John Stamos talks Bob Saget friendship, 'Full House' legacy in memoir
"That kind of hit only happens -- if you're lucky -- once in a lifetime."
John Stamos is looking back on his friendship with the late Bob Saget and their hit show "Full House" in his new memoir, "If You Would Have Told Me."
Stamos, who played Uncle Jesse on the beloved ABC sitcom, told "Good Morning America" he and Saget "did not get along" initially on the show, saying it was due to their "very different processes."
Where Stamos had come from the worlds of soaps and sitcoms, Saget approached things as the stand-up comedian he was.
"Bob was addicted to laughs," Stamos said. "It was a drug for him, he had to make people laugh."
The two eventually got over their differences and remained the best of friends until Saget's death in January 2022.
"His wife called me the other day crying," Stamos said of Kelly Rizzo. "She said, 'You know, if you don't know Bob and you read this book, you know the real Bob. You did a beautiful job representing him.'"
He added, joking, "The important thing is, I talk about him a lot because if I don't he's complaining somewhere."
Of "Full House," which ran for eight seasons between 1987 and 1995 and has since spawned a spin-off, "Fuller House," Stamos said he didn't like doing the show at first but "learned to love it pretty soon."
"Critics got in my ear. They didn't have anything over me. I knew the show was corny at times," he said. "But it wasn't meant for you if you don't get it."
The "ER" actor added, "Underneath, in lieu of sophistication, there was sweetness, and it gave time for the brain to step aside and the heart to feel something. And as soon as I realized that, I went, 'Oh, I get it.'"
Stamos said he knows how important the show is to fans -- and how lucky he is to have been a part of it.
"That kind of hit only happens -- if you're lucky -- once in a lifetime. All the stars lined up," he said. "The show was, in a divisive world, it was a home-cooked meal of comfort."
Elsewhere in the book, Stamos has included handwritten notes from his mother just like the one he shared from her on Instagram on Mother's Day.
He said he remembered his two sisters had kept these notes so he gathered them up and put them in the book, saying that in revisiting them he found "the road map that I need to follow throughout this book."
As for his father, Stamos revealed a lesson he learned from him as to how he -- now a father himself to son Billy with wife Caitlin McHugh -- should move through life.
"He treated the bus boy the same way he treated the best customer. He was always good to people," he said. "I try to do that."
Stamos' memoir, "If You Would Have Told Me," hits shelves Oct. 24.
