Stephanie Tanner (Full House)

Stephanie Judith "Steph" Tanner is a fictional character on the long-running ABC sitcom Full House, who was portrayed by Jodie Sweetin from 1987 to 1995.^[1][2][3]

Character

After the death of his wife Pam, Danny Tanner invites his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and his best friend Joey Gladstone to help him raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle. The show follows the everyday lives of the Tanners and the comedy that often comes out of their struggles. As the middle child, Stephanie often feels left out. This makes her upset, but this situation always gets solved. Throughout the series, Stephanie is attached to a stuffed bear given to her by her mother shortly before her death that she calls "Mr. Bear". She has had many situations in which she almost got rid of him (such as in the season two episode "Goodbye, Mr. Bear" and the season three episode "Three Men and Another Baby"), but she has always got him back. In the first season, Stephanie is portrayed as a perky, silly, funny, five-year-old girl who annoys her older sister, but as the seasons follow, she grows more mature and serious. Stephanie is also very well known for her catchphrases "how rude!" and "well, pin a rose on your nose!," phrases that were eventually dropped during the later seasons. Stephanie is depicted as being very cute in the first four seasons.

In the season four episode "Joey Goes Hollywood," Stephanie was made fun of because of her name, stating that other kids would refer to her as "Step-on-me." To prevent this, Stephanie announced that she was going to change her name to Dawn; Danny later convinced her to keep her name by informing her that the name Dawn is not exactly immune to ridicule either. Later that season in "Stephanie Gets Framed," she was prescribed reading glasses due to her difficulty in being able to see the chalkboard from a short distance and became afraid that the kids would make fun of her; Steve Urkel (played by Jaleel White in a crossover with fellow ABC series Family Matters) ultimately taught Stephanie to confront her fear, with the advice "the trick is to make them laugh with you before they laugh at you". Stephanie follows this advice literally by wearing several pairs of gag glasses to make them laugh, which gets her into trouble with her teacher; the following day, the other students do not mind her new glasses, calming her concerns.

Stephanie has always been jealous of her younger sister Michelle, who always gets the most attention among the girls. However, in subsequent seasons, she grows less and less jealous of her. Stephanie is also shown to have trouble with math, having difficulty with fractions once she hit the third grade, but her family helped her with this in the season four episode "Fuller House".

Throughout the show's run, Stephanie attends school at Frasier Street Elementary School, and later, DiMaggio Junior High School; in contrast to D.J., who went to Van Atta Junior High, it is explained in the season seven episode "Fast Friends" that the neighborhood was redistricted for junior high schools, thus Stephanie and her friends from elementary school were all sent to different schools and she complains to Danny that she does not know anyone at her new school. Van Atta is mentioned as one of the schools her friends was sent to while she ended up at DiMaggio.

Stephanie's main hobby/talent/extracurricular activity is dancing, which she is shown to be very good at, and was enrolled in dance classes throughout the first five seasons; this becomes a central storyline in the season five episode "Gotta Dance". in which she ends up purposely dancing out of sync in a dance routine in order to convince Danny that she is not ready for the commitment of practicing dance on a regular basis after deciding to pursue it as a career. Stephanie performed her most memorable dance to the song "Love Shack" on the season-three episode "Our Very First Telethon".

Book series

Shortly after the show ended, two separate book series focusing respectively on Michelle and Stephanie were published. The stories take place mainly during the continuity of the show's later seasons, and include the sisters' friends and many other characters. The plots mainly focus on the characters' struggles and triumphs. Michelle is about nine years old and Stephanie is in her early years of adolescence in the series. The books were mainly published in the 1990s, and over 100 of them were published.^[4]

References

External links

• Stephanie Tanner at the Internet Movie Database
• A Full House Article