John Stamos is here, and he’s pissed!”

“He’s in the vents!”

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The pinnacle of postmodern feature cinema (among well-known films) is 1999’s Being John Malkovich. Its plot twists seven ways and is always happy to take a side road to nowhere before continuing on its merry way. During its convoluted trip, it sweeps along the title character, played by the real Malkovich in over-the-top form, and completes the picture with the likes of best friend Charlie Sheen, played by the real Sheen making fun of his own image. But the world of short film has its own postmodern peak: I Am Stamos, and it’s no copy of Malkovich.

You know lead actor and producer Robert Peters. Trust me, you do. You’ve seen him in a dozen movies and television shows. You’ve never heard his name, but you’ll know his face. Upon seeing it again, you won’t be able to drudge up where you saw it the first time, but you did…sometime. He’s a character actor who plays sidekicks, clerks, and salesmen. In I Am Stamos, he is Andy Shrub, a character actor that plays sidekicks, clerks, and salesmen. Let the self-referencing begin!

Andy’s sick of being stuck in wacky roles. He wants to be the lead. But, as it’s clearly and non-too-gently explained to him, leads don’t look like him; they look like George Clooney or Rob Lowe, or John Stamos. Depressed at his birthday party, he makes a wish. He wishes to look like Stamos. Well, it doesn’t come true in the conventional way. Andy still looks like Andy to the naked eye, but to the camera he is John Stamos, and the dollar possibilities spring immediately to mind. It isn’t long before the real Stamos is out for blood.

In only eighteen minutes, I Am Stamos says everything there is to say about Hollywood’s obsession with beautiful people, and branches out to jab at our entire society’s blindness when it comes to the more attractive member of either gender as well as their opposites. Not that it sets up a “good plain folks verses evil pretty folks” dichotomy—anything but. It just presents it all as quite silly. It also manages to lampoon film and television production in general. That sounds a bit heavy, but it isn’t. Theme comes after jokes, and there are a lot of them. I’ve seen I Am Stamos twice on festival screens and the audience was howling the whole time.

You won’t find a more skillfully made short. I can’t find any information on its production costs, but unless a lot of people worked for free (and brought their equipment and expand-o-matic sets with them), its budget could eat that of many indie-indie features. How often do you find funny and appropriate original music in a short? It’s no surprise that Peters has no problem getting to the heart of Andy Shrub and a pleasure to see all the fine comedic support he gets from Clint Howard, E.E. Bell (another character actor you’ll know when you see him) as well as by Stamos himself, who will make you forget that whole Full House atrocity.

There's only one John Stamos...and his name is Andy Shrub.