Even though the last episode of Full House aired way back in 1995, it's never too late to learn fascinating tidbits about the iconic family friendly sitcom. This latest one is brought to you by Jesse Katsopolis himself, John Stamos.
Earlier this year while promoting his narrator role for the podcast The Grand Scheme: Snatching Sinatra, the 58-year-old actor opened up to Insider about playing Uncle Jesse. It was then that John dropped a fascinating truth about Uncle Jesse's famous "Have mercy!" line. Apparently, the catchphrase was inspired by the 1964 Roy Orbison song "Oh, Pretty Woman." In particular, the last line of lyrics from the first verse read, "No one could look as good as you, mercy."
"It was a good catchphrase to have, 'cause people could use it, and it sort of means like, 'Hey, that person's good looking or something,'" John elaborated. He also explained, "I'm glad it wasn't like, 'sit on it' or something that I wouldn't want following me around for the rest of my life."
Back in 2016 when John was honored at the TV Land Icon Awards, The Beach Boys performer revealed that it was screenwriter Garry Marshall who encouraged him to come up with a good catchphrase for Uncle Jesse.
“He always said, ‘Get a catchphrase, you need a catchphrase.’ I’m not kidding you. The ‘have mercy’ thing came out of, ‘Garry told me I had to have a catchphrase," he said.
And just like that, "have mercy!" was born. Lo and behold, that's not the only fun Full House secret we've learned recently. In a May episode of Bob Saget (a.k.a. Danny Tanner)'s Here for You podcast, Jodie Sweetin admitted to stealing a few key things from the Full House set when the show wrapped up.
"I have the head of the sea pappy, and I almost got in trouble for stealing this on the night of the final show,” Jodie, who played Stephanie Tanner, told Bob.
As for John, Bob claimed he has the iconic blue-and-white checkered couch from the Tanner living room and the red doors. Have mercy!
