Candace Cameron Bure revisited a scary moment on set.
While reflecting on filming stunts for Fuller House, the 48-year-old revealed she “almost died” when the zipline on an American Ninja Warrior-inspired obstacle course malfunctioned and nearly fell on her.
“I went through the course and at the end, I zip-lined diagonally the length of the living room and then I landed on a platform,” Candace explained to costars Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber on their How Rude, Tanneritos! podcast’s April 18 episode. “But during rehearsal, the rig was not set up correctly and there was no safety stop on the end of it.”
“When I landed off the zip line and stopped,” she continued, “the whole mechanism—which is all metal and very, very heavy—slid right off the track and came right next to my head within an inch.”
It was a moment Candace’s costars remembered well, with Jodie, 42, noting the machinery dented the floor and broke the set’s stairs. And Candace noted how dire things could have been.
“If I just even shifted my weight the tiniest bit,” she explained, “it would have probably broken my neck and landed right on top of my head.”
Candace also recalled costar Scott Weinger’s reaction to seeing the rig almost fall on her, adding he “couldn’t even get a word out because it happened within one second.”
Luckily, after that near-miss, Candace didn’t have to perform the zipline stunt again. Andrea shared that episode director Mark Cendrowski quickly shifted gears. “Mark was like, ‘We’re not doing this stunt,'” the 47-year-old said. “‘Redo the whole set because we’re not doing that stunt anymore.'”
The scene was eventually filmed with a set of monkey bars instead.
And while Candace described that moment as “traumatic,” she emphasized how much she loved filming the Full House spinoff as an adult, especially since she sometimes felt self-conscious during the OG series as a teenager.
“It was so nice to not care,” she admitted. “That was the best—I thought, ‘the goofier, the better!'”
Keep reading to take a look back at some fascinating facts about Fuller House.
1. “We were trying to do some kind of spinoff” for years John Stamos, who serves as a producer, said of the sequel series when he announced it was happening on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2015. John later revealed on Instagram that “every single network and streamer” said no to the idea before Netflix decided to reboot it.
2. While anticipation was extremely high for the sequel series, the reviews were less than kind. But the cast was busy blocking out the nose with Candace Cameron Bure telling E! News, “The critics never had a good thing to say about Full House and yet it ran for eight years in primetime and then it’s never been off the air in 30 years. So it’s a testament to what the fans want and not what the critics think. If there are any negative review that’s how we feel about it with Fuller House; we did this for the fans and we think they’re going to absolutely love it.”
3. And love it they did, with IndieWire reporting that season one of Fuller House was Netflix’s highest rated original-series, according to data from Symphony Advanced Media.
4. Despite leaving the acting world after the original series ended in 1995 to work in academia, Andrea Barber had no hesitations about reprising the role of Kimmy Gibbler as one of the new show’s three leads.
5. While they ultimately settled on making grown-up Kimmy a party planner, there were several other ideas, including maybe she is a translator for the United Nations and she “speaks four different languages,” or Kimmy “having a snack-making business at home, like Gibbler’s Nibblers. She ran her own cookie business out of the basement of the home,” Andrea revealed to THR.
6. Producers initially envisioned the Olsen twins reprising their role as Michelle, but Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who have since retired from acting but are still uber-famous, declined the opportunity.
“Although Ashley and Mary-Kate will not be a part of Fuller House, I know how much Full House has meant to them, and they are still very much considered family,” producer Robert L. Boyett said at the time. “It has been exciting to see how they have built their professional careers, and I support their choice to focus on their fashion brands and various business endeavors. I appreciate their support and good wishes towards Fuller House.”
7. Despite speculation, Elizabeth Olsen, Mary-Kate and Ashley’s little sister, was never officially offered the chance to take over the role in a winking guest appearance. “If I did, I’m pretty sure no one on my team heard it,” she told E! News. “I don’t know where that started.”
8. While he was only a guest in season one, Scott Weinger was promoted to a series regular in season two. Steve and D.J. ultimately got back together in season three—something the writers had wanted to fix since the original series broke them up.
“The fact that the producers chose to break them up, and the storylines that followed, were not big crowd-pleasers. That always bothered me,” Jeff Franklin, who left the original series after season five, said. “So I looked at this show as an opportunity to let Steve and D.J. get back together someday and have a chance and see what happens.”
9. Candace and Scott went on a date in real life when they were teens when he asked her to go to the Aladdin premiere with him, whom he did the voice for. However, she wasn’t aware it was a date at the time.
“I had no idea,” she admitted to TooFab in 2019. “I remember thinking, ‘Scott and I are just friends, and he invited me to the premiere. But is this a date or is it not?'”
10. In season three, Jodie Sweetin’s real-life injury had to be incorporated into the show after she broke her ankle and tibia in multiple places climbing over a fence to retrieve her son’s toys. “They have to write it in,” Candace told E! News about the injury. “It’s going to be written in.” Sweetin added, “There’s no hiding that I can’t walk and I can only be a houseplant in so many episodes where I’m just stuck somewhere.”
11. The Netflix series had to completely recreate the Tanner house on the Warner Bros. lot, which should’ve been easy, except all of the original drawings of the set had been discarded. “I can’t tell you how many episodes,” production designer Jerry Dunn told EW of having to watch hundreds of hours of the original show. “I mean, just a ton.”
12. One essential prop that hadn’t been lost? The living room couch, with the checkered love seat, still serves as the room’s central piece all these years later. “The set decorator and I were just blown away,” Jerry said of finding the original pieces. “They were in good enough condition that we’re using them still.”
13. In 2016, Jeff bought the San Francisco house used for the Tanner house exterior shots (after the previous homeowners refused to let it be filmed for the Netflix series) for just over $4 million. He planned to renovate and use it for filming, in addition to possibly renting it out or starting a museum for fans to visit. However, he put the house up for sale earlier this year for $6 million.
14. Mr. Woodchuck, Joey’s chipmunk puppet, returned in the revival, but it wasn’t the original prop. “I kept the original Mr. Woodchuck. And then my dog Ranger ate his face,” Dave Coulier revealed during a Reddit AMA. And the new version came from Jimmy Fallon, who had it recreated for a reunion sketch in 2014.
15. After original actor Jason Marsden declined to make an appearance in season two, Queer as Folk star Hal Sparks took over the role of Nelson, D.J.’s ex-boyfriend. While James didn’t reveal why he decided not to return, he wrote on Twitter that the producers tried “their darnedest” to get him to do so. He did have one request: #KeepNelsonShort.
16. 30 years after last appearing in a project together, Candace’s older brother Kirk Cameron, known for his hit sitcom Growing Pains, made a guest appearance in the fifth and final season (he appeared in one episode of the original series run as D.J.’s cousin). Calling her brother’s cameo a “really fun surprise,” Candace told Closer Weekly, “It’s a little bit of, like, a ’90s episode, so Lisa Loeb is in it as well as my brother Kirk…that week I was directing as well…it was a dream come true to direct my brother.”
17. Like Michelle Tanner on the OG series, the role of D.J.’s infant son Tommy is played by twins Fox and Dashiell Messitt. And like their predecessors, the boys were experiencing all kinds of firsts on the Netflix hit’s set. “When they started at 7 months old, they didn’t even know how to crawl. And in the process of doing the show, they started crawling and started walking,” their mom, Kacy Andrews, told EW. “So a lot of milestones while they were working.”
18. As the college bribery scandal played out and Laurie did not appear as Aunt Becky in Fuller House’s final season. Still, the Fuller House family stuck by their costar. “Where there’s a lot of heart, there’s a lot of love—and a loving family sticks together no matter what,” Candace said while accepting an award with the cast at the 2019 Kids’ Choice Awards. “They stick together through the hard times, they support each other, they encourage one another, they pray for each other, and they stand by their side no matter how tough it gets.”
19. In 2018, Jeff was abruptly let go from the series after the studio received complaints about his behavior in the writer’s room and on set, Variety reported at the time. Per the outlet’s sources, he’d been accused of being verbally abusive to staffers and making inappropriate statements in the writers’ room, including sexually charged comments about his personal relationships and sex life.
20. Despite reportedly being one of the streaming giant’s highest rated shows, Netflix decided to end the series after five seasons. At the time, a source told E! News the cast and crew were excited to receive that final season order because they were close to being canceled altogether. For Netflix and the pacing of the show, five seasons is a perfect run, the source added.
