Urkel’s ‘Full House’ Guest Appearance Created the TGIF Universe 30 Years Ago

Multiple titles, dozens of crossovers, hundreds of characters, an expansive universe—nope, I’m not describing the Marvel Cinematic Universe! I’m describing that other sprawling franchise of interconnected action. Oh—no, I’m not talking about whatever DC’s doing with its multiverse of movies, either. I’m talking about TGIF, ABC’s Friday night sitcom block from the ’80s and ’90s. Pretty much the entire programming lineup was part of the same, incredibly convoluted TV universe—one with multiple John Stamoses and Bronson Pinchots running around. And this TV universe—quite possibly the biggest one not centered around Tommy Westphall (although that kid from St. Elsewhere is part of it)—was born on this date 30 years ago thanks to one small crossover.

The crossover happened on Full House in the Season 4 episode “Stephanie Gets Framed.” It’s an average episode of Full House with a pretty average problem: Stephanie learns that she needs glasses and is too embarrassed to wear them to school. However, there’s one aspect of this episode that makes it stand out from the rest and firmly places it in the top tier of Full House WTF-ery (up there with Stephanie driving a car into the kitchen and Uncle Jesse being close friends with the Beach Boys). “Stephanie Gets Framed” guest stars the one and only Steve Urkel.

 

Why is Urkel on this episode of Full House? It may be because Family Matters was pre-empted on January 25, 1991 so that TGIF could air the hourlong special New Kids on the Block at Disney-MGM Studios: Wildest Dreams and ABC knew that the world needed its weekly Urkel fix. The solution? Have him guest star on Full House as the annoying cousin of DJ’s friend-of-the-week Julie. When Jaleel White shows up at the Tanner house and comes face to face with John Stamos, it’s basically like seeing Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans together for the first time. This is TGIF’s nerdiest character standing face to face with the coolest man on Friday night. What does Jesse do? He tries to teach Urkel how to strut.

This isn’t Urkel’s only business on the episode. In fact, it’s likely that Stephanie’s entire glasses problem was the result of the writers knowing they had Urkel to write for this one week. After all, it’s the glasses geek supreme who sits down and tries to cheer Stephanie up in his own Urkel way.

Little did the writers know that this moment would be basically be the TGIF universe’s big bang.

Family Matters was already a spinoff of Perfect Strangers; never forget that Family Matters started as a show about Harriette Winslow! But Full House was the first time that Family Matters stepped into a totally different, previously unconnected show. Soon, Urkel flew to Step By Step via jet pack (“The Dance”), then Mr. Cooper played substitute teacher for Michelle on his new show (“Hangin’ with Michelle”). And expanding the universe even more, Boy Meets World crossed over with Step By Step (“The Happiest Show on Earth”) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (“The Witches of Pennbrook”).

This one little crossover started all this madness—all because ABC most likely couldn’t go a week without Urkel. When it came to crossovers, TGIF did not have mercy.

Stream Full House "Stephanie Gets Framed" on Hulu