Bob Saget knows he’s everyone’s TV dad. Credit: Natalie Brasington
“Sorry I’m late,” says Bob Saget. “I just called a guy — wrong number — and I said ‘Hello, it’s Bob Saget,’ and the guy goes, ‘Who are you?’”
It’s safe to say that this would not be a problem afflicting most people if they got a phone call from Bob Saget. He’s spent years planted firmly in the public eye thanks to his double duty on ‘90s nice-fest sitcom “Full House” and the pre-YouTube place to catch videos of people hurting themselves in creative ways, “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” And thanks to a searingly perverse take on the titular joke in the comedian documentary “The Aristocrats,” he’s also fairly well-known as one of the world’s premier purveyors of what we’ll call “lewd” material, since this is a family publication.
Despite the phone misfire, Saget is feeling reflective. The comedian/famed TV dad heads to the Wilbur on Saturday for a standup set, but also has a new memoir out, called, fittingly, “Dirty Daddy.” In it, he addresses, as he often has to, how one man can be both an infamously filthy comedian and a famously nice TV dad to a generation of people who grew up watching him. But he also talks a lot about the tragedy that has followed the Saget family over the years, which may be less well known to the public, but was influential in him having such an off-kilter sense of humor. It was as good a reason as any to write a book.
“Why is my comedy bent? Why do people think it’s messed up or bent or weird? And I went, well, it’s always been like that. It’s pretty easy to figure it out. There’s just more death than usual… My parents lost four kids, my dads lost his three brothers. Just a lot of stuff happened that was tragedy-oriented and it was always dealt with with some irreverent type of humor that people found inappropriate. Not dirty or anything, just weird because life can deal you such crappy stuff,” says Saget.
Much as he enjoyed working on the book, though, he’s happy to be back in Boston at the Wilbur, which he praised as a place for people who love comedy. “It’s nice to get on the phone and talk about something that I get excited to do, which is go to Boston and play the Wilbur. It’s like coming home again every time even though I’m not from Boston.”
He’s even a fan of the tourist opportunities available here. “I do the obligatory Freedom Trail. I don’t do it every time. I like to go to Paul Revere’s House, make sure everything’s still there.”
Sadly, Saget says he can’t stick around to take a duck tour this time through, but you can still catch him at the Wilbur Saturday at 7 p.m. or read the memoir, out now.
If you go
Bob Saget
Saturday, 7 p.m.
The Wilbur
246 Tremont St.
$29-$43
www.thewilbur.com
