Bob Saget on Doing Blue Comedy While Having a Squeaky Clean Public Image

But that's why I was asking about like the Full House days. Was it hard? Oh, that's interesting because it'll bring- Because you had a dirty act, but you were on the- It wasn't this blue until after, and Full House and the video show were simultaneous, and they were family, you know, seven o'clock at night on a Sunday, I'm hosting videos. I can't say, here's another fucking video. You know, you can't do that. And I didn't say fuck that much. In fact, a few years ago, Dice called me, he goes, Sag it. I gotta tell you something, we gotta see each other, but also, you know what? Man, you stole my shit after Full House ended. You stole my- I said, what did I steal? Well, you didn't used to say fuck as much. I stole fuck. Was he joking? Kind of, but not really. But then he wanted to tour with me, so it was kind of like- See, Dice is always half pranking you. I love him. He's always half fucking with you. I started going on the road because of Dice. I was just doing the store, and this is when I was on news radio. And one day, he went in the back and he goes, hey, you should go on the road. And I'm like, yeah? And he goes, yeah, you're funny. He goes, you don't want to be fucking beholden these cocksuckers. He goes, these motherfuckers, and these movies, and their shows. He goes, you go on the road, you make good living. And I was thinking about it, I was like, why don't I go on the road? So I just started booking gigs. I literally just listened to him. Because first of all, you know, I'm 27 years old. I can't believe Dice is talking to me. And I'm like, I'm talking to Dice? And then he tells me to go on the road. I was like, he's right. Why don't I go on the road? So I started doing gigs here and there. And then when I really started going on the road, like really was when I left the store. That 2007 time when I left the store, that's when I started touring. That's when I really started touring. Because I was kind of angry, too. I was like, you know, I put all that time into that place. And I thought what we were doing, like that Mencia thing, I thought that was we're doing the right thing. I thought that was a real problem. And so when that was the reaction, I was like, OK, I'm going to show you, motherfuckers. I had this attitude like, I'm going to show you. And then I did my best work after that. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. That was my best work was after that, because I was, you know, my best. My first real big special was 2009, which is two years after that. And then, you know, and I don't have any hate for that dude. And I hope he gets better. Like, I hope he's doing great. I really do. I think I think he has learned his lesson from hope. He has. I hope people forgive him, too. I don't I think that's a problem. You know, I think many people have had it, you know, some very famous people have had it. No, I don't mean that. Yeah, many people have had that, like Robin, right? You know, a lot of people had that. And his loss is so and his talent is so gigantic that he was just a vacuum cleaner of stuff. Robin. Yeah. And I loved him beyond. Yeah, he was. He was so. Yeah, he's from every hundred years of Robin Williams comes here. This is what you brought up what was going on doing those family shows and then do a stand up. Richard Jenny comes into play here. This is kind of an interesting thing that you brought him up because he hits me in the solar plexus. I did a special while the two shows were in the top 10 full house in America's funniest home videos. Those long names to say they sound like I'm saying porn when I say the names of the show. That's like dirty to me. Full House. Oh, that's so filthy, Bob. But I love doing family entertainment. That's my many different sides. I love doing stuff the whole family can watch together. I don't look at that and go, oh, fuck that. That's bullshit. You know, that's that's not the cynical guy that can come out and be blue for the sake of blue. I wasn't blue for the sake of blue. I just did what I did. You know, just like you did what you did. You know, your UFC stuff. It's like I wasn't doing anything athletic, but to I did an HBO special and it did well. But in the ratings or whatever, but it was not good. And I made it so you can't see it. And Richard, Jenny loved it. And he would say to me, I loved that special. And I was I was saying fucking it, but it was like an hour long and it took a half an hour. It was about me being in a dream, trying to missing my gig. So I was trying to make a film because I want to be a filmmaker. And then the next half hour was basically a half hour stand up. And I just didn't do any of it right. You know, and but there were a couple of really funny moments in it. A couple of good bits. And Richard told me he thought it was one of the funniest specials and most inventive that he'd ever seen. And I was always thrown by that. And I started to get more like, well, what do I want to do and stand up? And I was like, I just want to make people laugh. I just want to. And then when the shows ended, I started directing some stuff. And then I did a special called That Ain't Right. And that was the HBO special that upset a lot of people and also put me in Rolling Stone and Newsweek and all that. That was because it was dirty. I said fuck a lot because I was it. I was it. But subject matter as well. No? Yeah, a little bit. I used fuck as a verb a few times. I don't, you know, you know, if it's expressive. Right. But it was your, I mean, it's what I felt funny because that's what you had always been doing. But they didn't expect that out of you because they wanted full house and America's Funniest Home Videos. But who would go to see that? What am I going to do? Hug people and clean, you know? Well, they wanted that sort of Howie Mandel thing. Howie's blue. He is blue sometimes, but not anymore. No, he's still. But he has stand up. I saw him at the laugh factory. He's actually talking about the dangers of doing a bit that could get him fired from the show. Oh. He actually talked about that on stage that if he says anything wrong, I mean, he's on the squeakiest of squeaky family entertainment. You know, he went from deal or no deal to this other thing that he's doing now. What is it? America's Got Talent or? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's... I've been talking to him a lot. He's a great guy. He's a great guy and he's had a lot of mental health issues that he talked about in a book. And his OCD is just the outskirts of it. How bad is it now with the fucking coronavirus? He's holding on. A germaphobe. Yeah. To have the whole world coming. Rightly so, by the way. Somebody wrote that down. The whole world is Howie Mandel now. Yeah, I tell somebody like he's a prophet. I forget who it was. I forget who wrote. Maybe it was Gaffigan. Someone said that like that. Someone had a quote like that. I love Jim. Oh, he's great. But anyway, so I don't know why people think that you're like a character, you play in something. Well, because you played that character for so long and this was pre-social media. This is pre-podcast. They just associate it like Bill Cosby. For the longest time, people thought Bill Cosby was the sweet guy. But I got it out on stage. Bill always was offended that I talked blue on stage because he said, you don't need it. And when I would see him, I would almost hear like he's saying motherfucker in between. What did Bill Cosby think about Kinison? I want to know that. I would have loved to have seen that. I'm sure he just disapproved anything blue. But the truth is, look what he acted out in his real life. But that's probably why. I would just do it. That is why. That's the boys club that he was in. My boys club, or I hate to say that because it's so misogynistic, but it was a guy that looks like, I know what I look like. I look like your dentist, your accountant or somebody, maybe your gynecologist if it's a good week, but not yours. But I'll continue. I swear I just had a moment of doing like 10 of those that go nowhere. But the truth of it is, for me to say that is the joke. And that gets nowhere also. So I have to have content. And the more specials I did and the more I've done stand up, like I was about to shoot a new one this year. I've got like an hour and a half of stuff. Of course, everybody's going to have 12 minutes of COVID. But I don't know what it's going to be. But it was really, I was about to talk about racial injustice ready to go because I've got all this stuff when I was a kid and segregation and I was living it and didn't understand it when I was six, seven years old in Virginia. So it was like, I started to have much more intent in what I want to do right now and make people laugh. I got to throw a dick joke in just to make myself happy. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it.