis-loving brother-in-law Jesse and his goofy best friend Joey to help take care of his three daughters (ordered here in terms of age): D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle. Danny works at a TV station and Jesse falls in love with Danny’s co-anchor, Rebecca. They get married and have twin boys. DJ dates a lot of guys and is best friends with her neighbour Kimmy Gibbler (and my second favourite character) who is very eccentric and who Danny hates. Stephanie gets overlooked all the time as the middle child. Michelle is easily the most iconic character in the entire show. Also the three girls grow up as the show progresses which is cool. Also in every sad scene there’s sappy high-pitched violin music playing. Also the theme song is the best. (What DID ever happen to predictability?) Also there are lots of absolutely terrible 80s clothing and haircuts present. And lots of stupid catchphrases, too.
Jesse says “have mercy!”
Joey says “cut. it. out.”
Stephanie says “how rude.”
Michelle says “you got it, dude.” And that’s just the most famous catchphrase of hers.
Kimmy says “Hola, Tanneritos” whenever she enters the Tanner house.
And that, my friends, is the show in a nutshell.
Ok, so I know this doesn't sound like something that screams greatest sitcom of all time. But unfortunately Full House made up about 30% of my goddamn childhood when I was growing up. My dad was like 20 when it first came out. (I’ll have to ask him if he watched it back then, before it got huge.) My mom wasn’t even living in Canada yet. She didn’t come here until, like, season six. (I’ll have to ask her as well as to when she started watching.) Part of the reason my mom is fluent in English is because she watched Full House. We would sit around every weekday at 6:00 and watch reruns of it on…
okay guys I had to go on Wikipedia just now to find out to what cable channel it was on back then because it is driving me crazy. It was Channel 11 on Rogers I’m pretty sure. I know it was on YesTV for a bit after we stopped watching the show and before it moved to Netflix. But when we were watching it it was on a channel with a blue circle logo? You should see my search history right now…no, it wasn’t CHCH, although I do remember watching Tiny Talent Kids on that channel and crying because those kids were talented and I extremely wasn’t and there was this one episode with this kid named Bryan who I was SO JEALOUS OF and he was doing stupid playing card magi—OH MY GOD I FOUND IT
IT WAS THIS!!!!!!
No clue what CTS stands for, but according to Wikipedia it was originally called that before they rebranded to YesTV. Oh my god. What a throwback this has been. They would have Christian shows on in the mornings that I never watched because I found them gross. (This was before I wrote poems about God, by the way. Or even any poems at all, for that matter.) CTS used to have Fresh Prince on too but we didn’t watch that a lot for some reason. Also Golden Girls, but I was far too young to understand how important Betty White was to the universe.
They’d have The Cosby Show on there as well. Yep, I admit it, I used to watch The Cosby Show with my family. It wasn’t my choice. My mom just thought that Bill Cosby was the funniest guy on the planet, second only to Steve Harvey. This was prior to finding out that Bill Cosby was, well, you know. ANYWAYS. Where was I?
Oh yeah. So there was a brief period in my life where we would sit together in the living every day from Monday to Friday at 6:00 pm and watch Full House. Or, more likely, we’d PVR all five episodes that were airing that week and we’d just watch them back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back on Sunday when my parents were off work and my brother and I were off school.) And we’d watch Joey do his stupid stupid STUPID Bullwinkle impression for the quintillionth time. And we’d laugh at it for the quintillionth time! I know, I don’t get it either. But after watching old clips of the show on YouTube all week long, I can now conclude that it is simultaneously the worst and also the best goddamned sitcom ever?????
Like, here is a list of episodes that I remember enjoying as as kid:
the first one ever when Jesse moves into that room with the pink bunnies
when Jesse meets Becky and they spend some time doing what I call Ridiculous 80s Flirting (trademark emoji)
when the twins become Elvis impersonators
when Danny sings “My Girl” (honestly, he had a decent voice!)
when Jesse steps into Becky’s shoes
when Joey stays up late with DJ and Steph even though they weren’t supposed to
when the houses floods with cement
when Jesse proposes to Becky
when Danny joins Jesse’s band
when Becky plays Pictionary
when Danny plays pool
when Michelle learns to read
when Jesse gets stuck in the wall
when Kimmy turns into Ronald McDonald
when Danny gets carried away with spring cleaning
when Steph gets her ears pierced
when Jesse talks to his hair
when Danny begs DJ to make new friends
when their dog Comet runs around San Fran (I can’t find the exact clip online, but it’s much how like my writer friend from Twitter Kaya does it right now in real life)
when Danny dances with Michelle
when Michelle buys a donkey
when Joey and Jesse teach the twins about forgiveness
Is that not enough to prove to you that Full House is the greatest sitcom ever?????
Haha no I’m kidding. Seinfeld does exist, after all.
But it’s not like I can recall anything that challenges such a claim! I told you already, I don’t watch TV! I’ve seen maybe three episodes of Friends. I know there’s like, Rachel and Ross and Monica and Joey. And they, like, hang out together. That’s the extent of my Friends knowledge.
The Big Bang Theory I hold a grudge against because Sheldon Cooper reminds me of me.
I only know Frasier exists because of Jessica.
I promise I will binge-watch Schitt’s Creek one of these days. I basically am obligated to, since I’m Canadian.
I hear The Good Place is good. Never seen it though. I’m not a huge Kristen Bell fan. I think that’s because my mom and I saw her and her husband Dax Sheppard waaaay too many times on Ellen.
I used to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine when they had reruns of it on TV. Not sure how it holds up now in the current social climate. Although I did love Gina.
Oh man do I have to watch The Office. I’ve only seen like ten episodes but they were HILARIOUS.
Is SpongeBob a sitcom? I watched a LOT of SpongeBob as a kid. Every weekday on YTV at 4! (Tell you what, I will write a whole other essay on YTV for this Substack next month. Half of it will be explaining things to my non-Canadian readers.)
Speaking of animated things. In grades 7 and 8 I watched a lot of Simpsons. The MUCH channel always had it on. It would come on at 7 right before Tosh.0. (Anyone know that show? It was like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but on crack.) The Simpsons had some good stuff. RIP Sadgasm.
Now, having gone through every major sitcom I can think of, I can confirm that Full House is better than all of them. It’s the nostalgia, man. Who needs Rotten Tomatoes when you have me?
Just a quick aside. You know what DOES suck? FULLER House. The reboot on Netflix. I am not linking a link to a single second of that show. You guys deserve better. My Polish soap-opera watching parents somehow managed to finish every single episode of the critically-maligned Full House, but we couldn’t even get halfway through the first season of the even more critically-maligned Fuller. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but even I could write a better sitcom than that. It just makes you feel nostalgic for the 1980s prequel to Fuller House. You know, THE REAL THING.
Speaking of nostalgia. This brings me to Uncle Jesse. Jesse Katsopolis. JOHN PHILIP MCFRICKIN STAMOS. My new go-to answer when someone asks me, in the future when I’m famous, who my celebrity crush is. But not current John Stamos. 1990 John Stamos is more my thing. Even though during that time he walked around with a dead crow on his head.
Uncle Jesse was my favourite. My actual uncle could never compare. I see him a few times a year and our conversations tend to go something like this:
Uncle: yo ottavia
Ottavia: hi *forced hug*
Uncle: how’s school
Ottavia: *lies* good
End scene.
I know there are lots of people out there who wish Uncle Jesse was their uncle. I’m lucky enough to have a dad who resembles him in some way. I mean, at least in terms of personality. The looks part is debatable.
But I think what impresses me the most about John is that he’s versatile, he’s talented, AND he doesn’t try to define himself by his past work. He’s tried new things over the years and he remains a recognizable, universally-adored B-list celebrity. He’s also never won an Emmy and remains criminally underrated as an actor, despite being responsible for one of the cheesiest moments in sitcom history.
I mean, just look at this friggin masterpiece of television!! The heartthrob Jesse singing a song to his wife Becky on their wedding day, the song itself being the cheesiest love song ever despite the lovely chord progression (AND on top of that it was written by a Beach Boy), the choir coming out in full force to sing with Jesse, Becky shedding one (1) singular tear—and yet somehow it still has this effect on me? I’m like that. I’m sorry. I will see people crying and suddenly feel like crying myself. I think it’s an autistic thing. Whatever the reason, I am the biggest empath to ever empath.
Speaking of autistic traits! I have a tendency to get very into very useless things for a short span of time. Such as last week, where I had literally been going down a rabbit hole of…John Stamos trivia. I know far too much about this guy now! My brain just started and then it never stopped. So I’m gonna share some of it with you because IDGAF:
This dude got his first pro acting gig at 18 AND it was for freaking General Hospital? Talk about LUCK. Or maybe, destiny? Fate????
Also, General Hospital is still on?! WTF??? (You can tell I know nothing about soap operas.)
“It is listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running American soap opera in production” ??????
GENERAL HOSPITAL HAS BEEN A THING SINCE THE YEAR OF OUR LORD NINETEEN-HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE????
He likes to tell this story about how he was still working at his dad’s restaurant long after he joined General Hospital. “Whenever I get a little tired of the business or complain to my dad about something, he says, ‘You could still be flipping hamburgers.’”
Before Full House was a thing he played the lead singer of a band in a sitcom that got cancelled before its first season had even finished???
And then after Full House he was on the last three seasons of ER. That was my mom’s favourite show other than Oprah when I was growing up AND SHE NEVER TOLD ME ONCE THAT HE WAS ON IT???
More than once. (No, I don’t think it’s that good either. But whatever.)
I literally cannot explain this but it is too fun.
He occasionally drums for the Beach Boys (who are surprisingly a rock band I know little to nothing about)
Speaking of Glee. I need to take a minute to write a little aside about teen dramas. Glee was like the millennial Euphoria, wasn’t it? No, Euphoria is too recent. Riverdale was the precursor to Euphoria, right? All those kids smoking and stuff. “STFU, OT, you know nothing about TV.” I KNOW.
Here is a theory: Glee smoked so Riverdale could weed so Euphoria could vape.
As you can tell, I’m not very well-versed in teen dramas to be honest. Everyone I know is into at least one teen drama and then there’s me. Like, I know about Teen Wolf and Gossip Girl (or, rather, I know of them.) I have a friend who loves The Vampire Diaries but I don’t have the patience for eight seasons of that. I did get halfway through season one of Outer Banks before school started, though.
I have a bunch of friends who are really into Sex Education. Someone make me start watching that. I need to be hip and trendy. Okay. End of aside.
John’s current project is this show on Disney+ called Big Shot. He plays a nut job basketball coach of a girls high school basketball team. It got renewed for a second season a few months ago. Have any of you seen it, or are you all too busy talking about Bruno?
So yes, put some respect on John Stamos’s name.
The poor guy, man. His best friend just died. I can’t imagine. I hope John takes a step back from the industry for a bit and gives himself some time to grieve.
Danny Tanner was my second or third favourite character on the show. Although now I find it funny how different his character was from Bob Saget’s actual comedic persona. They were polar opposites! The loving, kid-friendly dad vs the X-rated jokester. Kind of like how I am on LinkedIn versus on here. (Did I tell y’all that I got locked out of my LinkedIn for pretending to be the CEO of Microsoft?)
Regardless, I think Bob was the perfect fit to play Danny. Check out this screen test of the Full House pilot episode, which includes another actor playing Danny. The contrast is unbelievable! I had so much more respect for Bob as an actor after watching that. He was the glue that kept the show together. He’s as responsible for its legacy as a good vintage family-friendly thing as anyone.
And I also think that a lot of the love Danny shows to his family—yes, part of it is in the acting, part of it is in what the director told him to do, part of it is written in the script—but it’s also in the heart. It’s genuine. It’s authentic. It’s real. All of the tributes to Bob that you’ll see online talk about how much he loved those whom he truly cared about, his cast-mates, his friends, his family. And when you watch Full House, you see that. It becomes immediately evident in the patience and compassion and fatherly demeanour that he displays. Don’t we all want to be like that? Don’t we all strive every day to emulate Danny, to be a little more like Bob? I know I do.
Wow, this email ended up being so cheesy that you could mistake it for the script of a Fuller House episode.
Whatever, Tanneritos, that wraps it up. I’ll be back this Sunday, January 30th, with the inaugural edition of Otterbiography.
🦦 —O— 🦦