Danny Tanner was almost a very different person.
In fact, the original star of Full House was basically nothing like Bob Saget, nor his creative take on the beloved sitcom character. And that seems to be part of the problem. Still, the fact that Bob Saget replaced the original Danny Tanner, John Posey, at the 11th hour is nothing but a crazy Hollywood story.
The truth of John Posey's firing and Bob Saget replacing him even after the pilot of Full House was shot with Posey is an example of how dastardly, unfair, and downright cut-throat the entertainment industry can be. Let's take a look...
Full House Was John Posey's Big Break... Until It Was Bob Saget's...
Even though and has publically made fun of it on numerous occasions, there's no doubt that he's well-aware of how important the show was to his career. Not to mention the fact that he built life-long friendships with many of his castmates, .
The same can't be said for John Posey.
Like Bob Saget, John Posey was really just at the beginning of his television career when the opportunity to star on Full House came around.
"I was part of a pretty successful comedy group — Comedia — in Atlanta, and somebody from ABC was in town," . "They saw [our] show, pulled me aside and said, 'Hey, we'd like to see you get in front of our comedy development people' .
.. I went ahead and went [to Los Angeles]. And then of course the pilot they gave me right away was Full House. And from what I was told, they were looking all over the country for people and couldn't find a guy, although I later found out that Bob Saget and Paul Reiser were the two guys they were after first, and they were both unavailable. They were obligated to other shows. How you go from those guys to me is kind of a mystery, because we couldn't be more different."
Yet, ABC was all in on Posey. At least, at first. They had him sign a contract and shoot a pilot that they put a decent amount of effort and money into.
This is because Full House was designed to be a big hit on the network. So much so that the network greenlit the show as soon as the pilot (the one with Posey) crossed their desk.
And yet, they recast him... and reshoot the entire pilot scene-for-scene with Bob Saget.
This is something that John Posey didn't know until he was literally driving across the country to move to L.A. and start a new life as a sitcom star.
"I was in Mississippi. My pager went off. I've got a trailer full of stuff. I'm driving back thinking, 'We're going to get to work soon on this new show.' And I get a phone call, go to the phone booth, as we used to do in those days [laughing], returned the call, and it was my agent saying, 'I don't know what's going on, but for some reason they're testing Bob Saget.
' And I said, 'What are you talking about? Why would they do that?' I didn't know at the time that he was the guy that they originally wanted, that he was just unavailable. I guess something opened up for him. Maybe he was fired from something, I think [a CBS morning program called "The Morning Program"], and suddenly he was available. And I guess the executive producer talked ABC into allowing him to re-shoot. So that was the end of that."
Brutal.
While this sudden recasting isn't the biggest scandal in Full House's history, it certainly was shocking to everyone involved.
Most of all to John Posey who had to watch another actor in his role... with his co-stars... and even in his exact clothes.
"[They re-shot shot the ] exact same pilot, with [Saget wearing] the exact same outfit, which is weird," John Posey explained. "I'm this stocky, ex-football player, ex-wrestler, who's like 5' 9", 180 pounds, and Saget's like 6' 3", 110 soaking wet. He's an urban Jewish guy, and I'm this Irish guy from Florida and Georgia. And somehow we've got the same exact outfit on, playing the same role."
Despite John Posey's attempts to get ABC to reconsider what they were doing, the network made their choice.
But why?
Well, if you (which you can do on the DVD for the first season of the show) the answer to the question is absurdly clear...
Bob Saget is a better Danny Tanner.
Forget their appearance and height difference, the two actors couldn't be more dissimilar in performance.
Posey had a more sketch-like style while Saget felt more natural and underplayed a lot of the over-the-top dialogue making it feel more authentic and... frankly... far funnier.
While we don't know if this is the exact reason why the network decided to recast the Danny Tanner character, it's pretty hard not to believe that it is.
It's purely undeniable that Bob Saget was the right choice. Having said that, the way ABC decided to let John Posey go was pretty nasty.
