Now Saget is gone too, with nothing but kind words from all who knew him. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, who starred opposite him in Full House from 1987 to 1995, in which he played his best-known role, as the always wise and ultra-healthy father Danny Tanner: “Bob was the most loving, compassionate, and generous. We are deeply saddened." Jon Stewart: "Just the funniest and most likable." Jason Alexander: “The loss of Bob Saget is a deep blow. If you didn't know him, he was kind and loved and cared deeply for people. He was the definition of 'a good egg'. Too soon it's gone. Kat Dennings: “Oh, gosh. Bob Saget!!! The most charming man. I was his TV daughter for a while and he was always so kind and protective."
The common theme in all the praise is how decent the guy was. I never met Saget in person. But in 2005 I spent an hour with him on the phone while he was sunbathing on a beach, once again in Florida, and I hung up feeling like I had spent a day or two in his presence, having one of the best, most beautiful times. unbridled from history. He was as outspoken, profane, funny, and personable as I could have hoped, as he looked back on his career trajectory, from Canadian comedian unknown to "America's Favorite Dad" in Full House, to obscurity, to his rise again after an appearance on the television show Entourage and the telling of the most legendarily horrifying dirty dirty joke in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats. One of the things he said that afternoon has resonated with me ever since: "All I want to do is be who I am, because I spent so many years not knowing who I was and not being who I was." And then he knew. And then he said: “I'm in a mode right now: entertain people. And if people don't like it, I don't give a fuck anymore. I just want to get to the point." Very good for him.
For whatever reason, the story I wrote about Saget never found its way onto the Rolling Stone website, until now.
Bob Saget relaxes on the beach in Miami, sheltered from the sun and heat by a cabana and letting his head spin. Everyone once thought he was Mr. Healthy, a reputation based on his role as the nice dad with two shoes on TV. Full House (also starring the Olsen twins) and the smiling cheese ball hostess from America's Funniest Home Videos. In recent days, however, he has revealed himself to be so filthy you can hardly put words to it, so filthy you can hardly believe it, perhaps the dirtiest comedian around, with surprising effects on his acting career. stand up. "Everywhere I go, I'm selling myself," he says, stunned. "Kids are yelling my last name now, which used to make fun of me all my childhood, because it rhymes with so much shit, like 'f—-t' and 'maggot.'"
How this change happened is that he participated in the film. the aristocrats, the dirty jokes documentary, and dirty everyone. “[The father] sticks out his penis. . . then he just starts hitting his kids with it, he shakes them like a wet towel in the gym, and he hits one of his kids in the eye, and the kid's eye pops out," he said during his performance. “Well, he sees that as an opportunity, yes. . .” After which, he'd have that goofy Bob Saget grin on his face and be like, “I can't believe I'm saying this. This is going to end my career!”
Far from it, of course, things being what they are. In fact, he has led to a prominent and much-discussed TV show appearance, on Entourage, playing a kinky, bong-loving version of himself. Next, she landed her own HBO show, now in development ("I'm a Gynecologist!"), and then a contract to write, direct, produce, and narrate a March of the Penguins mockumentary called Farce of the Penguins. ("It's going to be R-rated! I've got penguins fucking! Seriously!")
But right now she's at the beach, trying to make sense of all the wonderful things that have happened, the way she usually does: by neat free association. A couple of pretty girls glide by, dressed in tank tops and tiny swimming shorts. Watching them, he says, "A joke from my stand-up is, 'Girls are like, 'Oh my gosh, I grew up watching you.'" And I say, “Okay. Now you have to come down and look at me." That's what could happen if I wanted to. But I'm not Mick Jagger. I know I'm killing what really good years my dick has left. But I feel good about it because of the good shit that's going on." However, Saget is puzzled. “I did two shows, eight years each, right?” he continues. “And then I do a day and a half in Entourage, and then the Aristocrats took forty minutes of my life. One day and a half and forty minutes, and people are like, 'This guy is blowing up!' I'm going, 'What the fuck? I didn't do anything. I just took a shit and got up, you know? Anyway, all I want to do is be who I am, because I spent many years without knowing who I was and without being who I was.
When Saget started performing in LA comedy clubs (grew up in Philadelphia, moved to California to attend USC, won comedy at the Comedy Store college tour) he was a guitar act; she would take the stage with her guitar and close the show by playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, with water coming out of a valve on the guitar. It was pretty blue even then. Even so, one night at the Improv, Larry David walked offstage after the bombing and told him: “These people don't understand anything. They just want stupid guitar acts." In 1987 came the Full House job and then "that video show" (as he likes to call it) and then a lot of psychic disturbance.
“At one point I was crazy,” he says, like maybe he's not crazy now. “I was doing both shows at the same time. On Full House, he'd say to Michelle, 'Honey, you can't have a horse in the living room,' and then he'd go watch monkeys fall out of trees for sniffing their butts. I no longer felt like it was funny. I was embedded in those shows, like eighty or ninety hours a week, and I felt like I had completely lost my fun gene.”
However, as Saget is, he survived and now sees everything as an opportunity for a prank or prank. He named his production company Two Angels, after his two sisters who died young, one of a brain aneurysm, the other of an autoimmune disease, and for another reason, ha ha: “So if someone hates my job and says: 'Oh, your job sucks. Two angels, what the fuck is that? I can say, 'Those are my two dead sisters, dude. Take advantage.'"
And to think that many people once considered Saget the worst kind of pablum personified, the dullest of dulls. Actually, such people come up to him quite often these days, sometimes after a show during which he has killed, and tell him how much they hated him and his acting and his grown-up pranks, but now they think that is incredible. Doesn't that kind of talk ruin Saget's day? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
“I get so criticized for those shows that I'm always defensive,” he says. “I mean, I wrote the jokes, man. I know I shouldn't be ashamed of what I did, I made the world laugh, but I took it too seriously. I still do. I'm a bit of a drama queen. But I'm in one mode right now: entertain people. And if people don't like it, I don't give a fuck anymore. I just want to get to the point."
Outside in the sun, a child begins to scream, and Saget looks at him. "I'm going to hit that fucking boy," she says. "Ha ha. That's a joke. I wouldn't hit a kid I don't know. Ha ha,” he says. "Ha ha."
