Bob Saget

Bob Saget
Saget at the 2007 O&A Traveling Virus at PNC
Born	Robert Lane Saget (1956-05-17) May 17, 1956[1] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Actor Comedian Filmmaker Television host
Years active	1977–present
Spouse(s)	Sherri Kramer (1982–1997; 3 children; divorced)

Robert Lane "Bob" Saget (born May 17, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and television host. Although he is best known for his family-friendly roles as Danny Tanner in Full House and the original host of America's Funniest Home Videos, Saget is also known for his very vulgar stand-up routine.^[2] Since 2005, he has provided the voice of the future Ted Mosby on How I Met Your Mother.

Early life

Saget was born on May 17, 1956 in Philadelphia to a Jewish family. His father, Benjamin, was a supermarket executive, and his mother, Rosalyn, was a hospital administrator. Saget lived in Norfolk, Virginia and in Encino, California, before moving back to Philadelphia and graduating from Abington Senior High School.^[3][4][5] Saget originally intended to become a doctor, but his Honors English teacher, Elaine Zimmerman, saw his creative potential and urged him to seek a career in films.^[2]

He attended Temple University's film school, where he created Through Adam's Eyes, a black-and-white film about a boy who received reconstructive facial surgery, and was honored with an award of merit in the Student Academy Awards. His friends called him "Sags". He graduated with a B.A. in 1978.^[6] Saget intended to take graduate courses at the University of Southern California but quit a few days later. Saget describes himself at the time in an article by Glenn Esterly in the 1990 Saturday Evening Post: "I was a cocky, overweight twenty-two-year-old. Then I had a gangrenous appendix taken out, almost died, and I got over being cocky or overweight."^[7] Saget talked about his burst appendix on Anytime with Bob Kushell, saying that it happened on the Fourth of July, at the UCLA Medical Center and that they at first just iced the area for seven hours before taking it out and finding that it had become gangrenous. ^[8]

Career

Early career

Saget started performing stand-up comedy and did a number of national tours. Later, in 1987, he became the co-host of The Morning Program—an attempt by CBS to take a different direction with morning television—for which he also wrote and produced content.^{[citation needed]}

Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos

Soon after, Saget was cast as Danny Tanner in Full House, which became a huge success through family viewers and landed in the Nielsen ratings's Top 30 from the third season onward. In 1989 Saget was cast as the host of America's Funniest Home Videos, a role he held until 1997. During the early 1990s Saget worked both on Full House and AFV simultaneously, and in 2009 returned to AFV for a 20th anniversary one-hour special co-hosted with Tom Bergeron.^[9]

Continued career

Saget was also the host of NBC's game show 1 vs. 100, which debuted October 13, 2006.

He plays the narrator of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which premiered on September 19, 2005.^[10] In the series he portrays the future version of the protagonist Ted Mosby. Throughout the series, only his voice is heard and it is yet to be seen if he will make an appearance.

His HBO comedy special, That Ain't Right, came out on DVD on August 28, 2007. It is dedicated to his father, Ben Saget, who died on January 30, 2007, due to complications from congestive heart failure. He was 89.

He has had recurring roles in HBO's Entourage playing a parody of himself.

Saget appeared in the Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone for a limited four-month engagement. He played "Man in Chair" while Jonathan Crombie, who normally played the character on Broadway, was with the national tour of the musical. On January 4, 2008, Saget's caricature was unveiled at Sardi's Restaurant.^[11]

On August 17, 2008, Saget was roasted by Comedy Central in a special, titled The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget.

In April 2009, he debuted in a new sitcom along with his co-star Cynthia Stevenson on ABC called Surviving Suburbia.^[12] The series, which was originally to air on The CW, ended after one abbreviated season.

In November 2013, it was announced that Saget will be touring Australia for the first time, in May 2014, with an adults-only stand-up show called Bob Saget Live: The Dirty Daddy Tour. The show will take in the major cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.^[13]

Directing career

Saget directed the 1996 ABC television movie For Hope, which was inspired by the life story of his sister, Gay Saget, who died from scleroderma three years earlier.^[2]

In 1998, Saget directed his first feature film Dirty Work, starring Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange. Coming off one year after he left his long-running role as host of America's Funniest Home Videos, the film received broadly negative reviews from critics, and earned low box office returns. However, it has since become a cult favorite, due partially to Artie Lange's later popularity on The Howard Stern Show where the film is sometimes mentioned, often in unflattering terms.

Saget wrote, directed, and starred in Farce of the Penguins, a parody of 2005's March of the Penguins, which was released direct-to-DVD, in January 2007.

Other works

In 1998, Saget made a cameo appearance as a cocaine addict in the stoner comedy Half Baked.

In 2006, Jamie Kennedy released a rap song and music video entitled "Rollin' with Saget", which featured Saget and is on his website.

In 2010, Saget starred in an A&E series Strange Days in which he follows others in different activities and lifestyles, documenting their adventures in unusual ways.

Charity work

Saget is currently a board member of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. His scleroderma efforts have further benefited such celebrities as Scary Movies star Regina Hall.^[14]

In an interview with Ability Magazine, Saget discussed how his sister was diagnosed with scleroderma at 43, and died at 47. Before that, she had been misdiagnosed many times. "Unfortunately, rheumatologists in a lot of places don’t have very many scleroderma patients come through their labs, and no one knew what to do with her. I wish I’d known then what I know now."

Because of this, Saget is involved in many fundraising benefits, towards finding a cure for this disease.

"Nobody knew about the disease at that time. Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, and myself all got involved in the benefit, but this was 25 years ago, and none of us had any real television life to speak of. Sharon Monsky, who founded the Scleroderma Research Foundation, organized that benefit."

"There’s also a Scleroderma Foundation, and we’re separate from them, but one of the Scleroderma Foundation board heads is also on the Scleroderma Research Foundation board. We’re all basically trying to cure the same thing. Our organization has raised $25 million for research. Our chairman, Luke Evnin, is an amazing man, and lives up in San Francisco with his wife, Deann Wright. They’re both brilliant scientists and doctors. Dana Delany’s on the board, Caryn Zucker, Kristen Baker Bellamy, who lost her mother to scleroderma, and is married to Bill Bellamy. Robin Williams worked our first benefit. A number of celebrities sign on, which helps to give the disease a higher profile. As you may know, Regina, a significant number of the people who get scleroderma are African-American."^[15]

Television and filmography

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bob Saget

• Official website
• Bob Saget at the Internet Movie Database
• "Regina Hall Interview". Ability Magazine. "Regina Hall Issue", April/May 2010