Author’s note: This piece was originally written for the now-defunct comedy site Slacktory (RIP) but with the recent release of Netflix’s Fuller House, I thought it was a good time to share it again.
You weren’t allowed to have a sitcom in the 90’s unless a wacky neighbor was involved. Family Matters had Steve Urkel, Home Improvement had Wilson and Full House had Kimmy Gibbler. However, unlike her contemporaries, Kimmy never used a shrink ray on the Tanner family or obscured half of her face whenever she went into public. She was just kind of a dumpy weirdo who got shit on all the time by the people next door.
But here’s the thing—in what bizzarro universe is Kimmy the wacky, eccentric next door neighbor when you consider the shenanigans happening at the Tanner house? How is it that we’re tricked into thinking that Kimmy is the weirdo when she doesn’t live in a house with her dad, two sisters, her uncle’s entire family and her dad’s unmarried college buddy?
source: bustle.com
To everybody else in the neighborhood, the Tanners must seem like some creepy cult polygamist family of serial killers. First of all, every single adult in the household is a quasi-celebrity. Danny and Becky host a local morning talk show, Joey is a stand-up comedian and ventriloquist who hosts his own children’s show and Jesse is apparently a popular enough singer to warrant impromptu jam sessions with the Beach Boys, which only continues to add to the Manson-esque mystique of the Tanner clan.
The point is, these are people who really could and should be living on their own by now but are somehow compelled to live in basements and attics, like college students who just returned home to mom and dad’s place. And at the heart of it all is Danny—a broken man who fell to pieces after his wife died and is now obsessed with keeping the house clean and “full” of people.
This is what Kimmy Gibbler lives next door to and the Tanners have the audacity to give her shit about having smelly feet?
K is for Komics 