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BOB SAGET - January 30, 2006
BOB SAGET: It's been a crazy time. I just came from
editing so I apologize.
GUY MACPHERSON: What are you editing?
BS: I'm editing a movie which comes out in May. It's
called Farce of the Penguins. It's an out-and-out
R-rated parody of March of the Penguins.
GM: Animated or real penguins?
BS: It is real penguins. We have a hundred hours of
documentary penguin footage from New Zealand, from all
over the world, that we're licencing. And we've been
editing for months now. It's a huge amount of work. I
wrote the script, I'm producing it and my other friend
that's producing it is David Permut, who produced
Face/Off and Richard Pryor's movie [Critical
Condition] and Eddie Griffin's movies [Double Take,
DysFunktional Family]. He's produced a ton of movies.
And Th!nkFilm is making it, who did The Aristocrats.
I'm very excited about it. It's a huge amount of work.
I'm just sitting there watching penguins curse and
smack the hell out of each other.
GM: Penguins curse, do they?
BS: Penguins curse and it's R-rated. The dialogue is
very grown up. We're casting it right now. I'll have
some great names for you soon, but I can't tell yet
because we're still just in the middle of making our
deals with the people that'll be doing the voices.
GM: So it's not a fake documentary...
BS: It's a love story. (laughs) It parodies the
documentary form, most prominently the one that's so
well known. So it covers a lot of the jokes that you'd
come up with, not unlike Scary Movie. You want to hit
the bullet points of what people know the most from
that movie. It's got narration like Morgan Freeman's,
but it's different obviously.
GM: I heard you talk briefly about it on Conan the
other night.
BS: It's real. That's the funniest part, is it's real.
That's like the weird part.
GM: And it's coming out in May?
BS: In May. We are working our asses off. I have night
time editors. I have people working around the clock.
I just walked out of the editing room. And any time
you go and look at something, it's like, "Oh my God,
we gotta go back in and redo that whole section." We
have a screening in mid-March. We'll have, like, a
college audience and then we'll do a test screening
and do a couple more if we can - maybe just one more -
and then May would be the release.
GM: That's great.
BS: It's pretty wild. And I'm writing this show for
HBO. I'm meeting with them tomorrow. I've been writing
this show for a while and we're just moving forward
with that. I'm a gynecologist in it.
GM: This will be your show?
BS: My show. I'm a writer, producer, star, all that
crap. It's kind of an R-rated Courtship of Eddie's
Father.
GM: I loved that show.
BS: I did, too. I loved it. I did a play in New York
in March that Paul Weitz wrote, who wrote In Good
Company and About a Boy, and a lot of his themes are
father/son things. So this play that I did was called
Privilege. It was about a guy who was accused of
Insider Trading and how his sons dealt with it. I had
two sons, and the younger one is the one I'm thinking
of for the show. He's 14. A very special kid. Real
good actor. So it would be myself, my son, and a
gynecological practice where I've got women coming in
and out (chuckles), no pun intended. So we'll see what
happens with that. So I'm busy.
GM: You are.
BS: And my dog is not well, so I'm taking him for
radiation. He has two more treatments. So that's what
I'm... I'm driving now with my King Charles Spaniel on
the floor of my car. It's a busy life. And my
daughters had the flu this morning, so I have to get
home right away so I can give them their chicken soup.
GM: I'll try not to keep you too long.
BS: Oh, no, no. I'm stuck on a freeway. If I lose you,
I'll call you back. It's perfect timing.
GM: By the way, I thought The Courtship of Eddie's
Father's theme song is one of the most under-rated
theme songs.
BS: It's funny. I was listening to the radio the other
day, which I don't do that often because I listen to
CD's and stuff, and it was Harry Nilsson singing "I
can't live if livin' is without you". And that's one
of those songs that's still really well produced. It
doesn't sound as dated as other music. He was just a
really special talent. And that song also is one of
the better TV theme songs ever. I don't think we'll be
quite as bouncy. Since I'm a gynecologist, I don't
think we're going to be light and fluffy. But I'm
excited to deal with parenting themes in more of a way
of how I deal with them, which is not to say it's
hardcore but when you're really a parent in today's
world, you're not living the life of sitcom parenting.
It's ridiculous.
GM: How long were you on Full House?
BS: Eight years.
GM: Which came first: America's Funniest Home Videos
or Full House?
BS: Full House came first. We did a half a season of
it and ABC offered me... I saw this tape of people
getting hit in the nuts, this twenty-minute tape of
really funny nut shots and some cats getting pulled
off of things and I said this is funny. And I hosted
the pilot. It was not even supposed to be a pilot; it
was supposed to be a special and ended up beating 60
Minutes in a rerun so they went, "Oh my God, we've got
a hit." So they just put it on.
GM: I was a big fan of yours before those shows, but
only from various TV appearances.
BS: Wow, you're the one.
GM: I'd see you with your guitar doing standup.
BS: Standup is a really interesting animal. It's not
like anything else. Everything I've done in my career,
I always tried to get other stuff going, I would
always try to be directing movies. And then that
wouldn't happen the way I wanted. Like Dirty Work
didn't perform the way I wanted, so I was put in
director jail for years. You get to direct stuff, but
an episode of television isn't like directing. It is
directing but it's more of a mechanic job and a
serviceman job, and making a movie it's your baby. So
standup is a chance in that hour, nobody can say to
you, "Oh, I wish you hadn't done that." The only
person that can say that is your audience. You're the
artist. Not unlike a lot of other things, there's a
craft to it, but it's also... When I'm doing it right,
it's like surfing. I don't know what the hell I'm
going to do. It's so much fun. I've been doing standup
more the past few years and last year it started to
really kick in, where I felt really engaged in what
I'm doing and the audience is right there in a way
that I've never had them there, to be there for what I
do now. Which we still don't know what that is.
GM: I saw you at Yuk Yuk's a year or two ago.
BS: Cool.
GM: Your act seems so stream of consciousness. I don't
know if it really is. How much of your act is written
or the same from show to show, and how much is just
whatever pops into your head?
BS: I think it's more the same than people think it
is. But from where I was, I guess that was maybe a
year or two ago at Yuk Yuk's, a lot of the main pieces
will be the same but it'll seem different because I'm
just going through a different thing. Because wherever
I'm at, that kinda changes the whole theme of
everything I do. So that does change show to show. Is
that casino a nice place that I'm coming to?
GM: It's like you're in Vegas.
BS: I've heard it's really nice. I've been hearing
that from my friends, that this is a really fun gig.
So I'll go in and do that. My standup has been doing
really well, which makes me really happy. Selling hard
tickets is not always the easiest thing to do when
you're a performer.
GM: Doing what?
BS: Selling a hard ticket, you know? Selling actual
tickets ahead of time and all that. And when I end up
coming to places, by the time the date happens I'm
sold out now. I'm doing some gig at the University of
Connecticut. It's a couple of thousand seats. I always
did well in clubs but I never sold out a couple
thousand seats so easily. It's a lot of fun.
GM: Now that The Aristocrats has come out and people
have seen more of the dark side of Bob Saget...
BS: It couldn't get much darker, I don't think.
GM: So now when you perform your standup, are they
expecting more of that type of material? Do you walk
as many customers as maybe you did in the past?
Although I don't know if you did.
BS: I never walked anybody. Actually, in my whole
career, in my whole thirty years of standup, maybe
four people walked out. I can't even remember. I've
seen people walk out because I was on a club list with
a lot of other comedians and they'd sat through hours.
They're going home because they're exhausted. But when
people pay to see me... It's R-rated, the Aristocrats.
My standup would be NC-17 in that thing. That's not
standup; that's just me sitting in a chair talking
filthy in a comedy club late at night because Penn
Jillette and Paul Provenza tee'd me up and said, "Hey,
come on. We love how dirty you are. Let everyone
know."
GM: It's funny, but in the movie you looked like you
were embarrassed.
BS: Right. I was.
GM: But you couldn't have been. I've seen your
standup.
BS: You know what it is? It's both. And my standup,
too. My standup, when you think about it, I'll say
terrible things. And my standup does get more
hard-driving probably because I hit things hard
because you've got to strap on your combat boots when
you do standup. And the people that come to see my
standup are there to hear that crap. Not crap, but I
mean they're there to hear rougher language or rougher
themes. My stuff, I kinda do it lightly. The
in-your-pants comedy, I just do it because I find it
funny like a nine-year-old, you know? I'm just
immature. But The Aristocrats, I knew that was going
to be seen by people that shouldn't necessarily be
seeing it. When you do stuff on screen and it goes out
to theatres... I never dreamed that this would happen.
None of us did. But when it goes out like this, you do
think about... People walked out of that. I have
female friends that walked out of The Aristocrats
before I got on screen and they went to see me in it.
They just couldn't take all the grossness. That's
where my apologetic attitude came from. I don't
disagree with them, you know? You don't need to tell
people about all the fluids that come out of your body
or all the different techniques that Andy Dick is
really aware of. It's highly gross.
GM: What has the appearance in the movie done for you
or your career?
BS: It was kind of a double thing for me. It's funny.
I was on camera for 40 minutes total. It took 40
minutes of my life. I sat down; they turned on the
cameras. I walked away. I went on stage and did my
act. And then I did the thing on Entourage, which I
did after I did this. And Entourage is very popular.
My appearance on Entourage, before Aristocrats came
out, I was in the front page of USA Today. It was
like, "How Bob is R-Rated". It was saying, "His
standup's R-rated, and The Aristocrats is NC-17", kind
of, if they had rated it. But the Entourage show is
about L.A. wannabes. And Jeremy Piven, I think he just
won a Golden Globe, I don't know. But it's a big show.
So I did a guest starring role on it last season that
got a lot of notice. And that's where I'm smoking a
bong and hanging out with hookers. And all the new
stuff I'm working on... I'm not doing many more
cameos. I did one for Jamie Kennedy, who's a friend of
mine. He's got a new MTV series, so I'm on the pilot
of that. But this movie is all I'm putting my time
into, and the HBO show.
GM: I spoke to Paul Provenza on Saturday, who's going
to be in town the same weekend you're here.
BS: Oh, really?!
GM: He's performing at Lafflines. He was very excited
to know that you're going to be in town, too.
BS: I love Paul. He's such a good guy. I'm really
happy for him. I've known him for my whole career.
I've known him since I was 18 or 19 years old.
GM: That's right. In Pennsylvania.
BS: Yeah, University of Pennsylvania.
GM: Did you start out as a duo?
BS: No... Yeah, I did. I thought you meant with Paul.
With a guy named Sam Domski. And Sam is a dentist now,
but he still does comedy. And he was one of my best
friends and he would do comedy with me. We wrote these
two-hour sketches. It was the year Saturday Night Live
started. So we would watch Saturday Night Live and
then we would try to mirror that at the coffee houses
at the University of Pennsylvania. I was not a student
at the University of Pennsylvania. I was at Temple and
my ex-wife was my girlfriend, so I would go to Penn
all the time to see her. It was very adorable.
GM: So you were not doing standup; you were doing
sketches with him?
BS: With him I would still do some standup, and then I
would do standup outside of that separate from him. I
would open for people or I would perform in some of
the clubs in Philly. When I was 17 or 18, I would go
up to New York and I would go on at the Improv. In
fact, the head of HBO, Chris Albrecht, was the manager
at the Improv in New York, and that's when I met him.
And then years later he became my agent, which is
really bizarre.
GM: Whatever happened to the comedy duo? You never see
that anymore.
BS: No. It doesn't work a lot of times. There are some
that do it. I guess Penn & Teller would be a good
example of surviving in that genre.
GM: Yeah, but they do magic, too.
BS: I know. But he's got that Oliver Hardy thing
going. But you make a valid point. Actually, I
remember years ago Nathan Lane was in a comedy duo,
Stark & Lane. I watched them in New York. They were
very good. There aren't any comedy duos and I think a
lot of it has to do with you want to get on a sitcom,
you want to make a standup career. It's just the
logistics of doing business. It's two airfares, it's
two this, two that. I guess Vegas is the place that
makes the most sense for a comedy duo.
GM: You must have been sky-high when you were on two
network shows at the same time. You must have thought,
'This is the best!'
BS: Two top ten shows. I did. I did think they were
the best.
GM: Did that feeling last?
BS: When I first got it, it was a great thing. Can you
hold on one second, it's my ex-wife... Oh, I think I
lost her. Oh well, it happens. I lost my ex-wife,
that's a good one. My dog has prostate cancer. I'm
actually watching him do yoga, basically. His leg was
up in the air for the entire time we've been talking.
GM: So you were saying how you thought it was great
getting these shows.
BS: Yeah, I didn't really appreciate it fully. I was
incredibly excited, especially when the video show
became number one. Full House I enjoyed being with
everybody a lot. Actors complain if they're working or
they're not working. They don't realize that you might
have a movie career, you might not. For the most part
the careers are very fleeting. And they're
disappointed because it doesn't pan out the way they
thought it would. And a person's on a show that does
maybe six episodes. Come on. Rodney Dangerfield was a
friend of mine and I went to go visit him and I was
doing both shows and they were both in the top ten.
And I said, "Rodney, I don't feel like I'm funny on
these shows, you know?" And he actually said, "You
don't know cock." I said, "Excuse me?" "You don't know
cock." I'd never heard that word used as an adverb, I
believe. I don't know what he used it as. But it was
kinda true because I was crazy fortunate. And people
would go, "That wasn't your voice, you weren't doing
yourself", you know? It was an actor job. On Full
House I wanted to be a good dad. I chose to make him
like Felix Unger; I chose to make him a hugger. I got
hired as a Richie Cunningham on the show. I needed a
job. I wasn't going to say no. I had a new baby and I
took the job. It was a job. But it wasn't my voice.
This wasn't Roseanne or Seinfeld where Bob gets to be
himself. This new show [on HBO] is that. That's what
it is; it's me getting to do myself. So people should
be afraid! (laughs) But in the video show, that's the
one where I did wish I could have input more of what I
found funny. But the people that produced the show,
and the network, did not find funny what I found
funny. So there was nothing I could do about it. What
was really funny was the videos. They were really
funny. I mean, people getting hit in the crotch and
falling down, and animals doing stuff, it's really
funny. I'm happy with my stuff personally on the video
show maybe five percent of the time where I can watch
it and go, "That was okay." I'm doing network TV and
it's family night on a Sunday night at 7 or 8, what am
I expecting? I can't go out and do anything edgy; it's
a blooper show! If you're hosting a blooper or a clip
show, you've pretty much made your statement. Marshall
McLuhan's big thing is the medium is the message.
You're not going to end up being Chris Rock if you're
hosting a video show. Because it's a thankless job. If
you're a traffic cop going, "Here's some animals!",
there's no way to make that brilliant. There's no way
on the earth.
GM: Were you still doing standup while you were doing
these shows?
BS: Yeah, I always did standup. I stopped a little bit
while I was directing more.
GM: Were you as dark and dirty before or during those
shows? Or is this a reaction to you being so clean on
TV?
BS: I think some of it is a reaction of me being clean
on TV. That's part of the fun of it for people because
it is blowing up an image. And that will get old, so
I'm writing new stuff and coming up with new things
that don't make me feel like I'm... Because I'm there
to entertain people, not just go, "Hey, look, I'm not
clean-cut Danny." That's not how I'm approaching it,
you know? I don't go, "Wow, I'm not Danny Tanner; look
how filthy I am." I'd be a jackass if I did that. My
job is for people to leave really being entertained.
That's my job. They should be going home going, "Damn,
that was funny. I haven't laughed that hard in a
while." That's the biggest compliment I get from
people.
GM: You really compound the laughs, too, one after the
other.
BS: That's what Rodney always told me. He said you
should do it like you're a fighter hitting a body bag.
Just go. Give 'em 50 minutes of killer material. Just
don't stop. Just keep punching. Don't stop. And that's
your job. Pace it up and that'll make the room blow
up. Then I do music at the end. I do a couple of
comedy songs and some parody stuff, and that's
entertaining for people. And I enjoy doing it. And I
still do that song that you saw, which is, "Danny
Tanner is Not Gay". A very powerful piece of music.
GM: The one I remember from years ago is "A dollar
eighty-nine...".
BS: Wow. That's so funny that people like that. I
think they like it more now than they did before. I've
been actually doing it so long you end up adding new
things to it all the time, a song like that. But also
everybody can relate to it. If you're out going to a
casino, no matter how rich you are, you know what it's
like to not have any cash in the house and you go
through the house looking for change.
GM: Provenza said the joke isn't that you're dirty now
but that you were thought of as clean before.
BS: Who said that?
GM: Paul Provenza.
BS: That's hilarious. That's really funny. Yeah,
that's true. People that know me - and you saw Conan
the other night, he said, "This is no surprise to
people that know you. You haven't changed." It was a
part. If Anthony Hopkins is viewed as Hannibal Lecter,
he eats people. But he's not that guy. But this is a
sitcom with a clean-cut dude with no edginess
whatsoever. Everything I did had a rounded edge to it.
And the video show was what it was. But two of the
writers were Canadian. I blame it on that.
GM: (laughs) Hey!
BS: Credit! I credit it. It was a hit for eight years.
They were Todd Thicke, Alan Thicke's brother, and
Robert Arnott. Bob Arnott was one of the main writers
from Laugh-in back in the day. He did a lot: The
Smothers Brothers Show... He's a very good guy.
GM: Are they still with the show?
BS: Todd is. The show is still going. They've got Tom
Bergeron, the Hollywood Squares guy. And that's the
kind of guy they needed to host it. They did the right
thing.
GM: I guess, but I preferred you.
BS: Well, you're really nice. You actually are really
nice. I've been hearing that. It's so funny. I got off
stage the other night - I've really been having a lot
of fun with my standup. It just makes me laugh that
people are getting it. It's just such a good feeling
that people get it. They get the joke, they get why
I'm doing it, they get an idea of who I am for an
hour. I get off stage and they go, "You know, you're
just great, Bob." And it's like, "Whoa!" I never heard
that my whole life, you know? Even when I did the two
shows I got a lot of criticism for the video and for
Full House. I got a lot of razzing.
GM: I was predisposed to liking you because I was a
fan of yours before that. But I know people that would
see you and go, "That guy's awful!" And I'd say, "What
do you mean? He's hilarious!"
BS: You're a great man. But I also understand why they
would think that. Like, I have a friend. I love Dane
Cook. I think Dane's really talented. The past seven
years in a way I've been doing standup at the Laugh
Factory in L.A. and so has Dane. It's kind of my
gestation place. It's where I go, try stuff out, and
Dane's been doing it, so we're kind of brothers in
arms in my comeback, or whatever you call it. You have
to call it something because I'm in Rolling Stone. I
never was in Rolling Stone [prior to this]. I was in
Rolling Stone, I was in Esquire, in GQ twice. Last
month they said I was the second-biggest comeback
basically next to Clinton. I didn't have that kind of
press before. I talked to a friend of mine who told me
that, "I don't really like Dane. I don't like it." And
I'm like, "Um, I like it. I love Dane." And that's
another thing: I already know what he is. I've already
bought the premise of what he is so that makes me like
him anyway. Some people don't find it funny and that's
okay.
GM: I saw Dane Cook here several years ago and liked
him. And now because he's so popular, I think, there's
always that backlash when people get too popular.
BS: That's what happens.
GM: Now people are going, "He's awful, he's a hack."
BS: They're wrong. He's great. He's wonderful. And
they can think what they want. I thought David
Letterman did fine on the Oscars. I think it's just
silly. People are silly. But they have nothing else to
talk about. And they're not out there trying to make
people laugh.
GM: Well, some of them are professional comics. And
they look down at him because they think he's going
for cheap laughs.
BS: Well, they're professionals - and it's wonderful
and not a small thing to make a couple hundred people
laugh in a club, that's not a small thing and if you
spend your life doing that, good for you, you made
people laugh - but odds are if you're a comic and you
never got to go with a bigger audience, you never got
to get on that whatever stage of a career that you'd
like to have, odds are you might be embittered. And if
you are embittered, you would definitely judge a guy
who has mass appeal or sells out. There is a selling
off point that different people have. Some do it later
in their career and some do it earlier in their
career. It took me ten years to get Full House and the
video show. It felt like longer than anybody I knew to
get a job on TV of consequence. And then when I got
it, I was happy to get it and I did the job to the
best of my ability and what the parameters of Full
House were. You're the dad and you're kind of a
straight guy. Plus, I was an actor. Right before that
I had done a Richard Pryor movie called Critical
Condition and that was my first gig. The producers saw
me in it, and I cursed in it and it was R-rated and I
had a great part and I got to play with Richard Pryor
as one of the first things I ever did. And then I got
the Full House job. It was a network sitcom. I'd never
had one. I'd worked on Bosom Buddy. I did a guest shot
on there. I was a warm-up guy for that show. And then
I went and did the video show. And that, in some ways,
hurt me more than helped me because nobody takes you
seriously as an actor if you're hosting a clip show.
I've been getting offers literally... pretty much a
lot of game shows, a lot of clip shows. I could be
hosting a lot of shows. And I just can't do it. I have
work to do now. I love acting. I love directing. I
love being a standup. And the standup you can parlay
into anything. You could do hosting on a show, you
could do a reality show. But you can't do an acting
career, you can't act in a movie, you can't really do
that when people think of you as the host of... You
know, Ryan Seacrest is incredibly successful right
now. And crazier things have happened. Greg Kinnear
went from hosting into a great acting career. But my
path is my path. I don't look at other people and go,
"Oh, well they did that and they did that." I know
what I don't want to do now. I did it. I did the video
thing. The weird part is when they offer you a lot of
money. That's always weird, although it's a
compliment, to host something you necessarily don't
want to do. But the thing I'm most excited about, the
thing I like the most is making people laugh in a real
visceral way. You can't take that away from a person
that can do it. One of two things now I know I'm
confident in is that I'm funny. I know it. And if
someone doesn't think so, fine. They're entitled to
think whatever they want. But if they don't think
that, I'll make them laugh. (laughs)
GM: It's taken you this long to realize you're funny?
BS: Yes. But I'm kinda cocky about it now. Cocky about
it in that, like an airplane pilot, you want your
airplane pilot to know that no way in hell is this
plane gonna crash. No way. If people are paying to see
me, dammit, I'm going to work really hard to have fun.
To have fun and be stupid and just not give a shit and
have fun. And make people laugh. Because life's really
short. I'm going to be 50 in May, I've got a lot of
dead people in my family, I've got a dog with prostate
cancer, my dad's 88, I've got three daughters. I could
use a woman. Maybe I'll get married when I'm up in
Vancouver.
GM: How are your daughters liking the resurgence in
your career now that they're a bit older and get it?
BS: They're loving it, actually. My oldest one's in
college. My middle one, she's 16, she damaged her car
when she wasn't supposed to be where she was with it.
She's very lucky. She's got a great life. She gets to
go to things other people don't get to go to. She goes
to crazy, fun things that other people go, "Oh my God,
you got to go to that?! That's so cool!" So she did
her car thing which she shouldn't have done and it
ended up costing a couple grand. So her mom and I took
care of that but then we said, "You gotta pay it
back." So she's selling ice cream. She works in an ice
cream store. You know, she's a child of privilege and
her friends come in and they mock her because they're
little spoiled bitches (laughs). So she's selling ice
cream. She'll work tomorrow night till ten o'clock on
a school night. I used to do it when I was young.
There's nothing wrong with that. I worked in a deli.
She says things to me like, "Did you know that people
have three jobs? They work at Starbucks, they sell ice
cream and they work at the library." I'm like, "Uh,
yeah." My oldest one got away with a car accident that
we paid for. My middle one reminded me. But it's good
experience for you. It doesn't matter what you come
from, there's nothing wrong with learning a little bit
about how the world works rather than just having
everything handed to you and living a little prissy
life. And she wanted to do it. She's a wonderful kid.
She just said, "Yeah, I gotta pay for this. It was
wrong."
GM: And as soon as she pays you back, she's quitting
the job.
BS: I think she's going to quit before that. (laughs)
She also went and made a study guide and sold it on
campus. She literally made a study guide and people
pay for it. And it's not illegal to do it. It's
hilarious.
GM: She's an entrepreneur.
BS: She's an entrepreneur. She'll be producing
something for me one day.