Hulu Is Getting ‘Full House,’ ‘Family Matters,’ And Other Classic TGIF Shows

The ’90s were arguably the second golden age of the sitcom, in both a creative and a financial sense, but for most kids of the era, the sitcoms they fondly remember most aren’t Seinfeld or Roseanne, but ABC’s kid-friendly Friday night block TGIF. It stood for “Thank Goodness It’s Funny,” which oddly sounds more like an expression of relief than a marketing tagline, but it specialized in wholesome kid-friendly fare, and now Hulu is bringing it back, or, at least, the highlights.

Hulu announced at the Television Critics Association get-together that they’ve secured yet another set of classic shows, in this case the TGIF anchors Full House, Family Matters, Step by Step, Perfect Strangers and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper. Between them that’s 800 episodes of TV. Sadly, it’s not quite enough to create a perfect simulation of the TGIF block at any point, as there’s always a gap, but hey, you can get pretty close, and there’s been a decided lack of Urkel-like beings on our television sets lately.

Sadly, it doesn’t yet appear that TGIF’s more obscure series are getting any Hulu love just yet, so shows like the weirdly experimental metacomedy Going Places (wherein a bunch of TV writers are forced to live exactly like they’re in a sitcom) or Billy are still in the vaults. But really, at the rate Hulu’s going, we’re sure they’ll show up eventually. As for the five classics, we’ll see them on Hulu September 29th.