Everyone, you can stop freaking out: Full House is not, I repeat, not getting a sequel. Despite what you may have read from The Inquisitr ...and Perez Hilton ...and Broadway World ...series creator Jeff Franklin never told a newspaper called the Newport Gazette that a sequel was in the works — in fact, the Newport Gazette hasn't existed since 1799. As Uproxx points out in an excellent post, it seems that the majority of blogs reporting on the faux Full House sequel weren't bothering to check the source of the news, which was coming from a site called Disney Treasures . It's one thing that the site itself doesn't look that credible, but it's another when you actually read at the article:
News of the Tanner family’s return was originally revealed in the Newport Gazette, where series creator Jeff Franklin let slip that he had begun work on a sequel to the hit ABC series. Additionally, Franklin also hinted that the majority of the cast has already shown interest in reprising their roles.
To be fair, this isn't the first time rumors have surfaced about a Full House spinoff, so maybe this was slightly believable at one first glance. Was being the key word. Humor me for a second here — click the link "Newport Gazette" in the above passage. Instead of being directed to a newspaper of any sort, you're led to this image, signifying it's an April Fool's joke. Uproxx even went one step further to check out the source of the image, and found it leading to a Screenrant April Fool's Day post from earlier this year. From Uproxx:
So, to recap: Multiple outlets are reporting the existence of a hot new show based on a seven month old April Fool’s joke that was completely plagiarized by some shady knockoff Disney merchandise site and posted as BREAKING NEWS, and the whole thing could have been prevented with a grand total of 30 seconds worth of research.
A+ work all around, gang.
Can some commentary be made here about the fact that the prevalence of the 24-hour news cycle has led to journalists failing to do any real fact-checking themselves in favor of being the first to report a story? Probably. Remember when CNN reported that someone had been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing, only to actually fact-check and find that it was false information? Just do a Google search, everyone!
Image: ABC
