“Kareem, he’s on my sweet spot,” John Stamos-as-Uncle Jesse Katsopolis pleads to the referee of his in-progress charity three-on-three basketball game.
“I can’t find pants,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (as himself) matter-of-factly replies. “Get over it.”
That joke lands just before one of the more unlikely game-winners in scripted television history. Uncle Jesse, whose basketball ability had been proved to be worse than the family dog’s earlier in the episode, launches and buries a contested deep shot from the right side to propel his team (also featuring Danny Tanner and Joey Gladstone, and coach D.J. Tanner) to victory.
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If you were a late-’80s or ’90s kid (or the parent of one), “Full House” was a prime time or after-school staple, even in syndication. And midway through the series’ eighth and final season, the family-friendly sitcom welcomed one of its more prominent guest stars, Abdul-Jabbar.
The episode entitled “Air Jesse,” which premiered on Feb. 7, 1995, centers on Abdul-Jabbar coincidentally bumping into a frustrated Jesse on the local court, then helping him identify a right-wing, midrange spot as, miraculously, where the ball automatically flies from Jesse’s hands into the basket. Because Jesse’s lifelong motto has been “just say no to sports,” he is completely oblivious to the fact that the advice came from the NBA’s all-time leading scorer … until Abdul-Jabbar is introduced the next day as the game’s celebrity referee.
Jesse is, as expected, an awkwardly dreadful player during the bulk of the game. But with the score tied, Jesse pleads to let him take a shot from his sweet spot — a feat he believes will make toddler sons Nicky and Alex proud of him. Abdul-Jabbar’s eavesdropping on the huddle helps persuade D.J. that the other team will never expect Jesse to get the ball.
Though a defender is standing on Jesse’s spot — leading to the funny exchange with Abdul-Jabbar — Jesse drills a more challenging shot that even Abdul-Jabbar calls “amazing.”
“From this day on,” Jesse says, “every single person I meet, I’m gonna say, ‘Kareem Abdul-Jabbar taught me how to play basketball.’”
“Why don’t we keep that as our little secret?” Abdul-Jabbar says, before walking off the set.
Ultimately, it does not matter that Nicky and Alex missed Jesse’s big moment because they were on a “potty break.” Their dad is their hero no matter what. The sappy, here’s-the-life-lesson music plays in the background as they wrap each other in hugs. It’s textbook “Full House.”
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To reminisce about this episode more than 25 years later, The Athletic tracked down writer Laurie Parres. Her lengthy résumé as a writer, producer and crew member includes work on “Charmed,” “Spin City” and “The Golden Girls.” But “Air Jesse” was “very special,” she said, because it was her first solo television writing credit that got produced.
“I was a baby writer,” she recently recalled by phone. “I had just started out. So I got assigned this episode, and it was already super-crazy exciting. And then when Kareem was in it … going back to 25 years ago, L.A. basketball was so electric.”
Here are some of Parres’ other memories of working on that episode:
Not her first brush with Kareem
When Parres moved to Los Angeles from Michigan, she got a hostess job at Gladstones, a historic beachside seafood restaurant off the Pacific Coast Highway.
The Lakers were frequent visitors.
“The basketball players used to come in and hang out and watch games,” Parres said. “So Kareem would come by, and, of course being 7-foot-2, you could always see, ‘Oh, Kareem is here.’ So for him to be in my episode was really exciting.”
Getting her shot
Parres had started on “Full House” as a writers’ assistant. And as part of the show’s periodic effort to give breaks to greener writers, Parres received the call-up for this episode.
She acknowledges that the overarching storyline had already been created. And any writers’ room is a collaborative effort to outline, write and rewrite.
One of the areas Parres needed assistance: basketball jargon.
“The guys were trying to explain to me what a pick was,” Parres said. “The sky hook. All those kinds of sports-specific jokes. It was a lot like when I wrote an episode of ‘Odd Squad,’ which is a PBS show and it teaches math to 5-year-olds. I was horrified that I had to look up the difference between a number and a numeral.
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“Writing about basketball for me was like writing about math. I just had to look stuff up. Pre-internet, by the way. I relied a lot on the guys. And the women in the room knew basketball, too. I was just the exception.”
Writing for Kareem
By 1995, Abdul-Jabbar already had several television and film credits, as himself and as a character.
Still, the staff took care while writing for somebody who was not a full-time actor. Parres remembers wanting to play to Abdul-Jabbar’s strengths, such as physical comedy and line delivery.
“He was great in terms of being very dry with his reactions toward John (Stamos), which was great,” Parres said. “He was very deadpanned, which played really funny. And then John is absolutely lovely. He could not make people feel more at ease on set. …
“You also just keep it kind of brief, right? Team effort. Definitely, everybody setting him up to win as much as they possibly could. And he did. He was great.”
About that sky hook
Parres recalls a buzz from the studio audience and crew when Abdul-Jabbar was on set. And, of course, his opening scene featured his trademark shot.
But he did not sink the sky hook on the first try. Or the second.
“Maybe our court was too short, because the stage was so small,” Parres said. “But it took him more than a couple tries to get the basket in front of our live audience, which is pretty funny.”
Girl power
Uncle Jesse receives general shooting tips from Abdul-Jabbar. But the teenage D.J. (played by Candace Cameron Bure) demonstrates the most basketball acumen in the episode.
When Jesse asks why he’s never supposed to shoot, D.J. says it’s because he’s the team’s “defensive specialist” (then jokes that whoever Jesse guards will undoubtedly be the opposing team’s leading scorer). Before switching the final play to set up Jesse, she initially directs Joey (Dave Coulier) to set a pick for Danny (Bob Saget) at the top of the key.
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This would be great representation for sports-loving young women in 2020, but not exactly monumental. But in 1995?
“Candace was this cool chick who knew how to play basketball and could coach the guys,” Parres said. “That was pretty great for that era.”
An ‘Air Bud’ cameo
Abdul-Jabbar was not the only famous guest star in this episode.
About two years before “Air Bud” was released, Buddy the Wonder Dog appeared briefly as family dog Comet. He takes a toss from Danny, jumps and pokes the ball with his nose up into the basket.
“I hope no little children thought, ‘Oh, let’s see if I can teach my dog to play basketball,’” Parres said. “We got a beachball, a squishy basketball that looked like a real basketball. We weren’t throwing an actual basketball at the dog’s nose. How many dogs do we owe apologies to?”
(Read more about Buddy the Wonder Dog in The Athletic’s terrific oral history of “Air Bud,” which appeared in our sports movie package)
Show night
Parres estimates it took about three hours to record one episode of “Full House” in front of a live studio audience. And she imagines the high adrenaline feels much like a basketball game.
If a joke did not land, for instance, the writers scrambled to pitch alternatives and rewrote on the spot. Without rehearsal, the actor would try the new line for the next take.
“You’re huddled and you’re like, ‘Shit, we need a new play,’” Parres said. “There’s the rush of when that works. We’re trying to beat the clock, because you’ve got the audience waiting. You’ve got the crew. Time is money.
“You’ve only got a couple minutes to get that winning pitch in. Everybody’s just tossing everything they can into the middle. That’s sort of when the fun in the moment is, of seeing it come together, hearing the laughs.”
Signing off
Naturally, Parres wanted to commemorate her career accomplishment by getting her script cover signed.
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Abdul-Jabbar happily obliged. But later, Parres noticed he did not include his first name on the autograph, just “Abdul-Jabbar.”
“One of the guys (from the writers’ room) who knows basketball goes, ‘Oh, yeah. He saves Kareem for the big money,’” Parres said. “He wanted to keep the value of the brand. I got ‘Abdul-Jabbar,’ which was great, and also just very funny to me. He was a forward-thinking guy in that way.”
Find more stories from The Athletic’s Sports and TV Week here.
(Photo: Focus on Sport via Getty Images)
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