Bob Saget almost did not become Danny Tanner, the role that made him a TV father figure to millions. On the day he would have turned 70, the story of how he wound up on Full House is sharpening again, and the key turning point came long before the show began its eight-season run in September 1987.

Saget said in a July 2021 interview that producers Tom Miller, Bob Boyett and Jeff Franklin wanted him for the sitcom, but he was not available because he was working on CBS's The Morning Program. He said he was later let go from that job and then replaced John Posey as Danny for the unaired pilot. “Then I got fired from The Morning Program, and they wanted me still for Full House. So I took the job, and it meant everything,” Saget said.

That recollection has now been reinforced by Franklin, who revisited the casting story in July 2025 on Dave's Full House Rewind podcast. Franklin said he had wanted Saget from the start and was struck by him when he worked as the audience warm-up guy on Bosom Buddies. He called Saget “a sweetheart of a guy” and said, “I just had this gut instinct, from the beginning, that Bob could be one of those classic TV dads.”

Franklin also described the show’s first version of Danny Tanner with John Posey in place and said Posey did a chemistry read with Dave Coulier and John Stamos that was “great.” But the show sold with Posey already cast before Saget became available. Franklin said Coulier and Stamos then did a secret screen test with Saget on the set of Perfect Strangers, a step that led to the part changing hands. Reshooting the pilot cost almost a million dollars, Franklin said, and he added that it was “tough” because “to break John Posey's heart was not fun either.”

The casting detour matters because Full House was built around a simple, durable idea: Danny Tanner, recently widowed, raising three daughters in San Francisco with help from Jesse Katsopolis and Joey Gladstone. The daughters were D.J., Stephanie and Michelle, and the series ran from September 1987 to May 1995. Saget’s version of Danny became the anchor of that formula, even though he was not the first man hired to play him.

The timing gives the story its edge today. Saget was found dead in January 2022, and an investigation concluded he died from blunt head trauma that likely came from an unwitnessed fall. With his posthumous birthday landing on May 17, Franklin’s account turns a familiar sitcom memory into a more precise picture of how narrowly Saget missed the role and how much the producers thought the choice mattered. The answer, in the end, is that he was not just the right Danny Tanner. He was the one they wanted all along.