Netflix Pulls April Fool’s Day Prank With John Stamos

It started with a simple trailer. Given, it was a bit uncomfortable to watch, John Stamos, talking to a camera about how Netflix asked him to come and take the wildly-successful video streaming company to the “next level” by asking him to play “the role of a lifetime.”

“We want John Stamos to play John Stamos,” said Stamos.

Stamos even tweeted it:

Viewers couldn’t decide how to feel about John Stamos: A Human, Being which was said in the trailer to still be under production and to be released on April 31 (which doesn’t exist). However, they didn’t have too much time to think about it as this wasn’t the last appearance of the Fuller House star that day.

Later we were treated to this “leaked” video of Stamos yelling at a receptionist in a Netflix office. He screams about how the “Stamos Brand” is being made a joke. The video was filmed vertically, and seems to be taken from an cell phone, creeping shakily through a doorway.

And it doesn’t end there. Next came an apology video from Netflix’s chief content director, Ted Sarandos, with Stamos nodding in the background and directing his words. The video was posted on the Netflix home page as well as tweeted.

Both the documentary and the later viral videos, to the viewers who may have still been confused as an extended prank, were later revealed to be an April Fool’s Day joke. Additionally, the headers on Netflix for the rest of the day were changed to things like “TV Comedies That Manage to Be Funny Even Though Stamos Isn’t in Them” and “New Releases Which Suffer From A Lack Of Stamos.”