{"id":83,"date":"2014-12-23T12:23:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T17:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturated.com\/?p=83"},"modified":"2014-12-30T18:23:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T23:23:44","slug":"bob-saget-interview-dirty-daddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/bob-saget-interview-dirty-daddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Daddy: Bob Saget Interview on Comedy, Tragedy & Growing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

About 8 years ago, not long after The Aristocrats<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/a> came out and re-ignited Bob Saget<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s career, I had the good fortune of catching him live at a local comedy club. It was one of the best shows I\u2019d ever seen\u2013 a rapid-fire stream of consciousness ramble that seamlessly blended scripted and improvised jokes, heartwarming earnestness and beyond-blue non sequiturs, audience engagement and pure self-indulgence of the ego and id.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since\u00a0Saget and I were both long-time friends of the club’s\u00a0owner, Marshall Chiles (who now owns Atlanta’s\u00a0Laughing Skull Lounge<\/a>), I wound up getting to hang out with him\u00a0both before and after his show, marveling at the long line of comely lasses waiting for a chance to get face-to-face time with the artist formerly known as Danny Tanner<\/strong><\/a>. Not taking Chiles and Saget up on their offer to go party in Buckhead at 2AM remains one of the greatest regrets of my career.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nearly a decade later, Bob Saget<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s life and career are once again at a turning point. How I Met Your Mother<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/a> recently came to an end, and both his mother and good friend Robin Williams passed away this year. He recently released a best-selling book, Dirty Daddy<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/a>, that offers a unique mixture of memoir and comedy riffing, much darker than anything he\u2019s done before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though Williams passed away after the book went to press, he\u2019s referenced numerous times, and various chapters pay tribute to Saget\u2019s late sister (who died from Scleroderma at age 47) and father (who passed away in 2007). I\u00a0recently had a chance to talk to catch up with Saget\u00a0during his book tour, to discuss the intersection of comedy and tragedy and the next stage in his 35-year career.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What made you decide it was time to write a book?<\/b><\/p>\n

It started as a showbiz-driven thing, where someone said that people want to offer you money to write a book. Finally we came up with the idea of a memoir-type piece.<\/p>\n

It ended up being about death, comedy and my testicles. I wanted to call the book \u201cDeath and Testicles,\u201d but they didn\u2019t think that was going to be good.<\/p>\n

Dirty Daddy<\/i> melds the two ideas people have of me.\u00a0 The alliteration was there, and now people attack me for calling a book Dirty Daddy<\/i>. It\u2019s also the name of a porn film from years ago, and I really didn\u2019t want to be in that<\/i> company.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was your writing process like?<\/b><\/p>\n

I had a wonderful editor, Mark Ching, with Harper Collins. He was the only person I spoke to about the book. My process was to make it like a conversation with a best friend.<\/p>\n

It had structure, in that I knew what each chapter was named and I knew what each chapter was going to cover. I knew I was going to do a chapter about losing my two sisters, and I knew I\u2019d have to do chapters that wouldn\u2019t make some people happy\u2013 \u201cRelationships I\u2019d Rather Not Talk About\u201d and \u201cThings I Shouldn\u2019t Have Done.\u201d<\/p>\n

I basically did it like I do my standup, which is a similar exercise, but not at all a similar process. It\u2019s not improvised, but has a lot of riffing. It was very jazz-oriented, and I would just write and write. It was crazy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems like you<\/b>\u2019<\/b>ve had different phases in your career: The family-friendly Full House\/ America<\/i><\/b>\u2019<\/i><\/b>s Funniest Home Videos<\/i> era, the potty-mouthed Aristocrats <\/i>era, and now this\u00a0more mature era. Was it a conscious decision to let your fans in on this darker side of your life, or is it just coming with age?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m growing as a person, and I haven\u2019t even touched the surface of the body of work that is going to come out of this time. I\u2019m not as bluish in my standup, if you were to analyze it, but I\u2019m doing what I find funny.<\/p>\n

I still think it\u2019s funny to have 18-year-olds in my audience and teaching them not to put their unit in the knot-hole of a tree. It\u2019s like a public service announcement. It\u2019s a gift of the age I\u2019m at, and how they know me through television.<\/p>\n

For the most part, I want things to count more than they ever have. I don\u2019t want to be bluffing through my stand-up or acting. It\u2019s not something I take lightly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did the recent death of your friend Robin Williams make you re-examine your priorities?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I took his loss very hard. I met him when I was 21, and he is mentioned throughout the book. How he left us is obviously not how I will remember him.<\/p>\n

The whole idea of why we do comedy, he was\u00a0 a strong representation of that, because he did it to make people feel good and he was so damn good at it. But life doesn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n

I think what\u2019s happened for me is that I really do have to\u2013 to steal one of Robin\u2019s movie quotes\u2013 \u201cseize the day,\u201d which is more true now than ever. I can\u2019t waste time on things I used to as a younger man, just going crazy about things that I had no control over. It\u2019s time to really enjoy my work and my craft, and just go out and do it well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A lot of comedians seem to have a dark side. Do you think there<\/b>\u2019<\/b>s any truth to the idea that comedy is a therapeutic way to exorcise demons?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

There is therapy that comes out of talking, sure. But actual therapy is also a good thing for personal problems.<\/p>\n

For some comedians, the audience is their everything\u2013 their best friend and therapist. I don\u2019t work that way, but I understand it. I do shows Friday and Saturday, and there is nobody I know there. I don\u2019t have a friend with me, and I\u2019m not trying to date.<\/p>\n

For me it\u2019s like a little town meeting where I\u2019m going to get to know some of the people. It\u2019s a genuine relationship, and how you navigate that and how you use it is what sets people apart from others. When the audience knows that you\u2019re saying things that are poignant, silly or meant to make them laugh, that\u2019s a very personal thing you have with a room full of people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob_Saget\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Where do see the field of comedy now, and how have you watched it evolve?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I came out to L.A. in 1978, when comedians started to become rock stars. Robin had started to do well, and Steve Martin was filling 10,000-20,000 seat stadiums. The people that weren\u2019t on television were trying to get on television.<\/p>\n

What I like about where comedy is now is that it has more of a spoken word feeling to it. The comedians who\u2019ve been doing it 10-15 years have a peacefulness and security about their musings. It\u2019s like the Largo scene evolved into a style of comedy. Sarah Silverman paved the way with the 50-person audience in her HBO special. That kind of comedy is more like you\u2019re talking to your friends. There\u2019s something special about the last 10 years of comedy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m at a place where I\u2019m learning from the people who do standup now. For example, Louis CK is going to take a story that\u2019s seven minutes long, giving it the length of time it needs to have, and filling it with his perceptions. That\u2019s what all comedians do\u2013 look at things from the outside and present it to the world. People aren\u2019t having to get to the laughs so quickly. They\u2019re getting to tell whatever their truth is, or vent their anger over something.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bob<\/a><\/p>\n


\nNow that How I Met Your Mother<\/i> is over<\/b>\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

How I Met Your Mother<\/i> was a lovely, lovely gig that I got to do a couple of hours a week to narrate it. But I have to keep reminding people that it was just a gig. You take me to any non-English speaking country, and I have nothing to do with the show.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2026<\/b>OK, but how do you see your career evolving from here?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always loved directing. I\u2019ve directed a bunch of long-form things over the years, including Dirty Work<\/i>. I did this thing called For Hope<\/i>, that Dana Delany starred in, after my sister passed away.\u00a0 There are a lot of positive things in the works and they are all moving forward, but I can\u2019t talk about them yet. \u00a0\u2013by Bret Love; photos provided via BobSaget.com<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
BOB SAGET’S CAREER HIGHLIGHTS<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Full House<\/em>– 1987-1995<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
America’s Funniest Home Videos<\/em>– \u00a01989-1997<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Half Baked<\/em>– 1998<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dirty Work<\/em> (Director)- 1998<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Aristocrats<\/em>– \u00a02005<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
How I Met Your Mother<\/strong><\/span><\/em>–<\/strong> \u00a02005-2014<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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