John Stamos on Becoming ‘Cool’ in His Son’s Eyes With Marvel & ‘Mickey Mouse Funhouse’ Roles
Q&A
John Stamos’ son is a fan of his two upcoming projects for Disney.
Stamos recurs as the voice of Iron Man in Season 2 of Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends and voices the role of legendary pirate Captain Salty Bones in the new Mickey Mouse Funhouse: Pirate Adventure, both premiering on August 19 on Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Here, he discusses taking on both characters and shares how some iconic voices took on Full House roles.
I know you’re excited about these roles since your son is a fan. How much have you gotten to share with him? I saw that video you posted on Instagram, trying to tell him that you’re Iron Man.
John Stamos: Is that when what he said something about Robert Downey Jr.? I think his mother prompted him do that one. I was saying [while] at Disney hosting some event, any parents, the one thing you want your kids to do is think you’re cool, right? And I’ve been trying to get Billy to think I’m cool since he was two months old. He’s four now, we were in the car, The Beach Boys came on, I said, “hey, Billy, isn’t it cool your dad plays with The Beach Boys?” He took the longest beat. He said, “Dad, do you know the Beatles?” And then recently his nanny came in and they’ve been watching Full House. I fired her and I put him in timeout for six years. No, but he’s so funny already, which I love, but I’ll ask him, “Billy, put your clothes away,” or something. He’ll be like, “yeah, you got it, dude,” like totally taking the piss outta me.
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His first real show that he watched all the time on Disney+ was Mickey’s Playhouse, and then Funhouse did come out, but that was his show. And I said, “your dad’s gonna be on there. I’m doing Salty, arrr!” and that got him excited. Then a few months went by before I started the other one. And I walked in, he was watching Spidey. He loves it and he is so cute. Sometimes we’ll turn it on and he’ll be quietly singing, he’ll be lip syncing to the title song. But when I told him I was Iron Man, too, he flipped. So now he thinks I’m cool, finally. He tells everybody too, “My dad plays Iron Man,” and they’re like, “No, that’s Robert Downey Jr.” He says, “No, on the cartoon.” He loves it. And I do Funhouse from home in my home studio. So he’ll come up and visit and he’ll sit there, mostly quiet. As soon as it starts, then he wants to start talking and give me directions and then we have to send him out, but he’ll sit on my lap and I’ll do the Salty Bones thing.
What is your Iron Man like? A clip shows him in a support role.
Of course — it’s not called Iron Man and His Amazing Friends. It’s Spidey. I come in and out. I have to admit, I’ve never been a Marvel guy. I just never got into superheroes for some reason. My dad was my superhero. That was good enough for me. And he was always my superhero. You know how sometimes a parent, as you get older, you go, “Oh, they’re just a human being like I am”? My dad was always the coolest guy that ever walked in any room. He was always bigger than life to me. So he was my superhero, I didn’t get into it like most kids. I was into puppets and magic and entertaining and playing drums and stuff. So I never got it, but my wife watches every single one of ’em. And then when they said they wanted me to do this, I had to do this deep dive on it. Robert Downey Jr.’s a genius. But I went even further and I have a lot of geeky friends that love all the Marvel things. So I talked to all them. I wanted to find, obviously, my take on him. It’s interesting because if you look at that world — and that show, I think, shot up to number one on Disney+ right away — they’re all kids and this is the first sort of adult character coming into their world.
I try to do some stuff that I thought was kind of Tony Stark-ish. It took a few minutes to find the character. But he’s a mentor to Spidey. And I think that role I can slip right into pretty easily. I had so many. Now I’m finding —I’m gonna be 59 pretty soon — it’s all like paying it forward. Because I had so many mentors in my life. So many older gentlemen, mostly, who took me under their wing and starting with Jack Klugman and then Garry Marshall and even Don Rickles. My father passed away when he was 64. So I think sometime after that, well, a little bit before, I was always looking for that father figure in my life. Same with Peter Parker, right?
And the universe keeps throwing these younger kids at me, saying “Hey, tell me what to do.” I’ve been sort of mentoring this young drummer. Somebody sent me a video of him from Instagram and I looked at it and I go, that’s sped up. That can’t be. That’s not real. And then I started following him and I was wowed. And then he started following me and then he was coming out to California and he said, oh, you want to get together? I never do this, but I had a feeling. I said, come over to my house. He was 19, just turned 20, the greatest drummer I’ve seen since Buddy Rich, so he came over and then we played drums. I have some on my Instagram. He’s just like, “What do I do here? There’s a girl screaming for me here. These people did this.” He is on tour. So I just feel like the universe is saying, OK, you had your mentors, now it’s your turn to go back. And I think that’s what Iron Man is to Spidey, for sure.
And then looking at Mickey Mouse Funhouse, you’re coming in as Captain Salty Bones. Talk about bringing him into the mix with these iconic characters.
Yeah, that’s a trip. When I first heard Mickey, “Hey, Salty.” I’m like, I’m talking to Mickey Mouse. [Recently] I was hosting this event for Disney and Mickey was there and Minnie and Goofy and it was so cool to sit on stage with them. I wanted to do a scene from Funhouse. First of all, it took me a minute to find the character, because I was like, “How do I talk?” I’d never done it before. I did spots here and there on cartoons, animation, but this was like a full thing. And there was a great director [speaking like a pirate]. I just started to get it. I said, “that’s it, that’s it. Great. I won’t be able to talk after this, but —” So I was sitting with them and I did this bit where I said, “Let’s do something from Funhouse. I’ll have my assistant send me the script.” And I pulled [the pages] out of the bag, “It’s not Funhouse, it’s Full House. Do you guys want to do it?” And Mickey was doing Danny, the guy who plays Goofy was doing Joey, Minnie Mouse was Michelle, and I played Uncle Jesse as Salty Bones and it was quite special.
Mickey Mouse Funhouse: Pirate Adventure, Premiere, Friday, August 19, 8a/7c, Disney Channel & Disney Junior
Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends, Season 2 Premiere, Friday, August 19, 8:30a/7:30c, Disney Channel & Disney Junior
