San Francisco Comedy Blog

by Chad Lehrman

Bob Saget @ The Warfield
October 16th
982 Market Street, San Francisco

I saw a news article that called you “America’s Raunchiest Comic.” How do you feel about that?

BS: Don Rickles came over to me once and said, “I really liked your HBO special, Bob, but you left out 2 ‘fucks’.” But the truth is, if you listen to the people that have been on HBO in the past year, I don’t say anything nearly as crude. It’s just the opposite thing- they saw me as a Dad on a sitcom for 8 years. People go, “why are you saying that? You’re the Dad!”

Your stuff has always been pretty twisted though- I was watching you on the Young Comedian’s Special from 1985 and you were like, “I love my Mom… and you can too for just $12.”

BS: That’s true, and for awhile because of the economy it went up to about $25, but now it’s back down again, cause times are tough. And she’s gotten older.

How did you develop your really fast, kind of rambling style- is that something you did at the beginning or did it develop later?

BS: That’s something I did at the beginning. I was influenced by people like Rodney [Dangerfield], who would just talk and didn’t stop and give people time to react. If you felt like you weren’t getting a laugh, you’d move so quick to the next thing that you’d never have time to not do well. I’ve kind of removed that from my way of being, cause a lot of that was out of nerves, being worried something wasn’t gonna hit. But what I’ve kept- what I’ve learned to do is make it kind of like jazz. All I do is think of a premise, such as, No matter what sick stuff you can think of, someone out there is doing it- someone has done it. Which could involve inanimate objects or sea creatures. And that gives me 12 minutes of things to discuss with people, and it becomes kind of like planned improv. You touch different bases and see what the audience laughs at. It is like jazz, you’re not sure where it’s gonna go.

What’s your experience been like performing in the Bay Area in the past?

BS: I’ve been playing up in the Bay Area my whole career. In the early 80s I would go up and do Cobb’s when it was in the Marina. I actually was there the night it closed at Fisherman’s Wharf, and I was also there to open it at the old Wolfgang’s, where it is now. So I’ve known Tom Sawyer a long time. I played the Holy City Zoo, which was a place when you probably weren’t even born yet. Robin Williams used to go up there, Jeremy Kramer, and a lot of guys. I would play The Other Cafe one week, and Dana Carvey would be there the next week. I liked The Other Cafe a lot, it was a really important place. A guy named Bob Ayres owned it and ran it.

He’s actually putting together a reunion show.

BS: Wow. That’d be cool. Where is he gonna do it?

I don’t know if he has a venue yet, but I think it’s gonna be in 2010.

BS: Well, he was always good to me. I did so much comedy there in the Bay Area over the years, and then I didn’t do it anywhere except L.A. for awhile. Then I went to The Warfield a couple years ago and just loved it. It feels like coming home a little bit. My comedy roots were in L.A., but my comedy brain wasn’t really in L.A. Everybody in L.A. is trying to get a movie and a TV show. I was here in ‘78, so Leno and Letterman were working. Everybody was working out material. I became friends with Dana Carvey and I’d go up to San Francisco and think, “Oh, this is where I should live.” I would always feel guilty that I wasn’t living there, cause everywhere else didn’t feel as though it had as much validity. It’s kind of how Boston is when you’re working in New York all the time and being a specific kind of comedian, then you go to Boston where you get to really gestate and grow as an artist. Obviously San Francisco is a place where I would go for artistic integrity- (laughs) I just got weirder and weirder the more I worked out there.

Did you play guitar in your act back then?

BS: I used to be only a guitar act. I was such a guitar act that at the end of the set, I would sing While My guitar Gently Weeps and I would turn a valve on the guitar and water would pour out all over me. The audience liked it cause I was soaking wet, so I was able to combine props with music. One time I was standing next to Larry David at the Improv in L.A. This was even before he was on the show Fridays. He was like, “All these people want is fucking guitar acts and prop acts.” Then he looked at me and realized he had just pretty much summed me up in one sentence. And then he was like, “Oh, sorry… what is wrong with these people?”

How did San Francisco become the setting for Full House?

BS: I’m not sure because I wasn’t in the original pilot, another guy was in it with John [Stamos] and Dave [Coulier]. And then they re-did it. I was getting fired from a morning TV show in New York. I came to L.A., screen-tested really quick, and then I was in this thing. I guess it was Jeff Franklin, who created the show. He must have come up with the idea to make it San Fran. Here we are 20 years later, and that shot- the logo font of Full House over the Golden Gate Bridge is like, literally a famous piece of pop culture.

All the tourists go by to look at that house, it’s crazy.

BS: I know- nobody goes by the What’s Happening house. (laughs)

Where’s that one at?

BS: (laughs) I have no idea.

What’s the new show you’re doing on A&E?

BS: This was actually a huge thing to mount. We shot in Ukraine, the pilot episode. We’re awaiting word from A&E what its destiny will be. This was me helping guys find mail order brides. It’s really interesting. It’s dark. Age of consent is when a woman says yes.

And they were willing to be on TV talking about that?

BS: Yeah, it was really amazing. In reality shows, people sign their life away when they do these things, but… it’s a willingness to want to be on camera, and portray your journey. These guys are looking for love, as crazy as that sounds. It was fascinating. That would be just one of the subcultures we’d be looking at. I could go and meet Geisha men in Japan, or I would go on the road with a biker gang and try to help them with their problems. It’s a very ambitious show, so I don’t know how many we would do, maybe 9 or something. By 9 I’d have a lung removed- it’s a hard show to do. It’s a very unusual piece- it’s a comedy documentary. It’s not like a travel show, it’s more of an anthropological show.

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