A sitcom memoir! Most of it is about Jodie Sweetin dealing with her meth addiction. As a relatively clean girl whose drug info comes from reading rock biographies, snarking Go Ask Alice, and watching old drug PSAs, I couldn't really relate to the "Dude, I was SO tweaked" stories. But I do love the seedy underbelly of sitcom life so the Full House parts of the memoir were what I gravitated to. What does Jodie Sweetin reveal in her tell all?
- Dave Coulier ended up marrying Jayne Modean, who played older Michelle in the episode where the guys have a daymare about what it would be like if the girls were still living in the house as adults. Dave and Jayne used to get it on in his dressing room while they were engaged and sometimes he'd ask her to say "Ow-scream." (All right, all right. That last part I made up.)
- As we all know, Candace Cameron found religion and was the saintly one. Maybe D.J.'s goody good nature on the show was why Candace Cameron went down the religious route, while Jodie didn't. D.J. probably the only high school senior who could go to a frat party and brag about having a good time while not getting wasted, without a hint of irony. Even Brandon "Sanctimony is my life" Walsh has a few war stories to tell. Not D.J., though. (Then again, when your brother is Kirk "I'd rather be walking on water" Cameron, you pretty much don't have a choice.)
- Jodie on John Stamos's lips: they're wet and slimy. This explains so much. Like why the Olsen twins became the "cute ones" on the show while Steph didn't (ability to tolerate wet Stamos kisses was the Full House version of the sleazy casting couch scene). And why Rebecca Romijn Stamos became Rebecca Romijn O'Connell.
- OK, one alcohol related story. Jodie Sweetin's first drunk experience happened when she was fourteen and got tanked at Candace Cameron's wedding to Valeri Bure. Candace's reaction (in my mind) to Jodie getting super drunk:
Listen, you little wench, I put up with you getting a pretend wedding the same season I got dumped by Jonathan Brandeis. I tolerated Michelle's pretend wedding to my boyfriend. If you mess this up for me, Mr. Bear's going to become one more reason that Golden Gate Bridge needs a suicide net.
- As we all know, the thoroughly forgettable pedo meat that was the Olsen twins came to dominate the show like Cesar Milan with a beagle who's not a Team Player. I got the sense that Jodie resented not being the one that everyone considered "the cute kid." Since I didn't speak fluent goblin, I preferred the Steph heavy episodes.
For example, Uncle Jesse's grandfather Papouli dies? Great, shove a few onions up the Olsen eye sockets and get Michelle bawling over a relative she's met twice in her life. D.J. has to choose between two heartthrobs while the gang cleans up a playground and Frankie Valli shows up to collect a check? Okay, but make sure the Olsens get some quality time whining about making the park safe for Nicky and Alex. Bitches. Don't get in the way of my Frankie Valli experience. I gouged out a woman's eyes when she made a tiny move towards picking up her Crackberry during Jersey Boys. I won't hesitate to go medieval on your Muppet asses. (All right, I threw pieces of my tiny eight dollar chocolate bar at her during Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.)
- Jodie said that she and her mother both enjoyed meeting the Beach Boys on their many guest appearances on the show. In fact, during their first appearance, when the handlers were feeding the Olsens their lines off camera, Brian Wilson reacted by repeating the line and everyone laughed. Poor Brian Wilson. They let him out of his ten year drug addled sabbatical and he has to guest star in a sitcom episode where he's playing second fiddle to his mulletted former drummer, Mike Love, and a pair of aborted troll fetuses? For that, Jeff Franklin and Don Van Atta, I decree that the ironic punishment du jour for you shall be trapped in a windowless attic listening to the Olsen twins singing their version of Pet Sounds. There, now doesn't the concept of Danny Tanner rocking out to "My Generation" in spray on leather pants seem like the aural equivalent of nectar and ambrosia?
- Speaking of music, I do have to admit that the House introduced me to a lot of older music. Yes, I'll admit that the first time I ever heard of "Help Me, Rhonda," it was when a clueless D.J. misidentified it as, "Help me, Gibbler." And I pretty much only knew "Forever" as the song that Jesse and the Rippers do after Jesse whines about not having a hit single and the Beach Boys (who are inexplicably jamming in his music studio) decide to let him cover it. Jesse's reaction? "And you know what, Elvis never recorded anything he wrote." Then he segues into a cringe worthy impression of Elvis doing Surfin' USA, and somewhere Chuck Berry is wondering whether to pop a cap in another plagiarizing white boy's ass or to call his lawyer again.
- Lori Loughlin was apparently really cool according to Jodie. Since there were so many slender big breasted (and brain damaged) models who apparently wanted nothing more than to date Joey and Danny, Lori didn't want the girls to get any hang ups about their bodies. When they were shooting the episode where D.J. has an eating disorder, Lori made sure the girls knew that a character having eating issues isn't the same as an actress having them (unless you're on Growing Pains). In one cute little stunt, so the girls wouldn't get too self conscious about their bodies, Lori, plus Candace, Jodie, and the Olsens, came out onto the set with their chests stuffed with tissues as a joke. It's a little less funny when you take a look at what Jodie looks like now.
For the love of god, please don't squeeze the Charmin.
- Here are some things I wish had been revealed. Whether Mama Olsen was on some Thalidomide type drug when she gestated the twins, or if they were really born dead and Jeff Franklin switched them with babies that were the spawn of Satan and a jackal. Hey, it explains why at age four Michelle freed the class bird and why at age five she murdered her first pet, Martin the fish--death by bubble bath. And Papouli lived a long happy life in Greece and just happened to die as soon as he spent some time chez Tanner? Sorry, but the girl made Damien look like he was on the shortbus in terms of evil.
In other random news, I haven't updated my other blog in forever. I'm thinking I might buy myself out and repost my old Get a Pencil and your Casebook posts in Dibbly Fresh and continue to snark TV (and everything) here on this blog which has the bigger audience.