Call it paternal instinct, but America’s favorite TV dad Bob Saget feels like he needs to comfort audiences these days. While he won’t be handing out Danny Tanner-style hugs at his Saturday night show in Boston, the “Full House” icon does plan to use his raunchy, “dirty daddy” stand-up persona to help fans find some joy amid the chaos of 2017.
How pumped are you to be coming back to Boston?
Boston is one of my favorite cities that exists. I kind of always toyed with the idea of moving there, but I never did just because I’m a kind of a wuss when it comes to weather.
Do you feel any obligation as a comic to give people a brief rest from the constant cycle of awful news?
Every comedian I’ve talked to, from Marc Maron to Bill Burr, they also feel the same way, which is, “I need to do this right now. The people need me right now.” It’s more the Superman mentality of trying to save Gotham from all the evil rhetoric that we hear. Before talking to you, I needed to look at CNN because I wanted to find out if anything happened. That’s the life we’re in right now. Our life is you wake up and you want to see if something happened in the middle of the night.
Did you learn any big lessons from Don Rickles?
He had a way of treating everyone kindly and graciously. And the insult was because he knew who he was. He found out that was his hook, say something mean to somebody. But it wasn’t mean in the way that people are mean now. And Don treated people with great dignity. I’m going to miss him forever. I’ve taken it pretty hard. He was really like a second dad to me.
Between your stand-up and acting on “Fuller House,” you seem to be enjoying your work more than ever these days.
I did a “Fuller House” last week, and it’s crazy. I had the best time. I don’t understand what’s happening to my life right now. I loved doing it. They wrote a really great script and everybody’s like, “Why wasn’t Bob like this 30 years ago?” There’s no complaining. I think I’ve just grown up and there’s just more a collaborative feeling to everything.
