I was not a watcher of Full House, although I have always kept track of John Stamos, since he first showed up on “my show” General Hospital when I was in high school. But Full House wasn’t my thing, nor was America’s Funniest Home Videos (in fact, it’s the opposite of my thing) so … pre You-Tube and pre-internet, I really didn’t know much about Bob Saget. I wasn’t “hip” to him at all.
What made me “hip” to who this guy was – not just his background as a stand-up but the respect his peers had for him – was when I saw the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats. I believe I saw it at the Angelika.
The Aristocrats is truly insider-baseball for comics, about this famous joke – a joke they all know about, a joke they tell stories about – the dirtiest joke ever (depending on what you do with it). I had never heard of any of this, so I went into the movie totally cold. Comics are interviewed about this joke, they tell stories about it, there are clips, etc. The structure of the joke has a strict opening, and a punch line, but what you do in between is up to you. The joke is what you make of it. Many comics are like “It’s a horrible joke. It’s not for public consumption.” And … when you hear some versions of the joke, you can see why.
What struck me though, and I remember it vividly: Literally everyone references Bob Saget’s version of the joke. Everyone. “Bob Saget is the king of this joke.” “Have you heard Bob Saget tell this joke?” “I was there once when Bob Saget told the joke and it took TWO hours.” I haven’t seen the doc since then but that’s how I remember it. Every single comic legend referenced him. It was like he OWNED this famous joke. If you looked at it in a sports analogy, Bob Saget was “the one to beat”. (Or Gilbert Gottfied, who did a particularly famous version of the joke.) Bob Saget was legendary for how he told this one joke, how he spun it out, riffing until it was a TRAP from which no one could escape. Saget knows the joke is bad, but it’s a thing that comedians do backstage to kind of play around, and one-up each other. He calls the joke “jazz”. When Saget would do the joke, every time people thought he was coming to the peak – like, it COULDN’T go on – Bob Saget would push it beyond. When he tells the joke in the documentary, it takes 7 full minutes.
Here’s a recent clip of him talking about the joke.
The Aristocrats made me pay attention to Bob Saget in a deeper way. I realized I didn’t have the right idea of him at ALL. I would have known that if I had seen his standup. Once you’re “hip” to Bob Saget, you realize how often he is referenced. He’s almost Zelig-like. For example, he was on the bill and backstage when Bill Burr did his now-famous “Philly rant” (which many comedians clock as a major moment in standup in the last 15, 20 years, as well as the first moment where a lot of people started paying attention to Bill Burr. Not the general public, maybe, but other comedians. It was a gauntlet thrown. There is audio of it on YouTube, but I’m warning you right now: it is profane and horrifying and it REQUIRES context to know why he went so insane. The context matters, and the context REALLY matters to standup comics.) But it’s this kind of legendary moment now, and Saget was there, standing backstage, watching it all go down. He told the story on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
John Stamos’ Instagram post made me cry. Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue made me cry. Bob Saget seemed like such a sweet man, and that’s what Kimmel kept saying, how sweet he was, how caring he was.
Speaking of John Stamos and speaking of Jimmy Kimmel:
Kimmel had Stamos and Saget on after Don Rickles died. Rickles adored both of them (I love that Stamos and Saget are so close: lifelong friends). Rickles took Stamos under his wing, and then Stamos brought Saget into the circle. Kimmel also knew and Loved Rickles. So it made sense to have the two of them on to talk about the legend, Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles.
The interview is a stone-cold classic, and all I can say is that is old-school, where talk shows weren’t so much about trotting on and promoting your latest cookie-cutter Marvel movie, where you tell one pre-planned story, and that’s it, you’ve made your PR team happy. No. Burt Reynolds didn’t come on The Tonight Show to promote himself. He came on to entertain – entertain Johnny, Ed, and us. And so even though Stamos and Saget were still actively grieving – you can SEE it – as is Kimmel – this was an important moment: they were there to pay tribute. There are moments when Bob Saget is truly overcome and can barely go on talking, but – beautifully – he pulls himself together, because he has a job to do, and that job is to pay tribute to a legend, and send him off right.
Watching Saget wrestle his grief into something manageable so that he can go on telling a story was – and still is – incredibly moving.
The outpouring from the comics community has been overwhelming. Nobody had anything bad to say about him. Kimmel was overcome. Everyone is overcome. Nobody saw it coming. Their tributes have the same quality of Saget’s to Rickles. They are devastated, but they pull themselves together because it’s important to send someone off right.
My condolences to his friends and his family. You can tell how much he will be missed.
