The sudden death of actor and comedian Bob Saget has felt personal to the generations of TV viewers who grew up with him as a ubiquitous and comforting presence as sitcom dad Danny Tanner on Full House and as the original host of Americas Funniest Home Videos, two of the most popular prime-time shows of the 1990s.
Sagets death Sunday, at age 65, has struck a particular chord among many immigrants and children of immigrants. In an era when most people watched the same handful of shows on the major broadcast networks, Full House and AFV were a unifying force. With their broad humor and wide appeal, the shows helped us learn about American culture, build new traditions in a new country and feel less alone.
It just helped me to demystify the U.S. culture a little bit, said Dave Chan, whose family immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area from Hong Kong when he was 7, in the mid-1980s, shortly before Full House premiered. Here I am at school, getting picked on a lot for looking different, not speaking English well. But then I would still have people that were kind to me. I just couldnt relate to this new culture that well. Watching this family, I think I was too young to understand the premise of the show. I just thought it was an American family. This is what they do, and heres a cool uncle, and heres a cool friend.
He remembered feeling a connection to Saget, who radiated warmth as patriarch Danny Tanner.
The way he spoke was very intentional and slow and deliberate, and he seemed to spend a lot of time trying his best, Chan said. It turns out hes like that in real life. I think it was the way he spoke that was so eloquent to me. And even not knowing the language as a kid, I dont know. I was drawn to it.
For Akchita, a teacher in South Carolina who didnt want to use her last name to protect her privacy, watching Full House similarly helped her fit in and find comfort after she and her family emigrated from India.
We came here in 2001, right before the Sept. 11 attacks, so the atmosphere changed drastically, she said. Shows like Full House really helped me learn English, learn about American culture, and get away from the racism and xenophobia at that time.
For generations, immigrant kids have often looked to TV shows to pick up colloquialisms, figure out what to wear and other aspects of American life that our immigrant parents couldnt teach us. Growing up in Houston after emigrating from Bangladesh just before his 9th birthday, Rahat Ahmed said he found refuge in Full House and the other hit sitcoms that aired during ABCs TGIF block, including Family Matters and Perfect Strangers.
He remembered emulating how people on these shows acted.
Of all the shows, Full House always stood out as the most wholesome, and I remember really appreciating the loving nature of the whole family.
That wholesomeness and the squeaky-clean jokes gave immigrant parents and children something they could watch together, transcending cultural, generational and language divides. In addition, both Full House and AFV had relatively simple premises and broad humor, making them easy to understand.
For Nimmy Simon and her Indian American family in the Chicago suburbs, Full House on Fridays and AFV on Sundays were often mandatory viewing.
My parents worked all the time, and my dad never had a chance to sit down and watch TV. But if we were all home together on a Sunday, where that was the one day he would have off, wed sit down and wed watch the show, said Simon, 33, whos now a physician in Columbia, South Carolina. Theres not a lot of traditions I had with my parents growing up. But that was the one thing I always remember. If it was on and it was a Sunday, and he was off, we were sitting there and watching it.
Full House lives on, thanks to syndication, streaming (including the recent Netflix reboot, Fuller House) and the shows timeless themes. As a result, multiple generations of immigrants and children of immigrants have discovered it. Even though it went off the air years before her childhood, Sammy Parvatini, 19, and her Indian immigrant parents watched reruns when she was growing up in Northern Virginia.
Its hard to raise a child in a country that you werent raised in before, said Parvatini, who is now in college. My parents basically got an insight from Full House to know, like, OK, this is how it works.
Her parents would use the show for educational moments. For example, she recalled them citing an episode in which Danny tells Stephanie not to smoke cigarettes just because the cool kids at school were doing it as an example of not giving in to peer pressure.
On a more basic level, she thought Full House lives on simply because it has that unity vibe that helps you take your mind off the bad times, knowing you can just have fun in that show and feel good.
Chan said it occurs to him now that back then he never really considered how Danny Tanner was white. As a kid, it didnt matter all that much because the show felt so relatable, and the Tanners reminded him of members of his own family.
I never thought of him as white, for some reason. I dont know why, Chan said. Maybe its because he seemed like a father figure to me. I never thought of him as this white guy. It was just like, I know him.
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