In this episode, we delve into actor John Stamos' deep connection to Disney, from his upbringing near Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm to his roles in various Disney projects, including Spidey and His Amazing Friends and Mickey Mouse Fun House, and his role in the Disney Plus series "Big Shot." He also made appearances in Disney TV specials. Additionally, we explore Stamos' new book “If You Would Have Told Me,” and how it shows off his Disney Fandom. We take a look at his collection of Disney memorabilia, such as an original Disneyland sign and a Dumbo ride vehicle. Discover how Stamos' love for Disney played a part in his personal life, including how his marriage to Caitlin blossomed through their shared passion for Disney, and how they continue to pass on their love for the magic to their son. If you're eager for an inside look at John Stamos' deep-rooted Disney fandom, this episode of Synergy Loves Company is a must-listen. Thanks for listening to Synergy Loves Company: How Disney Connects to Everything.
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00:59 --> 27:29 Hey, this is Synergy loves company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything, because you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I'm Eric, and have mercy. Today we are talking about one of the most famous Disney fans out there, John Stamos and Disney. Previously on Synergy loves Company. We talked all about the Beach Boys and Disney, but we ended on the fact that actor, musician, and Disney adult extraordinaire John Stamos was in the band intermittently, but he was right there in the Kokomo video. I love John Stamos. He is a symbol of my childhood, and his Disney fandom has become aspirational for me. And just last year, he came out with a memoir called if you would have told me. I made sure to get my hands on a copy of this book, and it led me to more connections to Disney than I could even imagine. And I became even more of a John Stamos fan than I already was. So let's get to it. John Stamos and Disney. John Stamos was born and raised in southern California, just like the Beach Boys, just like Disney. Growing up in Orange county, he lived in the shadow of Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. The SoCal theme parks were a big part of his life as a child and teen, and it shaped the way he viewed entertainment, acting and live music. They helped him know early on that he wanted to be a performer and he wanted to be famous. He spent his time in high school playing for the John F. Kennedy High School marching band and working on the weekends, making breakfast as a short order cook at his fathers restaurant, the yellow basket in Gardena, California. All the while, he was dreaming of being an actor. In the early eighties, he followed his dream to be a famous actor, and the wish his heart made came true. He landed a role as a troubled teen, blackie parish on ABC's soap opera General Hospital. He had a spark that caught the audience's attention, and what was supposed to be a few episodes turned into a major character that ran for years. He really had become famous, a famous soap star. At least he was soap opera famous enough that he was booked as a big name on a new sitcom that he would lead with a couple of comedians and a house full of kids. Eventually, the kid actors stole the show, but John Stamos was still a big deal. And all the while, he remained Disney obsessed. Alright, we set it up. John Stamos is a Disney adult and he achieved his goal of becoming a famous actor. So what has he done with Disney? Let's run down John Stamos, Disney filmography. Recently, John Stamos has been showing up as a guest star in a lot of Disney projects. First off, he voices Tony Stark on Spidey and his amazing friends. And if you're not familiar with the show, it's a Disney Junior version of the Spider Verse. It's basically a Marvel version of the PJ masks. Another show on Disney Junior, but that one wasn't actually Disney iPad. So I think this was them trying to make PJ masks, but make it more synergy. Three Spider people, Peter Parker's red and blue Spider man spin, which is Miles Morales in the black and red suit. Spider man and Ghost Spider Gwen Stacy meet up with other preschool versions of Marvel characters and stop preschool versions of Marvel villains from preschool villainy. John Stamos voices Tony Stark, Iron man, and if you were trying to find the family friendly version of Robert Downey Junior, I think he's a fine choice. Another voiceover role he's taken on is that of Captain Salty Bones on another preschool show, Mickey Mouse Funhouse. Mickey Mouse Funhouse is another one of those Disney Junior animated shows, but this time it features Mickey and friends. On this one, John Stamos doesn't play Mickey or one of his friends. He plays Captain salty Bones. And Captain Salty Bones is literally bones. He's a skeleton with a pirate captain's hat on. Think that dead men tell no tales. Skeleton on Pirates of the Caribbean. This character has shown up when Mickey and friends are ever on a pirate adventure on the show. But let's step away from the Disney junior scene for a moment. John Stamos also had a guest starring role playing a version of himself on Muppets Haunted Mansion in 2021. The character he plays is actually a shapeshifting spirit that takes the form of John Stamos in the story. Pepe the prawn thinks he's going to be attending a Halloween party at the mansion and he hopes to meet some famous celebrities. So the spirit takes advantage of this by taking the form of John Stamos. And we get a little cameo. So these three examples of guest starring roles are really a Disney fans dream roles. He basically plays played roles related to two of the most famous Disneyland rides and the leader of the Avengers. Not too shabby. But his biggest Disney role is one that's probably not as well known. John Stamos played Marvin Corn, spelled like the band, not like the vegetable, in big shot from 2021 to 2022. Big Shot is a David E. Kelly drama series made for Disney. Its about a college basketball coach who gets fired after an angry sideline outburst and then he goes to coach at his daughters high school. The high school girls basketball team hes coaching learns the sport from him, but he learns even more from them. Aw, what a heartwarming story. The show was not the biggest Disney hit and its one that got kicked off last year when Disney cleaned out a bunch of content. It still kills me today that they did that. We want everything. Come on, put it all on the plus I enjoyed the show. I thought it was good. It was what I expected from a David E. Kelly drama with John Stamos playing a basketball coach. It was pretty good. I wish I could tell you to go watch it, but you can't because like I said, it's not on Disney anymore. But before being a big shot, his biggest Disney credit were some tv specials and appearances that he did a couple of years before. In 2020, when we were all stuck at home during the lockdown, Disney made some family sing along specials. John Stamos and his family provided a number singing it's a small world while riding on their very own dumbo, the flying elephant ride vehicle. More on that later. Another Disney tv special featuring John Stamos is the Little Mermaid, live from 2019. In this special, John plays the character chef Louis, who sings Les Poissons and tries to cook Sebastian for some reason. This one, this song, Les Poissons is on heavy rotation on Disneys SiriusXM station, and any time we listen to that station they seem to be playing it. So Im constantly reminded that he played this role and staying in that goofy french accent because I'm always hearing it on the radio. John stamos has had quite a few roles, but other than big shot, they've mostly been guest starring roles and cameos and specials. But he did start with television, and his start with Disney was also in television, even if it wasn't as successful in the two thousands. He tried a string of television projects on Disney's ABC with varying degrees of success, but none of them are super well known. In 2005, he starred in and produced a show called Jake in Progress. It was made for 20th century television, which was owned by Fox at the time. I know Disney owns Fox now, but at the time they didn't. The show did air on ABC for two seasons, but it kind of fizzled out. Another one was thieves. In 2001, it had a season, it aired on ABC, and then it fizzled out. The most successful ABC era tv project that he did was his 2000 film beach an American Family. Kind of like the one like that was the thing on Disney. He was the executive producer of the film, and it was a dramatized version of the Beach Boys biography as opposed to that documentary. It resulted in a two night event, a mini series documenting the band's career. He also appeared in the movie in an uncredited role as a drummer, just like in the Kokomo video, where he was uncredited, but he was playing the drums. So we've come full circle back to last week's episode. Once again, John Stamos, the Beach Boys and Disney over here. And that's about it. That's about all he's done for Disney. Wait a minute. What about Full House? Full House was on ABC. Full house was on ABC, but ABC was not Disney at the time. You see, Full House premiered in 1987. It made John Stamos, Bob Saget, and Dave Coulier household names. The Olsen twins, who we watched grow up in front of our eyes, became superstars even before they were ready to go to high school. Full House was about a widower who invites his friend and his brother in law to help him raise his three kids. Pretty much, I see your three men and a baby, and I raise you two more kids. Three men and a baby was a Disney touchstone film, by the way. In the 1980s and nineties, the show was everywhere you looked. Full House was a big deal for millennials like me. We grew up with it. We watched it on TGIF, and we watched even more of it after school on syndication. I know you're thinking TGIF, ABC. That's Disney, right? Hold on. Pump the brakes. The Full House series finale aired in May of 1995, and Disney didn't complete their acquisition of ABC Cap Cities until the next year in 1996. But because Full House and the character of Uncle Jesse Katsopoulos is so important to John Stamos's career and to me, let's talk about the show's most Disney moments and how they relate to John Stamos. First off, we got kind of a deep cut. We got to talk about the time that the new Mickey Mouse Club visited the set of Full House on guest day. Some of the at home viewer members of the Mickey Mouse Club got to visit the set of Full House to show us at home what it would be like to be on the set of a tv show. I don't really understand why they just didn't visit the set of the Mickey Mouse club that was also a tv show. They could have just gotten to see what a tv show was like if they went there. But they went to see Full House. I don't know. That's just how they did it. But in the episode, a couple of Mickey Mouse club viewers got to go and visit the set of full House meet the cast members and even go to backstage school with Jody Sweeten and Candace Cameron. The special guest viewers then got to run lines with the characters and actually practice a scene on the set. And they did this with John Stamos as Uncle Jesse. Well, he wore a cowboy hat the whole time. For some reason, I don't think Uncle Jesse the character ever wore a cowboy hat. And John Stamos he's not known for. But he was wearing a cowboy hat the whole time. I thought it was kind of weird. But an even bigger Disney moment for Full House and the one you were probably thinking of when I said Disney and Full House is the time that the show went to Disney World. In 1993, Full House ran a two part episode called the House meets the mouse. It was filmed at Disney World and it's one of those commercials in disguise that sitcoms did all throughout the Eisner era. And I'm totally here for it. I love those. In the episode, uncle Jesse's band Jesse and the Rippers get invited to perform at Walt Disney World because of their big hit single Forever which was actually a Beach Boys song. And the whole family gets to come along. When they get to Disney World, everyone goes off on their own adventures. Jesse and Joey do their San Francisco radio show rush hour renegades live from in the bubble inside the living Seas Aquarium. I guess they patched it through via satellite across the country. Anyways, this makes Jesse late for meeting up with becky on a dock somewhere which makes her upset because it's their anniversary and he's always doing things like this. Like when he ran away on their wedding day and got stuck in a tree. But anyways, he finally meets her in the lobby of the grand Floridian where he plays an original song called for the Times. Becky's up on the balcony looking down at Jesse who's in the lobby of the grand Floridian. Playing that piano, trying to serenade her. And the last time my family visited the grand Floridian, a couple years ago, I made sure we visited this spot, both the piano and the balcony, because I'm a nerd and I wanted to see where Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky were when they filmed this scene. All right, there you go. You might think that the John Stamos Disney connections are done, but we haven't gotten into a big part of John Stamos Disney connections, his fandom, his actual Disney fandom. And to get into it, we have to talk about how John Stamos recently released that memoir called if you would have told me. And when it dropped at the end of last year, I made sure to check it out from my local public library. I knew he was a big Disney fan, but I didnt know how much it would actually shine through in the book. But there are a lot of Disney moments in there. For instance, he tells a story where he was hanging out partying at the grand Floridian after filming the Kokomo video, and the party was starting to get wild, so he left. As the night went on, the party revelers trashed the grand Floridian hot tub because a recognizable face like John Stamos had been out there earlier in the night, he was shadow banned from the grand Floridian by the staff. He never could ever seem to book a room there. Every time he called, they said, who's this calling? Oh, it's John Stamos. No, we don't have a room for you. He didn't figure out that he had been banned until years later when he was filming the full house episode at the grand Floridian, he asked about it at the front desk. When they told him that they couldn't book him a room because he trashed the hot tub, he explained that it wasn't him. He didn't do it. He had left before the hot tub got all ruined. Trash, glass bottles in the bottom of it. It was bad, bad stuff. And they understood. They were like, uncle Jesse, of course you didn't do it. You're allowed to stay at the grand Floridian again anytime you want. How's that for tying it all together? We got the beach boys, kokomo video, we got full house, we got Uncle Jesse, we got it all right here. Anyways, John's book is full of Disney moments like this. So now let's get into my top five ways. John Stamos shows his Disney fandom in his book. He's just a big Disney fan like you or me, but on a much bigger level. Okay, before we go forward, I promise I won't spoil the whole book. You should definitely read it. I'm just pointing out some of the very Disney moments and aspects of the book. Number one, he drops Disney references in casual conversation all over this book. Some quick examples. Throughout the book, he uses phrases like pixie dust, fairy tale, and even drops in an experimental prototype community of tomorrow when he's describing the Scientology building in one chapter, he compares it to the haunted mansion when he and his mom are touring Europe. He casually mentions that they're actually there to attend the opening of the Walt Disney Studios park in Disneyland, Paris, soon to be renamed to Disney Adventure park. He compares sculptures that he finds at burning man to the main street electrical parade floats. And when mentioning Angela Lansbury, he says that she will always be misses potts to him. Speaking of celebrities, John Stamos name drops a lot in this book, and he has some pretty famous friends. And even his famous friends get in on the dropping of Disney references. For example, the forward of the book is by Jamie Lee Curtis. She's a Disney fan in her own right, and in her intro, she drops the lilo and stitch quote. Ohana means family and kind of centers the whole theme of her forward around this idea. This is even before we get to read John Stamos's words. It gets off to this Disney start right there in the forward. Another famous friend of his was Don Rickles, Mister Potato head. Later on in the book, John talks all about his close father and son like relationship with the comedian. And of course, he points out that Rickles played Mister potato head. You kind of wonder if he didn't make some of these famous friends because of their Disney connections, like he's collecting Disney friends. I really connected to John Stamos in these references because this is how I talk, too. You're listening to me talk. All it is is Disney reference. Disney reference. Disney reference. You know it. This is. This is how I talk. Number two, big Disney thing about John Stamos book is that he was raised on the Disney parks. We talked a little bit about it in the intro. John grew up close to the parks, but they weren't just there. John visited them frequently. He became what I can only describe as a Disneyland mall rat. As a kid and teen, John Stamos and his childhood friend Mike would get dropped off at Disneyland on the weekends and days off and just hang around and try to impress girls. These were the ticket book days. They couldn't even ride rides unless they had some spare cash or scrounged up a spare ticket from a ticket book in a junk drawer at home. As someone personally who loved hanging out at malls with practically no money just for fun back in the day, I'm a little jealous of stamos. His mall was Disneyland number three Disney moment from his book, John Stamos was introduced to the Beach Boys at Disneyland. When you didn't have that much money in the Disneyland ticket book days, one of the things you could do was enjoy live entertainment. John Stamos discovered the Beach Boys music from a band performing covers at Disneyland. Papa do Run Run was their name, and they were basically a Beach Boys cover band. And from 1975 until 1990, they were the house band at the Tomorrowland Terrace. This is where John Stamos first saw them. But Papa do Run Run did more than introduce John Stamos to Beach Boys music. Members of the Beach Boys were actually friends with members of Papa do Run, and sometimes they showed up to the Tomorrowland Terrace concerts, too. John Stamos befriended Papa do run Run and played in bands with some of their members. They in turn introduced John to the Beach Boys in person. And then he got to play with the Beach Boys, too. But a connection to the Beach Boys is not the only thing John Stamos has taken home from Disney. Number four, John Stamos has some awesome Disney memorabilia. At the beginning of his book, John Stamos is telling a story about a low period in his life, but he still takes the time to drop the fact that he had an original Disneyland sign in his backyard at his home off of Mulholland Drive. You could actually see the sign from the street because it was ginormous. It wasn't the whole sign. It was actually just the D from the Disneyland sign. In eBay's heyday, Disney thought it would be a good idea to offload some larger than life stuff that they had sitting around, and they did it with some big publicity grabbing auctions just like us. When we see that new popcorn bucket, that lounge fly, that Lego set, John Stamos had that Disney money burning a hole in his pocket. He won the auction, even outbidding other Disney super fans like Michael Jackson. And then he put the giant 14 foot tall sign in his backyard for all of us to see. The ultimate Disney flex. But that's not all. In the book. He talks about another big ticket Disney item he has in his home, and it's an original flying dumbo ride vehicle. Back when John Stamos was still married to Rebecca Romaine. He was celebrating his 40th birthday at Disneyland in California adventure. He had a big birthday party at the grand californian resort where Rebecca gave him the Dumbo ride vehicle as a birthday gift. You can see his dumbo in that Disney family sing along from 2020. Even more Disney flexing. We're all sitting at home watching the special on our couches, and John Stamos and his family are like, we don't sit on couches. We sit on a dumbo in our home. Speaking of family number five, John Stamos found his wife Caitlin through their mutual love of Disney. They were both guest starring on law and order because who in Hollywood hasn't guest starred on law and order? And the way he tells the story, they were both in hair and makeup and she was talking about Disney. So of course he was immediately interested. I mean, I get it. Whenever I'm anywhere and I hear someone talking about Disney, my ears perk up and it's all that I can do to stop myself from just butting to that conversation. Did somebody just say Disney? Throughout their dating relationship, they took Disney trips. And like a fairy tale from fantasyland, they fell in love. Their epic engagement story involves the animation building and Disney's California adventure. And I will now forever refer to this building as the Stamos engagement building. John and Caitlin Stamos have a son, Billy, who's named after John's father. And of course, they continually bring him to the parks. And just like that, the Disney fandom cycle continues. We pass our love of Disney down to the next generation, who will probably pass it down to the next generation, and Disney fandom lives on. All right, well, there you go. Those are some of the broad strokes Disney themes that happen through his book. I think you should go check out his book from your local library. It's a great read. Talks a lot about his career, Hollywood. It made me like John Stamos even more. So go look that one up, if you would have told me. And then you should go follow John on Instagram. He's probably posting about his new book or the Beach Boys or pictures of his latest Disney bound with his family. And if you like these episodes about the Beach Boys and John Stamos and Disney, you'll love his posts. And you'll also love to follow me on Instagram and threads while you're already there following John Stamos. You can find me at Synergy lovescompany. And if you enjoyed this episode and you want even more, subscribe or follow me in the podcast app of your choice or on YouTube for the video version where you can actually see me and what I'm talking about. And if you want to bring your synergy loves company fandom to the John Stamos Disney fandom level, you can share the show with another Disney fan friend of yours. Just tell them to visit Synergy loves company. Theyll probably have to say have mercy. Why havent I heard of this before? And theyll think that you are radder than Jesse and the Rippers. And remember, this show is listener supported. Theres no sponsors, its just you and me. So if you feel like you get value from the show and you want to give a little something back, you could buy me a ko fi on ko fi. K o f I on Ko fi. You can make a donation. Let me know that you get value from the show and you want me to continue making more great episodes like this. If you look in the show description or go to synergylovescompany.com comma, you'll find a link to my ko fi page where you can give back to the show and help it keep going. So no matter how you decide to support the show, just know that I appreciate you and the time that you spent with me today. So thank you so much. So that's all for today. Thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. And until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.