Full House (1987 – 1995)

It’s probably fair to say that I come from the last generation of true television watchers. Nowadays it’s all YouTube, Netflix, and various other means of entertainment, but I grew up in a time when you watched a twenty-six inch wood veneer box in the corner of your living room… and – for better or worse – Full House was one of the shows that bled through my childhood.

Full House was an American sitcom that ran for eight seasons from 1987 until 1995, and just short of 200 episodes. I didn’t watch the entire run, in fact, I probably jumped ship about halfway through.

At the time I thought it was pretty good, but I revisited it recently and… no. Memory can be a cruel beast, and nostalgia – certainly in this instance – is sometimes overrated. Full House is the most saccharine, family-friendly, let’s-all-hug-each-other-at-the-end-of-the-episode, twenty-two minutes I’ve ever seen, and although there were a lot of eighties offenders that you could probably throw into the same category, Full House was one of the biggest culprits.

The series spawned these two fashionistas, so it’s not all bad, right?

It hasn’t aged well, but as with a lot of shows then, it was a product of its time. I can accept that: not all television is timeless.

Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the atrocious sequel, Fuller House, which somebody had the bright idea of producing in 2016. It picks up the story twenty years later, but plays as if the world around it hasn’t moved on at all.

Still, as disappointing as all that is, Full House can lay claim to one of the greatest sitcom theme tunes of all time.