These are some of my notes on how I think the writing staff could have added a bit more razzledazzle and depth to our favorite uncle:
Instead of Jesse and the Rippers being an oldies cover band, incorporate the Bay Area thrash scene into the show - Jesse is in a thrash band called Night Ripper, he was a roadie for Metallica on their ill-fated 1986 tour, he has a girlfriend named Chainsaw, etc. Even if it’s just for season 1, this could be the basis of a lot of character development in the show’s overall theme of Jesse the boy becoming Jesse the man. He rejects the dark themes of his thrash metal band after the death of Pam Tanner and starts up The Rippers, you could even work in some of the tragic backstories of The Beach Boys for explaining why they started showing up.
1987 was the peak of hair metal, so if thrash is a fridge too far, make him a hair metal guy. And he doesn’t have to be in Motley Crue or WASP, there were wimpier bands and ballads going on by 1987. He was in a rising hair metal band down in Hollywood when Pam died, so that would add more pizzazz to the fact that he left all that behind to come to SF. They still could have had The Beach Boys and Tommy Page doing cameos but if you add in Bret Michaels, Jani Lane, The Nelson Twins, that would have been the ratings boost imo at least through 1991 or so. After that just slowly swap in more alternative acts. (And if they couldn’t get Counting Crows for that one episode, they should have gotten the Gin Blossoms, Toad The Wet Sprocket, etc… they had options.)
A waterbed. It’s a little thing but it’s like Cody Lambert having a van or Fonzie having a leather jacket, it would have just added a bit more dimension and believability that the character would have had a waterbed. And there would have been an episode where someone pokes a hole in it and floods the place, this was a Miller Boyett show after all.
Someone else should have died in Dr Dare Rides Again. It could have been Scott Baio, could have been Chainsaw, maybe even just one of the Rippers. But it would have made it more of a very special episode. The series would have benefited showing more of John Stamos’s acting skills and it’s an easy thing to throw in. Also the ghost of Pam Tanner should have shown up in this one and talked to Jesse.
This isn’t a new idea, but Urkel should have shown up with some kinda transformation ray and it accidentally zaps Jesse, Joey, and Danny and they all end up in the same body. They could have gotten Jason Wiles from Beverly Hills 90210 to play the combined version of them since he looks like if you smushed the three of them together. They could have done a lot with this concept.
If he was gonna be a big Elvis fan they should have had a vacation episode in Graceland. I’d have loved to see Lisa Marie and Priscilla do cameos. He could have been in an Elvis impersonator contest. I can kinda imagine it like when Saved By The Bell went to Hawaii, he’d hatch a scheme to save Graceland from developers or thwart some crooks trying to do a big heist of Elvis’s car collection. There would be some old Elvis impersonator that keeps helping Jesse along the way but he’s not in the contest, he’s like naw I’m too old for all that, and at the end it turns out it was the actual Elvis all along and he goes back into his grave, though they’d probably have to get permission to film that. It could have been an episode that taught young people about Elvis and Boomer culture maybe.
It could have been a corrupt televangelist trying to buy Graceland and bulldoze it to make a big resort, crooked televangelists were topical in that era. They could have brought in Stavros to help in the scheme.
It should have been more clear whether the theme song was being sung from Jesse’s perspective or Danny Tanner.