Friday, June 3, 2005 | 8:10 a.m.
It's time this columnist confessed her secret past: I am a former Hollywood child actor.
But not in the overindulged, drug-addled, convenience-store-robbing kind of way. Thankfully, my mug shot isn't on file anywhere.
I don't use the term "child star" because, well, I wasn't one. Actually, the handful of television and movie roles I landed during my late teens were entirely of the blink-and-you'll-miss-me variety. (Go ahead and blame my agent -- I did.)
Before writing me off as another garden-variety "extra," know that the highly technical industry term for my well-paid-but-talentless kind is "background," which also served as my cue once the cameras started rolling.
My first acting job in 1989 was playing a junior high school student in a crowded cafeteria scene on the ABC sitcom "Full House." Back then, the show's pint-sized stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen couldn't count their fingers, let alone their millions.
You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who recalls my prime-time television debut -- and that's exactly how I like it, given the goofy '80s garb and sky-scraping bangs I was sporting.
Include a stunned Bob Saget among that group.
"So, we met before?" the longtime comedian -- who from 1987 through '95 played clean-cut, neat-freak father Danny Tanner on the series -- asked after having the tidbit tossed at him during a recent interview. "I can't believe you were on the show."
Gee, I haven't heard that one before.
Luckily for Saget, his "Full House" following has proven far more pervasive than mine.
For eight seasons, his hug-happy, widower character raised three young daughters with help from a pair of fun-loving, live-in buddies. Sitcoms don't come more G-rated than that, folks.
On the other hand, Saget's stand-up act -- which he performs Saturday at House of Blues at Mandalay Bay -- should be slapped with an NC-17 rating.
There's a reason he's earned a reputation for having one of comedy's foulest mouths: "I've got many too many penis jokes, I'm just telling you right now," he says.
Let that serve as a warning to parents: Leave at home any youngsters who may watch the "Full House" reruns airing ad nauseam on cable's Nick at Nite and ABC Family Channel. The latter (as well as on the PAX network) is also where replays of Saget's stint, from 1990 through '97, as host of ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" can be seen.
"My stand-up ... is not meant for kids. It's fun, and it's in-my-pants comedy," he said during a call from Richmond, Va., where he performed his act in May, shortly after wrapping a successful off-Broadway run in the Paul Weitz play "Privilege."
In it, Saget portrayed -- what else? -- an '80s-era father accused of insider trading.
While working in New York for three months, "I would go out and do a little bit of stand-up while I did the play," he says. "Now I'm getting my sea legs strong again."
And getting back to the business of surprising fans who know Saget best as a straight-laced television patriarch.
"It does shock people," he claims of his very blue bits, "but it's only for a couple of minutes and then they start laughing. It is funny to watch. It's like a deer in the headlights at first for some people, and it's like, 'What happened to Mr. Tanner? Where did he go?' "
Actually, Saget's "core audience" is the 18- to 28-year-old set, whom he figures has already witnessed his raunchy side. He uttered an unprintable line in the 1998 comedy flick "Half-Baked"; and had an excrement-and-expletive-laced cameo in 2003's "Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd."
"They watch the stuff that I've done (and) they go, 'Oh my god, he's cool,' or, 'He's crazy,' which I am a little bit," he concedes.
Onstage, "I get to blow up that image that some people have of me, but yet I talk about things in my stand-up act that anybody would if their life is what my life is," including his real-life role as the divorced father of three teenage girls.
He also addresses his family-friendly TV days: "The shows that I did that people around the country and around the world know about, and every disclaimer you can think about -- whether my jokes sucked on the 'Videos' show, or whether I was too goofy on 'Full House' with the bouffant hairdo."
Maligned by some for his work on the series (particularly "AFHV," which was loaded with corny one-liners), he reminds that for a while the shows enjoyed simultaneous top-10 Nielsen ratings.
"It's not easy to be the host of a clips show and be funny. You're edited into oblivion. It's prime time, it's family time, it's Sunday night," he contends. "And anybody that goes, 'Boy, your jokes sucked,' " the 49-year-old Saget replies, " 'Yeah, well they sucked for eight years.'
"It was very successful and it made a lot of money for the network and the producers, and I did really well. It wasn't my kind of comedy but, ironically, it was my kind of comedy for the character that I had to be in that time slot with that show. I think people are silly when they criticize it, because what have they done?"
Still, it stings "when people go, 'I always hated you on your shows, but I love your stand-up,' " he says. "It's like, 'Whoa, thank you for that. I think you just negated the compliment.' "
Saget and the rest of the "Full House" cast (myself excluded, of course) have remained "very close." Despite claims to the contrary earlier this year in an installment of E! network's "True Hollywood Story," he says he's particularly chummy with actor John Stamos, who played Uncle Jessie.
"We talk practically every day. It's really obnoxious," Saget jokes.
Nearly all of his former co-stars also caught performances of "Privilege," he says, including teenage entertainment moguls the Olsens, who call the Big Apple home.
"We went out to dinner a lot," he says of the starlets, whose good looks, well-publicized personal problems and career moves Saget often finds himself defending in the media.
"Those girls are smarter than most people I know that are older. They're very dignified, savvy; they're lovely girls," he says. "I don't get defensive unless I have a reason to, but it's like someone talking about my own kids."
Saget has resumed making his television rounds: He recently appeared in a dramatic role on the Showtime drama "Huff"; and will guest as a fictionalized version of himself on an upcoming episode of HBO's series "Entourage."
"I'm like smoking a bong and hanging out with hookers," he explains. "With any intelligence, I should have not gone by my own name, but I decided to play Bob Saget. I'm in a robe and I didn't shave for a week and I'm smoking cigars."
Meanwhile, early buzz has Saget stealing the show in "The Aristocrats," a documentary due later this summer, created and executive produced by Las Vegas magician Penn Jillette and comedian Paul Provenza.
The film's premise: More than 100 comics take turns telling filthy variations of the same ancient, X-rated joke. According to a recent Entertainment Weekly item about the flick: "No one is funnier -- or more disgusting -- than Bob Saget."
"It's an old, dirty joke; it's a terrible joke, and I tell it head-bowing throughout the film. That's dirtier than my stand-up" material, the comic contends.
Career-wise, "What I'm going through right now ... it's like a second chapter for me," Saget says, explaining how he's decided "that I'm not gonna do stuff that doesn't make me laugh, that doesn't feel true to me or doesn't affect me emotionally. I'm not just gonna do superficial work."
As of late, industry execs "are approaching me" about participating in various projects, he says, noting that he may direct a movie or star in another New York play. "Now I've gotta figure out what I'm gonna do, because apparently I'm hot."
Out for laughs
Robert Schimmel headlines at 10 p.m. today and Saturday at Monte Carlo. "Last Comic Standing" alum Tammy Pescatelli -- profiled here in July 2004 -- is also on the bill. Tickets are $37.75 to $44.
Russ T. Nailz, who graced this space in November 2003, plays Tuesday through June 12 at The Improv at Harrah's.
Dennis Miller takes over MGM Grand's Hollywood Theatre Thursday through June 13. Tickets are $79.
Catch Mike Epps, who was featured in Laugh Lines a year ago this month, when he headlines July 2 at Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $30.50 to $50.50. The comedian co-stars in "The Honeymooners," set to hit the big screen on June 10.
archive
