The Full House Pilot Originally Featured John Posey As Danny Tanner

The world is still reeling from the loss of Bob Saget, who passed away on January 9, 2022. He was only 65 at the time and fans of Full House are still finding a way to deal with the loss of the television dad they grew up with three decades ago.

That role in Full House had Saget playing Danny Tanner, and most of us could not imagine someone else in that position.

It might come as a surprise to you that a different actor also tried out for the part of Danny. In fact, you can still see the performance of John Posey as he played that television dad in an unpaired pilot.

Screen Rant reports that Bob Saget was always at the top of the list for playing the part of Danny Tanner.

The executive producers of Full House had seen him working on Bosom Buddies and they appreciated his acting abilities and comedic timing. After they saw him playing in Critical Condition, a 1987 Richard Pryor movie, they were convinced that he was the right man for the job.

The problem was, CBS had already signed Saget for The Morning Program so he wasn’t able to be on set for the pilot of Full House. They decided to use John Posey instead, and he shot the entire pilot as Danny Tanner.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that it was the worst acting I’ve ever seen in my life but the producers definitely knew what they wanted. Posey was never asked back to the set again.

Fortunately, for Full House fans everywhere, The Morning Show was a very short-lived series. It was only on the air for nine months and after Bob Saget was summarily dismissed, the producers at Full House were all too happy to bring him on board. They reshot the first episode.

It’s interesting when you get to see the two different episodes shown side-by-side.

In many scenes, the only difference that you see is the actor playing Danny but we all know who ended up winning that foot race.

Watch it for yourself here: