Hey, Fanorto's welcome back to How Rude Tanaritos. Today we have a very special guest on the podcast. She played such a formative role in our childhood as she was our studio teacher for all eight seasons on Full House. She was also the magic behind Michelle's cute catchphrases and reactions. If you've ever wondered how did they get Michelle to do that, well, today you are going to hear the
answers to that and many other questions. I think it's safe to say that Full House would not be the show we all know in love without her.
Please welcome to the pod.
Adria later Hi, Adria, hid Hi, how are you?
What a gift this is?
As soon as you agreed to do this, I messaged Jody immediately. I was all choked up, and I was like, what a gift that we get to share Adria with all of our listeners and catch up and share all these memories from our Full House days.
Great memories. Probably you know, I've been in the business over forty five years. I was retired for a while. I'm Sami retired, but full House is the standout, most incredible experience I had in my entire career watch.
They Get to Grow Up.
You know you were, yeah, Babe, Jody, I think you were five going out or you were six five.
I just turned five.
Actually, yeah, you were in kindergarten and I think after a very short time they skipped you into first grade because.
You Yeah, I think I did. I did a total of like two or three days in kindergarten, and they were like, you should probably go into first grade. But I'd started the show right at the same time I started school, so I like never had a you know, quote unquote fully normal school experience.
Right, I remember. But you used to read the scripts old in our script readings on Monday m h and at five years old, you knew not only your part, but you were reading everybody else's lines. I mean's incredible.
Yeah, that's sort of the That sort of seems to be the going comment is that I knew and you know, look how I turned out. I don't even know what I'm doing these days. Now.
Did you come onto the show right from the very beginning or was it a couple of episodes in I forget when we started with you.
My first episode was episode three of season one. It was the back to school, first day of kindergarten for Stephanie and the first day of I guess it was fifth grade for DJ and Kimmy. So that was I was there from almost the very beginning.
And did you know from the very first episode that this was going to be an ongoing part for you or was it going to be reoccurring? How to know?
No, it was.
It was supposed to be just a one time appearance and then it turned into like eight years in my entire life basically, so well, we had none of us had any idea the phenomenon that house will become.
We had no clue that first season.
No, so are you. I know our audience would love to hear a little bit of like your background and about what you know studio teachers do? I mean, so many of our fans out there have heard us mention you. You know, you know our studio teacher Adria Later and she worked with the babies, And how did you start
in this business? What I mean, I've I've bragged about you and been like you worked on like et and all this really little stuff because you you are so well known in this business for being an incredible studio teacher. But you know on sets, it's not just about being a teacher. It's also about being the welfare worker and making sure that the kids are taking care of getting their breaks, all this stuff, and you know you have to be the one to jump in and go no, no, no, no,
we're done. The kid needs you know, that's it. Their time is up. They are turning into a pumpkin and need to go. But I would just love to hear how you got into this and sort of your your adventures up until full House, and then you know, of course why we were the best. We'd love to hear that best.
I actually was a school teacher by profession and substituting at the time because I had a little boy. And I found out that they used teachers in Hollywood, and I called the phone number that hired teachers at the time, and they told me there were no openings. I asked for an application. They wouldn't give me one. They said, call back. We don't give applications out we have too
many calls every day. So about two weeks later, I got dressed in a business suit and I went down to the Board of Education into the office that handled studio teachers without an appointment and I asked to speak the head of the department, and he came out and said, you're here without an appointment. I said, I'm happy to sit here as long as it takes for you know, when you have the time to speak to me, I
would like to speak to you about studio teaching. And he said, come into my office and we talked, and I told him about my credentials and my experience teaching, and he said, all right, I'm going to give you an application and we definitely will call you. You fill it out right here in the office and we'll call you. And about two weeks later, the first call came in and it was for The Bad News Bears with Walter matth Awen tatimonial, where I assigned on a seniority basis.
But that time nobody wanted to work with ten little boys out in Granada Hills in the middle of the summer on a film. I got that film. Then I did Bad News Bears two. I was asked to do Bad News Bears three, and my career sort of took off. Shortly after that, I got a phone call from my office saying, there's a there's a director who normally does his films out of state. But they're going to do a movie here in Los Angeles, you need to keep
a very low profile. He's not particularly interested in working with studio teachers. So the assignment was for a film called nineteen forty one, starring John Belucci and Dan Aproyd, directed by Steven Spielberg. On that film, I had three little boys. I was on that film for twelve weeks, I think, and at the end of the film I used to bring the little boys hot chocolate. We were shooting out the beach for I think four weeks. We were out there every late afternoon into early evening, and
I'd bring the little guy's hot chocolate. And one day I brought hot chocolate unto the set and Stephen was talking to these little guys and he said, oh, are you one of the moms, And I said, no, I'm your studio teacher. He said, would you bring me hot chocolate too? When you bring them hot chocolate. I said, I'm happy to bring your chocolate. And at the end of the film he said, if I ever do movies
again with children, I'm going to call you. And about a year later I got a call from the production office that Steven was doing a movie which turned out.
To be et Wow.
So then we really took off from there, did a lot of features, and I ended up on Full House because Barbara Cameron had called me. I had done a commercial with Candae and she wanted someone to do the pilot for Full House, and I said, I'll do the pilot, but I really don't do television because I sort of you either work on TV or you work in the future film world. And I was writing for films, and I said, I'll do the pilot, but we'll find you someone else. So if this show were to go, well,
the rest is history. With all of you guys, the show went, and I stayed with it for the eight years that you were on the air.
I remember you talking about working with Steven Spielberg. I remember when they shot Hook on Sony that you would bring the Lost Boys over and we would get to go to set and somewhere. I had a gold toabloon from that chip. I don't have it anymore.
I have one.
You have, all of course you do, but I yeah, I had one, and I and I don't know where it went, but I had stuck it in my pocket. But I mean just so many memories. But you, from the very beginning, Adriot were like a pivotal role in our growing up. And you know, you you were like one of the moms. You absolutely looked out for us. And like you know, the story of how you got in on studio teaching, I'm like, of course you did, because Adria doesn't take no for an answer like that.
That is one thing. And we like you made sure that the kids well being was always a priority. And you know we had a great set and producers and all of that too, but you know, schedules are demanding and things, and you know, and everybody will just kind of go, ah, well it's fine, we can you know, push that, but it was like, nope, this is it. And and you, you just like your presence there was so important to us. I remember field trips which we
didn't get to go on. You know, as kids working on a TV show, you miss all of the quote unquote normal kind of kids stuff of field trips and you know, movies and you know, classroom pets and stuff. But we had, we had fish, we had oh gosh, I mean just so many cool things that you always made sure happened for us.
Do you remember that we took a field trip to hers Castle and you got stung by a bee.
I do, oh oh, do I remember it. It instilled in me a lifelong fear. But what I've eventually learned in my adult life is I was stung by a yellow jacket, which is a wasp. So it was the I was putting all of this on bees. My whole bees are lovely bees. I have no qualms with them, so anyway, but I remember getting stung on the palm and Barbara Cameron was like, we need to get mud, and we were like what, and she like, scoops from some mud I believe from like the parking lot or
something like. We just poured some water, made some mud and slapped it on my hand because she was like, it'll help pull the toxins out. And then we had to go find like an urgent care or something. But I do I remember going to hers Castle. I went there recently the last few years with my husband, and I hadn't been since we had been, and I like, so many memories came flooding back of that trip, and I think we were probably wearing our full house sweaters, were we not? Or was that?
No?
That was the that was the San Diego Zoo trip.
We had some we had some wonderful, wonderful trips and able to go on location as well. We did a location one time in Hawaii. Yeah, and then we were we were at Disney World in we didn't yeah there.
I remember doing I remember I think, uh was Laura Gary with us at the time or was it Elise, But I think we had had brought on a couple of other teachers too, because we now had like a high school and a middle school or a you know,
different credentials. But I remember doing every like afternoon at our hotel in Disney World, we'd be like shooting or doing whatever, and then we would have to have our school hours and we'd be in like the little lounge on the you know, the whatever concierge floor, and they'd be serving hot chocolate chip cookies and all, you know, and it was like, cool, We're going to study and
like get some hot cookies. It was. It was great, but I think I was pretty I was heartbroken over going to Disney World because it was the same week as my sixth grade science camp and I had to miss my sixth grade science camp trip, which was the thing that like everyone looked forward to, and it was and I just remember my mom being like, one day you will realize that you got the better option, you know.
But it was like that normal sea and so you know, that sense of like doing what all the other kids did. So getting to go on these field trips and like I mean even going to Alvera Street, you know for like back to Spanish, Yeah, to practice Spanish, you know, like stuff like that was just it was so important to us. And you know, pretty soon you started working with Ashley and Mary Kate. I mean you were there
as sort of the baby wrangler. Had you had you had prior experience in wrangling babies, No, I mean other than your own, only my own, other than Matt, only my own.
And when I came onto Full House, all of your producers, Jeff Franklin and all his writing staff, all his producers were for the most part single guys. I don't even we had any females on the writing staff at that time.
Probably not. It was the lady. It was the eighties.
It was at the pilot. They were eight months old. And so Jeff or one of the producers, came to me and said, so can you get him to crawl across the floor over there and pick that up. I said, they don't crawl yet much, so they don't. They don't crawl so all during.
Yours and I love when Jeff would be like, so, that's not going to happen. You're right, No, no it's not Jeff, I love you, but no, it's not happening.
Working as an advisor, you know, to these guys, being a mom and being a mom a young child, I was able to tell them little things. One of the things that came up the fact that the Tanners were in a house with their father because the mom passed away, and that was uncle Jesse and their friend Joey. I went to Jeff Franklin one time and I said, you
know what's interesting about this dynamic is I'm divorced. I have a little boy and he was playing out in the street with all of his friends, and a couple of his friends were teasing him. They said, well, you know what, you don't have a mom that lives in your house. You only have I'm sorry, you don't have a dad that lives in your house. You only have
a mom. And I told my son at the time, I know, but you have an uncle Todd who lives with us, because my brother, after college, moved into my house and lived with me for a couple of years while he saved up money to buy his own place. So he was kind of like he was the coach of the block. He took care of all the kids out there. After work, he would go out and play
with him. So I told Jeff that, you know, Matt was criticized because he didn't have a dad in the house, And I said, and so they wrote that into a script. I think one of you came home from school, you know, someone had teased you and the remark was, well, you may not have a mom in your house, but you have an uncle Jesse, and you have a Joey and Star luckier than anybody else that goes to your school. And so there were things in my life that I was able to point out to Jeff. The same thing
with when Mary, Kate and Ashley. When Michelle was going to go from a crib to a big girl bed, I said, well, when I moved my son, I put pillows all around the side of his bed because I was so afraid he was.
Gonna Oh yeah, it's such a huge thing. You're like, you're so little, you can't be in a big It's the same thing when they start driving, You're like, you're still a baby. You can't even sleep in a big girl bed.
So that, you know, So I was able to just take experiences from my own life and point them out to the producers, and they were able to incorporate some of those ideas into your show.
Jeff talked about that we had Jeff on the show a couple of weeks ago, which was so much fun, and he really talked about how full house like, how he would talk to us, the kids and our moms and you like, because he said he was like, I knew I didn't I had no kids, I had no experience. He's like, so I knew I could write, you know, these guys that had no experience raising kids. He's like, but I did, you know writing for the kids. I
wanted to know what kids were really like. He was like, I hadn't really you know, hung out with kids since I was one, and so I but it's so cool because we do see so much of all of our own experiences and influences and life incidents and things that Jeff and these producers really listened to and they were like,
what's it like? And you know, you or our moms or we would be like, oh, you know, it's it's like this, this is what's going on in our school life, or this is you know, what we're into, and it became part of the show. And it was like, rarely, I think, do you truly rarely do you have producers on a show who listen to the kids and their families and the studio teachers as much as they did on Full House. Absolutely, really, absolutely, it's really really rare.
Usually the kids are like the side dish or they're just kind of expected to do whatever and go along. But it was really it was a give and take about how did they make the kids the best versions of themselves on set and how could they support us being normal kids?
Offset right, It was such an incredible experience, and you know the fact that we had your three moms, I mean Andrea with your mom, Sherry and Janice and Barbara, it's an extraordinary combination that all magically came together and made Full Housewood. It was you know, I really I think the moms had a big part, yeah, in making
that all come together so beautifully. And one of the things I noticed I remember about the show compared to one thousand other projects that I've worked on in my forty some odd years, when we would do a rehearsal and then you know, they say cut and it was like a break. Like the guys wouldn't just pop off to their dressing rooms. They would stay on the set. They would talk to you little ones, Yeah, play with you.
I remember John Stamos very wisely, it would sit in a chair rather than going off to his dressing room and say give me one of the twins, because he wanted to create some kind of connection with the little ones. I mean, yeah, he set that up I think from the beginning with you and Candace and Andrea. But yeah, working with a nine month old, a ten month old, it takes work.
It's a lot and getting them comfortable with like, hey, these are people that you you know that you have to look like on camera that you're not screaming and like who are these strangers?
Now?
What I do From the very beginning, I told all of you, including the producers, that when Mary, Kate and Ashley were little, I was going to have them learn you learn your names by your character names, not your real name, because I wanted them to think of Uncle Jesse was willing Uncle jas See, and Danny was close enough to Daddy that if they said that that word. And so I taught them your character names, not your real names. And I think, well they were about three
years old. Mary Kate came up to me one day, sort of in a little side secret, and she said, I know Uncle Jesse's real name.
She said, of course, Mary Kate did. That seems like a very Mary Kate thing. I know something.
Oh, you're right, that's his real name. But for years, for the first two three years of Full House, we referred to all of you guys by your character names.
I think we did that on Fuller too, with Dashel and Fox. I mean, you kind of have to when they're little, because you can't be like, Okay, during this period of time, I need you to call me by this name, and then when they're not doing it, you can call it like that. No, that's right, get that with a baby. So but yeah, I remember when they kind of found out too, they.
Were like wait them, they were finally let in on the secret.
It was so interesting for that to go on as many years as it did, because you don't see it so much with adults, but with children, you see such a change in development, you know. I mean, I mean you went from five years old plus, you know, I mean you were like a teenager of preteens.
Yeah, I was thirteen when it ended.
Andrea was, you know, graduating high school, and Campus was graduating as well. It's just you see such a change in development of a human being. You're on a show like that for that length of time with children.
Yeah, well, yeah, Jeff talked about, you know, we were one of the first shows to like raise a baby on television and to not in between seasons, you know, jump the kid from you know, an infant to all of a sudden, there are toddler. You know, we really we just followed.
We stayed with them.
We stayed with them, We stayed with the kids, and I you know, that was such We were such a big part of the show. It was such a family oriented show about the kids storylines and the adul storylines and everything that like you really got to watch these kids grow up. I mean, it's so crazy going back and watching these early episodes, just how little we were.
Yes, I remember I would decide which of Mary Kate or Ashley would do a particular scene and then I usually flip them every other scene. And Mary Kate came to you one day and she said, how come Ashley gets to do all the cookie scenes and the cake scenes and I don't think of who's eating the cookie or.
The cake in the scene.
And she said, Ashley gets every one of those. I said, well, you need to go to Jeff and tell him to write you a scene that has something to do with eating, and I will make sure I put you in it. Sure enough, he wrote an ice cream scene for her that was fantastic, but she wanted an eating scene just like her sister Ashley.
Yeah, how was it like learning sort of their temperament? And you know, I know one of the things we had John on the show too, and one of the things we talked about with him was when he, you know, replaced the Olsens in the first season. Was like, I don't know. We had like different babies for a couple of days and then we were like, never mind, I have do you remember that?
No? In fact, I recently saw Jeff. Jeff and I had lunch together a week ago, and I told him I have no memory of ever switching out those twins because you didn't cry, did we do you remember?
I do, I remember, because I remember they they were like similar looking babies, but they didn't. They just didn't. They weren't as like cute and you know, exp whatever, and we went back to the Olsons. But I remember, I don't think we didn't shoot an episode with them. We didn't. It was maybe like a day or two of rehearsal that like right in the beginning of the first few episodes that we brought them in, and then we were like, nah, I think kind of, it's just good with what we got.
And you know, it's interesting. I was reminding Jeff that first season, Ashley did not work for the first three quarters of season one. Every time, yeah, we dressed them both exactly alike so that we could use them both, and every time I reached for her to take her on stage, she cried, she wouldn't go. So Mary Kate did almost the entire first season of Full House. And there was one night, I must say, three quarters away into the season. They showed up on a Friday night
and Mary Kate had an eye infection. Her eye was completely swollen shut. Jarnie said I'm so sorry, and she has an eye infection, I said, and it was tape night, right.
Look, there's nothing you can do.
Said Ashley, tonight is your night. I took Ashley from the dressing room into the school room wardrobe, brought the clothes into the school room. We dressed Ashley in there. I carried her out under the set. I put her on the couch in the living room. And then and there was a scene where Danny was calling around for a babysitter, and so he's on the phone sitting on the couch, actually sitting there with a little toy phone in us.
Yes, I remember this scene. Yeah, we watched this episode.
Yeah, And so he's talking to her and she's just holding the phone and he looks at he says, what do you think I can't seem to find a babysitter, And she just takes the phone and she hangs it up, and he had lived and said.
You just hung up on your phone.
There.
From there, so that was Ashley's first scene, was that tell scene. And she worked from then on that.
You can't write that. You can't write that stuff.
You know, it's either the baby performs or she doesn't.
You cannot script it.
No, And there's so many cute little moments. Now now that we're in season two, we've kind of realized the pattern of like the cold opens or the teasers that are very Michelle focused. They're you know, always about some cute little thing that Michelle is doing or whatever. And that was you know, there's so many fun moments of them kind of ad libbing or making a face or doing something that was totally unexpected that made for some really cute moments.
I don't know if you the two of you have access to any of those out take reels.
Oh, the gag reels, Yes, we.
Need to watch. They're so funny to watch.
Oh, those are the best. The gag reels are hilarious. I mean, did you I'm sure you did feel ridiculous with your puppets and your bracelets and your and you're you know, crawling around on the floor and having to do i mean all manner of things you know, off camera to get the babies to react.
Tell us your tricks of how you'd get them to perform. What are your secrets?
Well, I was just making it up as I went along, you know, I to get their attention at that time. I didn't have like a bag of baby Wrangler toys or things. I mean I pulled my bracelets off my arms, and.
I remember you would shake those, you always had bracelet asks.
Then they would crawl to me, and then I did a lot of people thought I was giving them candy. I had little pieces of dried fruit, dried apric oh yeah, Cherry's little minscule cut up pieces, and I had them in a pocket and I would use those, you know, to give them almost like you know, like a reward, you know. And they knew that I had the fruit, which they loved.
Oh yeah, oh, I remember they'd come searching for it and start digging through your pockets.
As some of you, as did the guys occasionally do you have any fruit? Yeah?
Yeah. Adria always had snacks. You're like, hey, can I have something? I mean, you know, it started with the hot chocolate being and you just continued with the snacks, right like any good, like any good mom.
No, it was great. You know, it's funny you were talking about the welfare worker part of my job. In addition teaching the academics to children on set, I'm there to watch over their welfare and their well being. And Bob Saggot, you know, who was a delightful, loving, incredible man, but as a me, you know, the potty mouth.
Oh yes, yeah.
Oftentimes on the set would say things and how do you reprimmend? Bob? I mean, it was all get and jest. He wasn't really right trying to be as horrible as he was sometimes with the thing. Remember one time saying to him, Bob, I'm going to send you to your room if you don't clean up your conversation right now, like this in front of the children. But you know, I mean he would just forget. He'd be, you know, off with the guys. You know, they're talking, and you
little ones were always around. So I tried to watch for that.
I definitely fell into that trap and became Bob on Fuller where I would just be making a stupid joke or saying something and I'd be like, oh, hi, how are you children?
You did Fuller House for how many years? Five?
Five seasons?
Yeah, yeah, it was great that you were able to come together like that after full House and produce another show like that that just kind of in the hearts of America. I mean, your great fan base.
Yeah, it really it really was. It was so much fun getting to come back and do it and on the same stage and everything. You know, we have so many memories, I mean, the the old the our wardrobe room, our upstairs wardrobe room on Fuller was our old school room that Andrey and I shared, and yeah, just all the all those memories. I mean, it was just it was just crazy and good.
We should probably we should probably mention that by law, children on films or TV are required to do three hours of schooling a day, which doesn't sound.
Like a lot.
Yeah, I was gonna until you really.
Realize, well, we had full time jobs too, so you have to fit in tetris in the school hours, the three hours into the normal work day, which is kind of challenging at times on those tape days to find those three hours.
And even though it doesn't sound like a lot of time, three hours, you basically had one to one instruction I think, I know. In the beginning, yeah, I had the three of you, you and Candace and the two of you in Candas. But then as you got older and as I became busier with Mary, Kate and Ashley coaching them, you know, we brought in other teachers on the set, and so a lot of a lot of you, especially in your teen years, ended up with one on one instruction.
So even though three hours is a small amount of time, you get that concentrated one on one. Oh it was great, no messing around, no lost time. You know, it was focus opportunity.
I remember always, I remember always getting in trouble for uh talking because that was just what I did. But also tipping my chair back. I remember sitting in the school room and you'd be like, Jody, stopped tipping your like either you or at least stop tipping your chair back, and I would keep doing it and keep doing it until I fell, because that's just what kids do. But I remember, I do remember vividly being like can you would you stop? You're gonna hit your head. No, I'm fine,
I'm fine. Yeah.
You know.
The fun things that could do.
Amaze me is how you girls could learn your lines, do all of your school work, get all of your work done, get the extraordinary grades in your courses that you did, and still remember your lines. Like when I tried to coach Mary, Kate and Ashley with their lines, I could not do it without a script in my hand. I could not memorize their lines. And I remember I used to wear reading glasses and so they were you.
Know, yes, I remember your glass. You had the little chain, always a gorgeous let.
Up on my yet and then they were sideways on my head. Yeah.
Oh, your hair would be all over and your up.
Yeah. But I could not do a show without having a script in my hand. And I just blown away by the fact that you, the two of you are and canvas as well, you know, were able to memorize your lines, do all of your school work, hit your marks where you needed to stand. I just do all you know, do all of that in your life. I I'm pretty blown away by budies.
I think it's easier as a kid. We're like sponges, just absorbing information. It's like learning a new language. It's easier when you're younger because you just you don't have all the adult responsibilities floating around.
In your head.
You just so okay, yeah, I'm not worried about Rent. You know, I'm like, hey, sure I can remember this line. We absolutely loved having Adria on as a guest. What
a wonderful interview. And I just I have all those wan Chausi's hearing her behind the scenes stories just incredible and as always with our full house crew, there was so much to talk about that we had to break this interview up into two parts, So join us for part two, airing this Friday, and in the meantime, if you want to follow us on social media, make sure
you follow at how Rude Podcast. You can also send us some emails at howarudpodcast at gmail dot com and make sure you're liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so you can get all the newest episodes as soon as they drop, which you know you want to be the first one to know about all these great things. So we love having you as guests. Fan of Rito's, You're amazing. We'll see you next time for
part two of this interview. And remember the world is small, but the house is full.
We're gonna have to come up with a new tagline for you to mess up.
No, I had to make Adria proud, she said, I was so good at knowing my line. If I blew it now, you'd be letting her down.