What You Never Knew About Bob Saget
Comedian, actor, director, and television host Robert Lane "Bob" Saget died "suddenly" on January 9, 2022, aged 65, BBC News reported. Bob Saget is, of course, best known for playing Danny Tanner in the long-running sitcom "Full House," which ran on ABC from 1987 to 1995 and aired almost 200 episodes, per IMDb. He is also remembered as the original host of "America's Funniest Home Videos" and as a beloved stand-up comedian. Saget was even nominated for a Grammy for his explicit comedy album "That's What I'm Talkin' About" in 2014.
Saget is survived by his wife Kelly Rizzo and three daughters — Aubrey Saget, Lara Melanie Saget, and Jennifer Belle Saget — whom he shared with his ex-wife Sherri Kramer. On the evening of January 9, his family released a statement confirming his unexpected death. "We are devastated to confirm that our beloved Bob passed away today. He was everything to us," they said (via People). Knowing that Saget's work reached people across the world, the statement also addressed his fans: "We want you to know how much he loved his fans, performing live and bringing people from all walks of life together with laughter."
Saget's ability to make people laugh undoubtedly made the world a happier place, but interestingly, this wasn't always the career path he was going to take. When he was young, Saget planned to become a doctor, but thankfully, his teacher urged him to take a different path. "[She] told me, 'Don't become a doctor, become a comedian,' and she saved thousands of lives," he joked while sharing praise for Lee County teachers in a Cameo video.
Bob Saget won an Oscar when he was 21
Before the "Full House" fame, a young Bob Saget wrote and directed the short 1977 documentary "Through Adam's Eyes." He won a Student Academy Award for the black and white film, which was about his nephew, who underwent facial reconstruction surgery (per The New York Times). His mother, Rosalyn Saget, was Philadelphia's "head executive at [the] Children's Hospital," which gave him the opportunity to tell the story, Saget shared with WhereTraveler.
Saget credited his "Philly roots" for this early success. "It's a good town because if you make it big in Philly, they're very loyal to you. ... I really built myself in Philly. It feels like home because I was like an embryo growing there," he explained.
Saget answered that filming "Through Adam's Eyes" was his fondest memory from Philadelphia, noting that because the film received so much attention, it took him back to L.A., where he launched his Hollywood career in a very full circle experience.
Bob Saget had a complete transformation after emergency surgery
In 1978, Bob Saget had left Philadelphia and moved to Los Angeles permanently. He planned to attend film school at the University of Southern California, but he dropped out a few days later. "I figured I'd already gotten my undergrad degree, anyway. So I went back into comedy, performing at The Comedy Store and The Improv," he explained to Ability Magazine.
"I was a cocky, overweight twenty-two-year-old," he recalled to The Saturday Evening Post in 1990 (via Biography). Saget expected life to continue in this upward trajectory, but a few months later, he underwent life-changing emergency surgery, which transformed him both mentally and physically. "I had a gangrenous appendix taken out," he explained. "[I] almost died, and I got over being cocky or overweight." After his surgery, Saget physically transformed into the tall and lanky American Dad persona he became known for.
Full House turned Bob Saget into America's Dad
For decades, actor-comedian Bob Saget has been affectionately referred to as "America's Dad." He got the nickname from starring in the long-running ABC sitcom "Full House" as Danny Tanner. Danny was the father of three young girls, DJ, Stephanie, and Michelle, who were played by Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
The Olsen twins, who shared the role of Michelle, were just nine months old when "Full House" began, and Saget took care of them like he was their dad — even changing their diapers on set. "Cameras were rolling and one of the young ladies had made a poop, which had to be removed or we would have been holding a child with a smashed-poo-filled diaper for a long scene," Saget recalled in his memoir "Dirty Daddy" (excerpted by Us Weekly). He had since reminded them about these on-set "favors." "The joke I have with them is that I diapered them," he told Pop Eater (via Us Weekly).
Saget was also a dutiful real-life American Dad off-screen, too. His daughters, Aubrey, Lara, and Jennifer, grew up alongside his "Full House" family. However, sometimes his extended family didn't always get along. "My daughter would smell the other baby on me when I came home and think I was cheating on her," he joked (via People).
When the series ended, Saget continued to star in dad roles — appearing in "Raising Dad" and "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd" — which only added to his "America's Dad" status.
Bob Saget almost missed out on playing Danny Tanner
"Full House" fans will all agree that the sitcom would have been completely different (and possibly not as good) without star Bob Saget playing the now-iconic television dad, Danny Tanner. However, Saget almost missed out on the role. In fact, the show came so close to going ahead without him that there was actually a whole other pilot without him in it. John Posey was originally attached to the sitcom as neat-freak Danny Tanner. "[ABC] picked it up with me, and everything was fine, until about a month or so later when I heard otherwise," Posey later revealed to Yahoo Entertainment.
It turned out that the "Full House" showrunners wanted Saget all along, but he was attached to CBS' "The Morning Program," which meant he wasn't free to star in the sitcom — until he suddenly was. "I did that for about five months and was fired," Saget explained to Ability Magazine.
Suddenly everything changed, and the pilot was reshot with Saget. Posey thought the whole thing was "weird," admitting to Yahoo that he and Saget couldn't have been more different. However, it was clearly meant to be, since it set both of the actors on the paths which would make their respective careers.
Bob Saget was a hero off-screen
While Bob Saget and his "Full House" co-star John Stamos were driving in to work, they "witnessed a car accident," Saget explained to Maxim. Most people continued to pass by, Saget recalled, but he and Stamos stopped to help. "A woman's car got hit, and we jumped out of our car because nobody else stopped."
Thankfully, they managed to help the unconscious woman, but the actor-comedian feared he'd given her a fright when they were trying to wake her up. "This poor lady wakes up, and what she sees is me and John Stamos, dressed like Danny and Uncle Jesse, looking into her window," Saget said. "Full House" was still filming and at the height of its fame when the accident occurred. "This woman must have thought she died and went to sitcom hell!" Saget joked. "Like, they'd take her to the ER and the cast of 'Growing Pains' is waiting there," he added. Hopefully, she saw the funny side of the situation.
Bob Saget's charity work was very important to him
Bob Saget did a lot of charity work throughout his career and was a global ambassador for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. "I try to help whenever I can, and I love being part of it," he said in 2006 (via Forbes Breaking News).
However, Saget was involved with the Scleroderma Research Foundation for the longest period of time, a charity for a cause which became very close to his heart. "I got a call from someone I did not know asking me to host a comedy fundraiser for a disease I knew very little about," Saget recalled to People. "I said yes and hosted the event, which starred Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O'Donnell and others. Little did I know that just a few years later, my sister would be diagnosed with the disease."
After his sister died from scleroderma, a disease which hardens the skin, in 1993 at the age of 47, the actor-comedian considered it "one of my life's missions to find a cure for this disease," as he shared on Instagram in 2021. While there is still no cure, Saget has helped raise millions of dollars for research, per the Schleroderma Research Foundation website.
The 1996 film For Hope was a personal project for Bob Saget
When his sister Gay Saget died from scleroderma at age 47, Bob Saget channeled his grief into a film loosely based on her illness and death. He directed the TV movie "For Hope," which was released three years later, in 1996. "It was a very emotional and fulfilling project, a moment in my life that I will always treasure," said Saget, per Scleroderma Research Foundation.
Saget felt the film raised awareness and "helped put scleroderma on the map for many." He was very vocal about his sister's illness and the toll this took on her and their family. "It is incredibly painful to have a loved one experience a condition like this. It is a very painful disease," he explained to People. In 2017, he revealed that Gay had been misdiagnosed earlier in her life, and had things been different, she wouldn't have had to die, as he shared on "The Rich Eisen Show."
Comedy was Bob Saget's passion
Bob Saget started doing stand-up comedy when he was 17, but it wasn't until he was in college that he got his big break. "I started performing stand-up at my friend Stephen Starr's club ... I did impressions of Bob Dylan — the usual stuff that everyone does when they have a guitar — and I opened for Frank Stallone and Valentine, and Richard Belzer and Rich Hall ... Every time I see [Starr] I tell him that he started me," he told WhereTraveler.
Saget enjoyed a long career in comedy after that, notably playing dust-busting, goofy dad Danny Tanner in "Full House," while also continuing to tour as a stand-up comedian spouting jokes of a more adult nature. His material also included parodies of his "Full House" character.
Saget's raunchy stand-up style didn't match his American Dad persona, though. "People feel like they know me. And that's what happens from being in people's living rooms when they grew up. Then they watched the other stuff that I did with my [stand-up] specials or other parts I've done, and they realize, oh God, this is hilarious, the duality," he told AL.com, adding, "But it's all the same person." Saget loved having this duality within his career, and it was something he chronicled in detail in his autobiography, "Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian."
Bob Saget had two short stints on Broadway
Fans of Bob Saget's comedy and TV work might not know that the actor briefly segued into theater. In 2007, he starred in the Tony Award-winning play "The Drowsy Chaperone" for the last four months of its run on Broadway. "I'm a closer," he joked on "One on One with Steve Adubato." He returned to Broadway in 2015 for the "outrageous and raunchy" play, "Hand to God." Saget took over the role from Marc Kudisch, again for the play's last few months on stage.
Saget relished being able to dive deep into a new character in "Hand of God." "It is the character, and it is the opposite of my stand-up persona or the bawdiness [of my usual work]," he explained on "Today" in 2015. "It's a wonderful character. It's a stretch for me in that he's a good man and he's not cynical or snarky or sarcastic, but he really wants to help."
Bob Saget cried at the end of How I Met Your Mother
Bob Saget was not looking for a long-term, voice-only role in 2005, but when the opportunity for "How I Met Your Mother" presented itself, he couldn't turn it down. Pam Fryman, the show's executive producer and director, "called and said, 'Look, we think you'd be right to be the voice of Josh Radnor [Ted Mosby].' And I said, 'Why doesn't he do it?', which everybody's been asking since. And the reason was, they just wanted him to sound older, and people knew my voice. It was a familiar voice," Saget revealed to AL.com. After reading the pilot, he knew he wanted to be a part of the show.
Bob Saget had a pretty recognizable voice, but you may not know he narrated the CBS sitcom, because he asked not to be credited on the project. He explained his reasoning, saying, "I'm not the star, I'm a guy that's kind of sewing it up." Saget narrated the show for nine seasons, bar the final episode. Radnor took over to close the story, which was a creative decision Saget wholeheartedly agreed with. He loved the ending of the show and revealed that he cried with the cast and crew during the table read.
Over nine seasons, Saget and Radnor became close colleagues and friends because they had "similar philosophies about life and acting," Saget told AL.com. Radnor paid tribute to his friend on Twitter, saying in part, "He was the kindest, loveliest, funniest, most supportive man. The easiest person to be around."
Bob Saget appeared on famous reality television competitions
Bob Saget won the classic game show "The Dating Game" in 1979. "It's before you get a job, you go on 'The Dating Game' because they wanted to have comedians," he recalled on "The Rich Eisen Show," also noting that he got a year of health insurance for participating. Saget, who went on the series twice, is in the company of other celebs such as Tom Selleck and John Ritter, who also appeared on the show.
Years later, Saget appeared on another competitive television show, but sadly didn't win this time round. In 2020, he competed in "The Masked Singer." "It was a really fun experience to do it. I didn't want to get my head taken off that early though," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Saget, who is a born entertainer, said he chose his costume — the Squiggly Monster — because it was so funny. "They showed a couple other different renderings to me, and there was just no question, because I looked at it and I laughed out loud. That's usually the key. It's a joyous-looking thing," he explained. "It's something that a kid would want to pick up, with all the eyes that look like those little three-eyed guys in 'Toy Story.'"
Bob Saget was really close with his Full House family
Bob Saget touched many people's lives, but perhaps none more so than his fellow "Full House" family. The series ended in 1995, but the cast reunited on-screen about two decades later. "It's amazing to go back to Warner Brothers, two stages away from where we did [Full House]," Saget said on "Today" in 2015.
However, "the legacy cast" never parted ways off-screen. In 2006, Saget told The Daily Northwestern that the cast kept in touch "all the time." "We went to dinner in Malibu. There were fourteen of us and people were just looking at us. They were probably thinking, 'What is with these people?'" he recalled. The "Full House" cast share a lifetime of memories, and along with members of the "Fuller House" cast, they have taken to social media to pay tribute to their beloved co-star following his sudden death on January 9, 2022.
"I am broken. I am gutted. I am in complete and utter shock. I will never ever have another friend like him. I love you so much Bobby," wrote John Stamos on Twitter. While Candace Cameron Bure, who played his first-born on-screen, took to Instagram to share some of her favorite photos with Saget. "I love you sooooo much. I don't want to say goodbye. 35 years wasn't long enough," she wrote alongside the images. Saget had previously spoken with AL.com about the special bond and "closeness" he and Bure shared.
On January 10, 2022, Saget's "Full House" family shared a joint statement via social media across their accounts in honor of their "sweet, kind, hilarious, cherished Bob. He was a brother to us guys, a father to us girls and a friend to all of us. Bob, we love you dearly. We ask in Bob's honor, hug the people you love. No one gave better hugs than Bob."