Bob Saget Interview

From RealDetroitWeekly.com
Features
Bob Saget
By Scott BolohanJul 31, 2007, 11:44

Raw Yucks
After playing one of the most wholesome characters in network TV history, Bob Saget’s career was reborn following appearances in Half Baked, Entourage and most recently, The Aristocrats. Saget’s brand of raunchy comedy has become popular with the same people who grew up with him as the “All American dad.”

Saget has always had a darker sense of humor, and at this point in his life, he feels comfortable showing it. “I would say I hit it harder now than I ever did," he says. "Since I started doing standup when I was 17, my jokes were always weird and sick. We had a lot of death in my family; my dad lost four brothers, and I lost two sisters. We had a lot of hardships, and my dad chose — rather than have a nervous breakdown or turn negative — he went to his sick sense of humor. I was raised to go to the gallows with humor. I wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t organically come from where I’m at. It’s not an intentional, linear thinking thing, I don’t go, ‘This is how I’m going to be now.’ It’s just how I am.”

Despite the potential shock of seeing Danny Tanner spewing out filthy material, Saget says it’s not his intention. “I just want people to laugh and be entertained, it’s that basic," he admits. "I don’t want to offend people. When I host 1 vs. 100, the stuff in-between is pretty raw. People in the audience enjoy it, but they have to cut it out, because I know it’s not right. In the HBO special that I have coming out, first I say to the audience, this is filthy, it’s just for me. If I’ve got 12-year-olds in my audience, I ask them, please don’t put them in my audience, give them their money back. I can’t do my work: I’m not going to do it in front of them. I’m not here to shock people. I haven’t really heard from anybody that goes, ‘How could you do this?’ I’m not coming from a bad place with it.”

Asked if he would consider himself “raw,” Saget grapples with the concept of rawness. “I think it means you don’t have a big censor," he explains. "I’m always trying to get to the core. I guess raw talent is when something is real and it’s honest and you’re not trying to shut down any part of it — and in my standup I really get to do that now. But I try not to say something that would hurt people in my life. I strive to just say what comes to mind in addition to stuff that I find funny and not censor myself anymore for anyone, so I would call that raw. It shouldn’t be about being sexual or dirty, it should be about getting to your core. That’s how I’ve always done it: I come balls out. From the moment I was birthed, my balls come first.”

Saget isn’t opposed to doing family shows, but he’s not the same guy from Full House. “I can’t do Danny Tanner," he says. "I don’t know how to do that anymore. I wouldn’t be that kind of a character unless there were levels to it, unless he breaks down and you find out that he dresses up in strange women’s clothing and Uncle Jesse and him are doing something weird.”