A new kind of Full House

University alumnus Jordan Rozansky grew up watching Full House, but never imagined that one day he'd work alongside the actors he once watched from his living room.

But just two years after graduating with an English degree, the 2008 graduate found himself working as a script consultant for Ryan Reynolds' production company, Dark Trick Films, and launching his own five-part web miniseries called Can't Get Arrested. The show, which releases its final episode next week, follows unemployed '90s actors — including Full House stars Dave Coulier, Jodie Sweetin and Candace Cameron and Saved by the Bell actor Dennis Haskins — through wild paparazzi schemes to regain the fame they enjoyed nearly 20 years ago.

"This was kind of capitalizing on me growing up on Full House," Rozansky said of the series. "It's really strange and very cool. … It's the same people you grew up watching."

Although Rozansky said he never knew what career path he wanted to take while he was a student at this university, he never imagined he'd one day be writing comedy or tweaking scripts with Coulier.

"I didn't really think of comedy writing as a viable profession," Rozansky said. "It still seems kind of absurd to me that someone can get paid to write comedy."

But Dan Fink, a friend who graduated with Rozansky, said he couldn't see him working in any other field.

"I'm not surprised that he ended up doing something like this because he was always a really funny guy; he's a really good writer and has a great sense of humor," Fink said. "I don't know what else he'd be doing."

Before jetsetting to the West Coast, Rozansky returned to his hometown of Miami for a year, during which he spent his days working in commercial real estate and his nights immersing himself in late night talk show comedy.

As his interest in comedy grew, he began networking in New York and Los Angeles and building his own portfolio, which consisted of stacks of notebooks filled with bad jokes and mock scripts.

"The first few pages of those notebooks are 99 percent terrible jokes," he said. "The more you write, the more you understand how to write, and eventually it just became a matter of, ‘Gotta get to L.A.'"

By January 2010, Rozansky mustered the strength to leave the real estate business for a chance to mingle with movie stars.

"I spent a year just really taking it very seriously and writing as fast as I could and filling up notebooks with jokes, and eventually you just have to make the move," he said. "I jumped in a car with a friend and drove from Miami to L.A. and just tried to do whatever I could."

And that drive eventually landed Rozansky the job writing and co-producing his miniseries, which took about six weeks to complete, he said, and provided him with plenty of laughs along the way.

"Everything the guys said was so funny," Rozansky said. "We have so many ruined takes because people are laughing at what Dennis was saying."

The comedy shows through in the final product, Fink said.

"It's pretty funny — it's good tongue-in-cheek humor; it's good stuff," Fink said. "It's pretty cool knowing Jordan is the guy who produced it."

Because the team worked so well together, Rozansky said he hopes they will collaborate again in the future.

"We don't know what the next thing is but we know we all want to work together again, so I'm sure the whole team from Can't Get Arrested will be back together and working on something in January or February," he said.

Although it took Rozansky several months before he could produce a show of his own, he said the grunt work paid off, noting that Hollywood is not as exclusive as it often seems.

"I think the entire industry gets a bit of a bad rep, and it's looked at as a very closed off, very difficult to get into industry," Rozansky said. "But I think if you're willing to take that jump and work hard, it's more accessible than people realize."

meehan@umdbk.com