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‘Fuller House’ Is An Extremely Cheesy Netflix Show, But That’s Exactly Why It’s A Hit

By Jonathan Franks

From the archive: published Mar 6, 2016, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.

Fuller House, the highly-anticipated Full House spin-off series on Netflix, is apparently a big hit!

Nearly one week after the first season was released in late February, it was officially renewed for a second season, according to Variety .

At first glance, a viewer that knows nothing about Full House — including the cast, crew or plot — might not think that the show is a such a hit TV show at all. On the contrary, he or she may believe that the first season of Fuller House was extremely cheesy. Perhaps that is why there was such a mixed reaction among fans on social media when the first 13 episodes of the new series were released.

However, what those reluctant fans and skeptical critics of Fuller House don’t understand is that the show should be cheesy. In most situations, “cheesy” usually speaks volumes about a new show after it’s anticipated series premiere.

When you think about most of the short-lived TV sitcoms that have debuted in recent years that were cancelled almost as quickly as they were released, the word “cheesy” might be the only word necessary to describe them.

Why, then, does “cheesy’ work so well for Fuller House? It is simply because “cheesy” is what most Full House fans and critics expected (and wanted) in the first place. How? That is exactly how Full House was when it premiered nearly 30 years ago, back in 1987.

However, that particular type of “cheesiness” is what filled the airwaves — making hit shows out of such family-friendly series as Family Matters, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and so on. There was apparently nothing wrong with that particular formula, which explains exactly why so many people still enjoy watching the syndicated reruns of those types of shows several decades after their original runs ended.

The live TV studio audience. The multiple-camera arrangement to film the show while it’s performed in front of the live TV studio audience.

The cast with the great chemistry that seemed like a real family when the cameras were rolling simply because they loved and cared for each other like a real family when the cameras were no longer near them.

The slightly-annoying-yet-somewhat-appreciated catchphrases — “How rude!,” “Have mercy,” “Cut it out,” “You got it, dude! “. etc.

Everything that made Full House such a big hit throughout the 90s and a memorable hit in the two decades that it lived on in syndicated reruns is still there in Fuller House.

It is apparently clear that Jeff Franklin, creator of Full House and Fuller House, closely followed the old-fashioned concept of “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” — a saying that many other rebooted TV series and big-screen movies apparently ignored.

During an interview with Variety, Franklin confirmed that he pitched a Full House sequel series for nearly a decade — getting passed over by numerous networks — before Netflix decided to give him the green light. He knew that they essentially had a goldmine of an idea — especially considering the consistent success in syndication experienced by the original series.

“I knew that this kind of excitement was going to be there, but nobody else seemed to get it. I was pitching to networks that ‘Full House’ reruns were beating every night … For some reason, a whole bunch of networks didn’t understand the hunger that was out there for this show. It was baffling me. Netflix finally stepped up, and that’s why it’s happening now.”

Franklin further explained exactly why he loves the fact that Fuller House landed on Netflix instead of a standard cable channel, even though there is still apparently one downside to the new home of those memorable Full House characters.

“Somehow Netflix makes it more exciting. I love that it’s on Netflix now because I don’t think there would be the same kind of excitement if it were just going on some cable channel every week. The only thing I’m going to miss is knowing exactly how many people are watching this thing — cause Netflix isn’t going to tell me.”

It is not the first time that Netflix execs have kept their mouth shut when it comes to reporting or sharing their ratings. However, the fact that Fuller House was renewed for a second season so soon should speak volumes about its first season’s overall performance and popularity so far.

Think about the vast number of shows and movies that felt the need to change everything about their work in order to appeal to a “modern” audience.

For instance, the Fuller House cast and crew may have felt the pressure from shows like Modern Family – – the “modern” version of the family-filled, family-focused sitcom that Full House seemed to master in the 90s. At the very least, they could have removed the TV studio audience and multi-camera setup in order to closely mirror the Modern Family set-up while maintaining the show’s Full House appeal.

That’s not what happened at all! Instead of changing Fuller House to appeal to a modern audience, the cast and crew apparently decided to keep mostly everything the same to appeal more to their existing audience — feeling confident that the same formula would draw in a crowd of new fans of the Tanner/Fuller family, too.

They even kept the primary Full House concept story: A widowed, newly single parent of three same-sex children of varying ages receives a huge dose of help and love when their best friend and relative decide to move in.

Instead of changing everything, Fuller House focused on making a few minor changes to reflect the current needs and situations experienced by modern families in real life — including social media, the arguably unhealthy attachment that children have to mobile devices, women struggling with fertility issues, infidelity, indecisiveness in the dating world, baby boomers and “empty nesters” that yearn to have more babies, etc.

Thanks to the updated backstory of Kimmy Gibbler (played by Andrea Barber ), there is even the change of a newly-single parent floating between separated, divorced, reconciled and “it’s complicated” relationship statuses with the same significant other.

Seeing familiar faces in the present reprise their favored on-screen roles of the past is a big highlight of Fuller House and probably a big reason why so many people starting watching it. However, this Full House spin-off series will likely continue to be a huge hit for Netflix simply because of sticking to the same “cheesy” formula that made Full House successful in the first place.

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