Stand-Up Character: A Millennial Tribute To Bob Saget's Role On Full House
Danny Tanner.
Say the name to any millennial and a smile comes to our face.
Danny Tanner, the character portrayed by recently deceased actor Bob Saget, was a staple in our Friday night households. From 1987 to 1995 at a time before we were too cool to abandon our parents on a Friday night, we would stay in and watch Danny Tanner, Uncle Joey, and Uncle Jesse try to raise three growing girls in the city of San Francisco on the ABC family sitcom Full House. It was a comedy series, for sure. But it also had heart. Danny Tanner wasn't a perfect father. He struggled at times to navigate single parenthood. Yet he got by, with a little help from his friends. It's not an understatement to say that Full House was one of the shows that helped challenge the traditional notion of what it meant to be a "typical" American family. The fictional family on the show was blended through marriage and friendship. Yet, at the end of the day, they bonded together to help raise those three girls through love and compassion for one another. Your household might have not looked exactly like Danny Tanner's but the idea that your family might not simply be Mom + Dad + Kids was extremely comforting to a generation of children growing up during our adolescent years, wondering if we were, in fact, normal. Full House told many of us that it was okay if our families were a little bit different and that love was the key ingredient that made a household a home, no matter what it looked like from the outside.
It's remarkable how we are shaped by our environments as young children and adolescents. Children are observant and both consciously and subconsciously mimic those around them. In particular, they begin to identify with those in television and movies. Yes, these television shows and movies made us laugh, but they also taught valuable life lessons. The ABC Friday night lineup during the 1990s did exactly that. Full House was about a blended family that came together to raise three young girls. Step By Step was a modern-day Brady Bunch about the union of two families through marriage. Family Matters told the story of a Black American family and a lovelorn neighbor who tried desperately to fit in. Boy Meets World followed two best friends, one from a stable suburban home and one from the wrong side of the tracks, as they attempted to navigate middle and high school with the help of a guiding neighbor and educator. Each show with quirky characters, to be sure. But each show with heart and care and a willingness to show that being different or coming from a different background didn't make you an outcast but instead gave you the strength and passion to make it, even with the odds stacked against you.
These were the messages I was hearing during my adolescent years and they couldn't have come at a better time. Because adolescence is hard. It's confusing. It's awkward. There are times, most of the time actually, when you feel like you're a fish out of water. But knowing that there were those like me out there, even if they were fictional characters on TV, was amazingly comforting. You knew the school dance was going to be awkward because you saw it on Boy Meets World. You knew there may be a "geeky" guy or girl that would have a crush on you because you saw it on Family Matters. You knew that you and your sibling would have completely different interests and hobbies because you saw it on Step By Step. And you knew that at some point you would do something stupid and you could only hope that your own father or father figure would react in just the same way with compassion and empathy as Danny Tanner on Full House.
This was my childhood. This was all our childhood. We didn't know any better, but we knew that for two hours every Friday night, ABC would provide us with a roadmap for success in the guise of a family comedy. The shows would change over time. The themes would become more and more adult as the fictional children grew older. But the heart and soul of the characters stayed the same. For eight seasons, Bob Saget's Danny Tanner wasn't just there for his three fictional daughters. He was there for us. For a half hour every week, he was our father, imparting wisdom upon us as we sputtered and puttered through adolescence. By the time we reached driving age, Full House was long off the air. But the lessons imparted remain with us to this very day. Now that our generation is becoming parents, we look back and see the show in a whole new light. Instead of imagining that Danny Tanner was speaking to us, we now envision ourselves speaking as Danny Tanner.
We can only hope that today and every day, we make him proud.