May 26th, 2005
I used to think there was no worse comic hack than Bob Saget–everything from his “star turn” on Full House to his atrocious hosting of America’s Funniest Home Videos. His material was just awful.
But it turns out it was just a job and the real Bob Saget likes to work blue. In a fascinating New York Observer column by George Gurley, we learn that Saget was notoriously dirty in college and that what his fellow comedians found amusing was his going clean for television. (Unfortunately the article from May 9 is only available in the archives for a fee.) But reading a hard copy of it, I found it simply compelling. Saget apparently goes blue in an upcoming documentary directed by Penn Jillette called The Aristocrats–what Geoffrey Gilmore describes as “one of the most shocking and, perhaps for some, offensive films you will ever see.” The former dad of the Olsen twins tells a joke, repeated in the May 9 Observer that is so shocking (coming from Saget) that I won’t even reprint it here.
But who knew Bob Saget is our generation’s own Buddy Hackett?
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Saget had a cameo appearance in “Half Baked”, the Chapelle movie about weed. He plays someone at a drug rehab meeting and stands up in the middle of the crowd and yells “I sucked cock for crack”. It was so startling I didn’t know whether to laugh and crawl under my bed because I just heard Bob Saget yell “I sucked cock”.
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Oh, come on. What is the joke? I’ve heard the Aristocrat joke from South Park.
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Here’s a link to the whole article (Dana Stevens linked to it on Slate a few days ago):http://www.angrynakedpat.com/wwwboard/messages65/956.htm
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I’ve never heard Saget work blue, but I did once hear him do some standup on late-night TV somewhere, and it was incredibly dark and bitter. He’s so not his public persona. It was also pretty funny, if I recall right, so he does have some above-hack-grade talent.–Bill
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I saw Saget do some stand-up on TV years ago. I went in thinking, “hey, Bob Saget, this’ll be nice.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only was his act a deep shade of blue, it was just plain bad. The whole “filthy is inherently funny” style just shows a stunning lack of talent.
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Bob Saget is an evil demented genius. I think he directed Half-baked as well as Dirty Work with Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange.
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I recently heard Saget on the Jim Breuer show on Sirius radio. He was very blue, and very funny. He should have his own show on satellite radio.
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You’ll never realize just how blue Saget goes until you hear his bit on the Olsen twins.
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None of this “blue Bob Saget” stuff is news to readers of “The National Enquirer.” They wrote about it years ago; apparently, Saget got pretty about it.Brian Moore
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Saget is hillarious. If you don’t think he’s funny, you aren’t funny. Period.
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who cares…what’s the joke?
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I used to think Saget was a simpleton hack too. I just read the Geo Gurley article on Saget. Who knew? He’s a demented genius. If you read the article & don’t see it, you’re not only not funny, you’re frigging blinddeafanddumb.
Serenity Now May 26, 2005 at 5:47 pm
So he isn’t a hack because “it turns out … the real Bob Saget likes to work blue”?A filthy hack is still a hack. Is the blue stuff any funnier than his plain vanilla hackery?