Nearly 30 years after Viper serenaded D.J. on Full House, David Lipper says he’s still earning more money from that song — which he wrote — than he does in residuals from appearing in the beloved sitcom.
According to the 50-year-old actor and producer, that’s thanks in part to John Stamos.
On a recent episode of Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber’s rewatch podcast How Rude, Tanneritos!, Lipper explained that Stamos and costar Bob Saget initially took him under their wings when he joined the Full House cast as a new member of Uncle Jesse’s band and D.J.’s love interest in the show’s eighth and final season.
Lipper said he was going through “a lot of feelings” when he was cast as Viper, after a sitcom pilot he was set to lead opposite Giovanni Ribisi, Hilary Swank and a very young Kaley Cuoco wasn’t picked up by Fox.
“I was not an avid watcher [of Full House]. I didn’t know just how big this show was, to be quite honest,” he told Sweetin and Barber. “And, coming off of the pilot that I thought was gonna change my life, I was still in this feeling of disappointment.”
“I had the starring role on a great show, like, ridiculously funny writing, and now I’m the lowest guy in the totem pole joining this cast,” he continued. “So, there’s that feeling mixed with: This is a family. They’re all super tight, and you know, where’s my place? Like, what can I say? What shouldn’t I say? Like, you know, how vocal should I be?”
Despite his uncertainty, the Full House cast was more than welcoming, particularly Stamos and Saget. He described Saget, who died in 2022, as “my person on the show.”
“But also Stamos,” Lipper added. “He spent a lot of time with me. He was super fun, super cool. He brought me out. Like, him and Bob and I had gone out several times for drinks and things.”
Over the course of the four episodes in which Lipper appeared, D.J. and Viper had their ups and downs. Their on-again, off-again relationship culminated in the January 1995 episode “D.J.’s Choice,” in which Viper tried to win back Candace Cameron Bure’s character with an acoustic ballad after they’d broken up.
According to Lipper, Stamos, a musician in his own right, let him write his own music for the episode.
“ ‘You know what? I make enough royalties on this show. You write the song,’ ” Lipper recalled Stamos telling him. “And so, one of the songs that I sang to D.J., I make more money on that music royalty than I do on the acting royalties on the show. And that was just him going, ‘You take it.’ ”
While the song clearly worked out, that same cannot be said for Viper and D.J. Bure’s character opted to remain single rather than take Viper back, and while Lipper explained on a recent episode of Dave Coulier’s podcast, Full House Rewind, that the characters were originally intended to get back together, the show’s cancelation ahead of its eighth season finale cut their love story short.
Lipper did, however, return as Viper in two episodes of Netflix’s Full House reboot, Fuller House, but he and D.J. never rekindled their romance.
