Your Guide to the ‘Full House’ House: Who Lived Where and When? ( Part 1)
Some people watch Full House for the hijinks, some people watch it for the heartwarming moments, and then there’s me: I watch it for the continuity. Seriously, my nerdy comic-book-loving brain can’t stop thinking about the intricacy of Full House (and its Netflix sequel, Fuller House), specifically who lived where and when.
Think about it: how many other sitcoms feature characters that shuffle all their stuff from one room to another as many times as the Tanners (and later the Fullers and Gibblers)? And I’m not talking some stunt plotting like when Monica and Rachel lost their apartment to Chandler and Joey. No, when characters move on Full House, they stay moved–that is until the house absorbs another tenant and everyone has to move again.
It makes sense, though. When your show is named after a house that is stuffed beyond capacity, you gotta live up to it. A total of 15 people have lived in that house across 8 seasons of Full House and 3 (and counting!) seasons of Fuller House. And then there’s the larger mythology about the house’s history and who lived where even before Full House’s debut, and also who lived in the house between the two series. Where’s Ken Burns at? We need a 20-hour documentary about the history of this house and all of the other dozen-plus families that have lived in it over the last hundred years. But until that happens, here’s my attempt at mapping out who lived where when in the Full House house.
Before ‘Full House’ Season 1
Even before Uncle Jesse and Joey (and Rebecca and Nicky and Alex (and Jackson and Max and Tommy and Kimmy and Ramona and Fernando)) moved in, the Tanner house was already pretty full. Any two-parent household with three kids adds up to a five-person home, which is almost twice as big as the average American home. Fortunately for the Tanners, their house was just big enough to accommodate everyone with spacious AF rooms–that is, until tragedy struck…
‘Full House’ 1×1: “Our Very First Show”
t’s so easy to forget that Full House has one of the biggest bummer premises ever. Pamela Tanner dies just a few weeks before the pilot! These kids are growing up without a mother! But fortunately for them (and everyone that loves comedy about mismatched buds thrown into domestic scenarios), here comes Uncle Jesse and Joey! The pilot features the first of many, many rounds of bedroom switcheroo in the show’s run.
Stephanie moves in with DJ, downgrading DJ from an obscenely large room to just half of one.
Jesse moves into Stephanie’s old room, complete with pink bunny wallpaper.
Joey makes the ultimate sacrifice by moving into the alcove in the living room. It’s speaks to Joey’s character that he doesn’t spend the next 9 episodes griping about sleeping on essentially a windowless windowsill.
‘Full House’ 1×10: “Joey’s Place”
Thankfully all of the passive-aggressive maneuvers you know Joey was doing in-between scenes paid off in this episode when everyone realizes that they have both a garage and a driveway, and Joey can sleep in one of those. Not the driveway, BTW, although I’m sure that crossed Jesse’s mind. So Joey moves into the now finished garage, and all the Tanner junk that was in there is moved to the attic. This status quo lasts for 78 episodes, the second-longest stretch in Full House history!
‘Full House’ 4×20: “Fuller House”
If episode writers Leslie Ray aren’t getting David Steven Simon aren’t getting residuals for essentially naming the Netflix sequel series 25 years before it debuted, then they should lawyer up! Anyway–this episode takes place right after Jesse and Becky’s two-part wedding, the one where Jesse skydived into a tomato truck. The newlyweds’ plan to move into Rebecca’s place falls through, though, because Jesse gets instantly homesick after missing one night singing Michelle’s doo-wop lullaby. Rebecca, paragon of patience, decides to give up her spacious home and move in with five other people, including her co-worker! This is the biggest shakeup since the pilot episode, TBH.
Jesse and Becky move into the attic. The framed pink bunny from Stephanie’s room follows them.
Joey moves into Jesse’s old room (which was originally Stephanie’s room).
All the recording equipment/junk that was in the attic goes back downstairs to the basement (which was Joey’s old room, and before that the garage).
This setup wouldn’t last for long, though, because Tanners be moving!
….to be continued…
