The Stamos Connection
Posted on November 29, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 90 Comments
For years I’ve been told that a certain picture of me as a teenager (on the left) suggested that I was (and suppose am) an unauthorized clone of actor John Stamos. I have never really seen it, personally, but then over Thanksgiving John Stamos released his prom picture (on the right; he’s in white), and… well. I think this calls for a poll. Be honest, now.
You don’t look like him and he doesn’t look like you.
You both look like young Richard Dean Anderson.
Actually, John looks more like a live-action version of Snot from Family Guy.
http://americandad.wikia.com/wiki/Schmuely_Lonstein
As a teen, you look more like John Stamos than John Stamos does. But you might also look more like Richard Grieco.
Not sure on Stamos, but Ron Livingston circa Band of Brothers with longer hair for sure.
Nope; your lips are thinner than his, and for some reason so are your eyes. Which could be because you’re squinting. Also, the nose isn’t right-enough to be considered his clone.
Yeah, seriously, the photos I’ve seen of you in your youth… you were totally hot.
Jenny Bristol:
I’m still hot!
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7295/10577386363_b9c34bc6cb_n.jpg
So which one is John and which one is John?
I voted for twins — but I think they’re really the same person.
Picture on the left looks like Stamos. Picture on the right looks like some other guy. I checked my L/R 3x reading this bc I’m on my first cup of coffee & I’m not so good with them to begin with, but… Are you sure you didn’t release *your* prom picture over the weekend?
It’s the hair. Plus if you were a clone you would still look alike, right? John Stamos almost creepily doesn’t age. Be thankful you do – I don’t want to know what his secret is. Even if he is still super hot. But will always be Uncle Jesse in my child of the 80s and 90s brain…
You look more like you could be Jerry O’Connell’s brother to me.
Kate:
I released my prom picture long ago.
For those of you who have not seen it yet:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2729/4420372067_ca66907e66.jpg
That girl spent hours on her hair. Hours of her life, and half a can of Aqua Net. Actually, come to think of it, John Stamos probably used the other half.
(Scalzi looks far too scruffy to have used any hairspray.)
I voted for the “hotness” one.
I would like to register my protest at how much more rugged, square-jawed and handsome-with-excellent-hair you (John) are in the left photo than I’ve ever been, given that we’re of similar age and both currently in the middle-aged-Paul-Giamati hair demographic.
I’m just jealous, and am suspecting that you made a deal with Satan at some point that’s reverberating through your life creating moments like that picture and your 3.4M book deal.
You have a certain gravitas that is missing in the young Mr Stamos, helped to no end by the way you are punctuating your point with your glasses.
I spent quite some time working out what you were doing with your glasses.
I can see John Scalzi in the picture on the left. I don’t see John Stamos in the picture on the right – I see Tony Danza.
Back to the left: I see the thoughtful, probably vaguely broody upperclassman I’d’ve put in the Too Cool For Me category and never asked out. Le Sigh!
Stamos is in that ridiculously dorky white tux, so he’s at a disadvantage. You, on the other hand, are channeling Andy (hair, physique), Brian (polo shirt/intellectualism implied by the glasses) and Bender (jacket, narrow-eyed attitude) all at once, and as such are the apotheosis of 80’s high school sexy.
Or… were. You were that. Before.
I needed the laugh on a cold Sunday morning. Plus the extra hotness.
No way. Everyone knows Clones dress alike. Dude on the right is clearly a Clone dressed in canonical Clone formalwear. (Lucas was forced to cut the Big Wedding Scene due to running time.) Dude on left, well, pretty sure he’s just a Clone wannabe. Who’s Stamos?
You do kind of look like Stamos if I squint and hold my breath a couple of beats too long. My husband (Studly Doright) thinks he looks like Brett Favre. I can’t squint hard enough or hold my breath long enough to see that, so hey, you’re doing well in comparison.
Hnn – no. Different shape faces. You look the more rugged; Stamos smoother.
The photo of you looks far more like John Stamos than the photo of Stamos does.
Hmmm. You could be cousins, I think (though it’s hard to be certain under those mops of hair), but you’re definitely not a clone of him, nor is he a clone of you.
Eyebrows and cheekbones are quite similar. Your jawline is much more squared off than his. His eyes are wider than yours. And he’s got a sort of cupid’s-bow shape to his mouth, while yours is straighter. The bridge of your nose is just a scosh more narrow than his is. Can’t do a compare-contrast with foreheads or ear shapes under the 1980s hair.
Definitely cousins. Possibly brothers. NOT clones.
Teenage you looks more like teenage Ricky Paull Goldin than teenage Stamos.
You have more of a chin. And your hair doesn’t do that weird super-straight bowl-cut thing, which: ew, Stamos.
More to the point: THAT DRESS. Did Little House on the Prairie mate with a pound of canned salmon? Did the vengeful ghost of Laura Ashley curse her in some kind of Pet Semetary plot?
(I’m not even with her hair, except I am: the shiny-and-straight center part deal makes every girl look like a Manson girl. Except, in this case, a Manson girl who’s attached Slinkies to the sides of her face. No doubt because of something Ringo Starr said.)
Wow.
Also his bowtie is about to sever her carotid artery, near as I can tell.
You look like my sister’s boyfriend from high school. That would be around 1980. He was a deadhead in El Sobrante, CA.
Teenage you looks like an older stamos. Not teenage stamos. And teenage you is for sure hotter than teenage stamos.
Be kind, @isabelcooper. There was only one girl that I knew in 1978-1980 (last two years of college) who DIDN’T have EXACTLY that hair. She became a nun later. I make no claims of causality.
Greek > Italian. Forget it!
I had a girlfriend once in the 80’s who wanted my hair to look like that. I said no, no and no.
Does it really matter what a bunch of conspiracy theorist flakes think? You’re a good author though :)
Man. If only my mullet had looked that good. I looked like someone dropped a dirty brown jellyfish on a mannequin’s head.
Teen Scalzi is more ruggedly good looking than Teen Stamos. Not clones; distant cousins, maybe. Colonel Snuggledorf has it right: the jawlines are particularly different, other features show differences too. Teen Stamos is good looking, yes. I, er, like Teen Scalzi better. (Teen Ben would likely not have noticed so much and would’ve had a very tough time even getting near tht topic, in spite of publicly standing up for friends.)
To be clones, they’d have to have looked more alike back then and still look much alike now. So, only possibly distant cousins, not clones. — Not that I’d object to Scalzi or Stamos clones running around.
I’ll be 50 in a few months, so we’re only a few years plus-or-minus in age. I still really love wearing a jeans jacket. The 80’s hair? Ahem, yes, there are photos somewhere of me with 80’s hair in feathered wings. Oh, boy. Rolls eyes.
I have to agree with Andrew Hickey; to me, the photo on the left looks more like John Stamos than the photo on the right.
While the hair you sport is similar in shape and form, your jaw line is sharper and more defined. His jaw line blends into his neck and is smoother in form. Your picture sports an older and much more serious look (first year college) vs his I’m and eighth grader type of look.
slow weekend ?
Much more James Dean in the eyebrows. Slittier eyes, too. Less baby fat than Stamos. Eyebrows and eyes remain consistent over time. Ummm …
Sorry dude, I thought you both looked like a young Mark Hamil……..Who is your father? :)
I voted “doofus” but I’m really entranced by the woman. Oh, how I worked to achieve that feathered hair in the 80s! It takes me back.
I honestly thought the picture on the left was Stamos!
Who _is_ John Stamos? To google and thence IMDB. Huh. I think the only thing I’ve seen in him are adverts for some yoghurt. I don’t think I’ve seem him in anything else…
Not that I’d recognise the face, of course; I suffer from a form of prosopagnosia. I can see faces (I’m not totally face blind) but I may fail to recognise them. Heh, I took the test at http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/ff/ff_intro.php about 3 years ago and only recognised 5 of the 30 faces (and 2 of those were due to secondary characteristics; eg Ghandi’s glasses). I totally failed to recognise Sir Patrick.
I hope I never have to give a witness description to the police; I’d suck at it!
I thought this was going to be about the kittens! They are much more important.
Just one, I’m a few—no family too. Who am I?
who is john stamos?
ah, ok, whatever man.
One of you aged nicely.
Not to brown-nose or anything, I have nothing to gain – but yeah, I see the resemblance, and you were slightly hotter.
I looked like Valerie Bertinelli when I was a teen, only with Irish coloring instead of an olive complexion. We’re both still pretty perky, but now I’m in a heavier weight division :-D
Oh the 80’s. My hair was like hers, but somewhat longer.
I think you have a better jawline here, John.
More like Ilan Mitchell-Smith with a John Stamos haircut, I think.
Holy crap.
First skim through, I thought you were going to announce something about Stamos, I just couldnt figure out why you had 2 pictures of him on the post. Maybe it was a before and after or something.
Then a quick skim said one photo was you and the other Stamos, so quickly go back to the photos to take another look, and damn if I can tell the difference.
So the I go back and read it start to finish and find out who is who and what is what.
Dude, one of you is an evil twin of the other. Whoever gets amnesia first, the other will show up and try to assume the amnesiac’s life. I suggest wearing a helmet at all times. Unless you’re the evil one, then in that case CURSE YOU EVIL STAMOS!!!!
Maybe you and Stamos look a bit alike ’cause you are both clones from the same secret project. The differences are just a tactic to cover any possible security breach.
The question is: there are more “you” out there?
Hamilton!
When I first looked at the picture, I thought “John Stamos on the left, some guy who looks vaguely like John Stamos on the right.” So…not twins, but some sort of bizarre image-reversal over time. Which didn’t seem to be an option on the poll.
Sometime between prom photo and General Hospital teen John Stamos morphed, merely approaching teen John Scalzi’s level of scalding hottiness. The Spanish Inquisition would love to know Ms. Kristine’s opinion.
You look more like John Stamos than John Stamos does.
@Barbara: Hee! I’m reminded of that Buffy line: “Mom, I’ve accepted that you’ve had sex. I am *not* ready to know that you had Farrah hair.”
(Not that our generation’s teen fashion choices hit it out of the park either. Two words: flowered shortalls.)
In those particular pictures, you look more like Stamos than Stamos did. This is not true of your prom picture so I imagine it’s a combination of hair and photo angle.
(Now off to read other comments, to see if anyone else agrees with me.)
(I see they do. Maybe it should be a standard answer on the survey.)
What went awry? You should query Stamos. Perhaps he is a secret agent of the CDF??
Although certainly not an original term she coined herself (sorry I can provide no accreditation), my wife refers to any woman fortunate enough to have spent, um, “quality time” with John Stamos as having been “Stamosed.” I know she would very much like to be Stamosed herself, which is not an issue with me as I have fantasies of my own that, like her own, will never possibly become a reality!
My first and immediate thought was Neil Gaiman:
http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/neil-gaiman.jpg
Let’s just say that at least you seem to have improved with age.
Nope, not even close. I voted “What? No.” It’s the 80’s hair throwing the young’uns.
However, Stamos doesn’t look like himself either. He was a late bloomer into hotness, which seems to have worked in his favor to this day. Dude is still easy on the eyes.
I would agree that you were more Greico-esque. Your prom date is cuter and has a much better dress. She looks like a gal I’d be friends with; not so much Miss Aqua-Net.
First impression without reading other than the word stamos what it was two photos when he was a kid. Missed your calling bucko.
The nose shapes are clearly different, and the Stamos picture has red undertones to the hair — young Scalzi’s hair might have some blond undertones (hard to judge due to the lighting) but definitely doesn’t have any red in it.
I’ve got to go with those who say that the teenage John Scalzi looks more like the adult John Stamos than the teenage John Stamos does.
Noses are different and so are the jawlines.
Hey, great picture. I think your picture at the top of this page looks more like a slightly older Stomos, though, in particular this one: http://www.nndb.com/people/929/000025854/stamos8-sized.jpg
You both have a lot of hair…
And then there’s this distinction that separates our John Scalzi’s amazing literary contributions from the Hollywood antics of Uncle Jesse from “Full House.” Sorry, but fuck Uncle Jesse.
Awesome! 🆒👍🏼😀
Some day we’ll find it,
The Stamos connection;
The photos, the Scalzi and meeeeee.
Any resemblance is in the hair, but honestly, you were way cuter back then, IMO.
I opted for an off the menu answer.
You were much better looking. That angular jaw line and the gunfighter-like hooded gaze makes you look kinda tough. There seems to be some real attitude and maybe an interesting back story there. Stamos is a little bit baby faced. He is trying to look cool, but failing in a sort of young Wesley Crusher way. And how much hair spray is holding his hair in place?
Stamos looks lost. You look …. purposeful. Either a cutie was nearby or there was one meatball left on the tray and you were hatching a plan to make off with it. Or hey, maybe it was the meatball THEN the cutie? Multi-tasking, man. It’s a thing.
Yup, even as a straight guy, I have to say you look might dreamy there (I’d ask what happened but I have a mirror and photos of myself as a teenager to cry over >sighs< ).
I’m with the “You look more like John Stamos than John Stamos does” crowd, at least as far as those two specific pictures are concerned.
I do think that at least 90% of that is the 80’s hair, however.
Nah, you looked way better than Stamos at that age. Not even joking there. On the other hand, Stamos has since pulled firmly ahead. On the gripping hand, neither of your are, ever have been, or ever will be in Neil Gaiman’s league. Which is no put down to either of you. Gaiman is perennially do-able…a hunk for all seasons.
huhu u really look alike maaaaaaaaaaaaan! mama mia!
When I first looked at it, before reading the explanation, I thought they were the same person, i.e., both John Stamos.
Strangely, I think teen Scalzi looks more like adult John Stamos than teen Stamos.
My other answer: You looked more like Stamos than Stamos looked like Stamos.
There’s a slight superficial resemblance, but as an ’80s girl who still adores ’80s hair, and who would have swooned over both subjects at the time, I had to vote for hotness twins.
The problem is, it’s difficult (for me at least) to see if someone “resembles” someone else from still photography. Stills are a trick of one instant in time and physical location; which can result in dramatically beautiful pictures of ugly people (I can show you picture of me as examples); or horrible pictures of beautiful people.
I prefer to judge in-person (at best); or video (at worst)
In that picture, you actually look way more like another 80s actor whose name escapes me. He was in some teen movies, and on Days of Our Lives for a while, I think.
Hm. Similar hair style and color. Similar number of appendages and orifices. I’m a portrait artist; the left photo is the one I’d rather draw from.
scorpius: What you said. Add’ly, I have trouble even recognizing people, if all I’ve seen is a still.
It took me a long time to realize that I don’t recognize people by what they look like, so much as by how they sound and move.
Not so much Stamos as — okay, am I the only one thinking “Corey Feldman?”
Hey! I had a crush on Corey Feldman!
Don’t judge me.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/5b/16/78/5b16787d7795dcea43ffebfdee13c796.jpg
You completely look like John Stamos. Also the poll result is showing that you do.
It’s the eyebrows. Catherine Asaro’s picture of slightly-older Stamos linked above shows it better than the prom picture. Or, http://www.ebay.com/itm/JOHN-STAMOS-PINUP-CLIPPING-80S-Gorgeous-Young-/361423949269?hash=item54268bcdd5:g:IbgAAOSwI-BWNTJD