069 Foul House transcript (Bob Saget)

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[00:00:00] Amit: It's time for Famous Gravy, life lessons from dead celebrities. Now the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:08] Michael: This person died 2022, age 65. In his last year of college, he won a Student Academy Award for a documentary called Through Adam's Eyes about a nephew of his who had undergone facial reconstructive surgery.

[00:00:23] Friend: Hmm. Is this, um Whoever wrote the mask. Is that what this is? It's not the guy.

[00:00:29] Michael: It's not the guy who wrote the mask. Alright. After his sister died of a rare autoimmune disease called systemic sclerodoma, he became a board member of the Sclerodoma Research Foundation.

[00:00:41] Friend: So this guy's got, what is it, a nephew that faces this?

[00:00:46] Michael: He was cast in the 1987 Richard Pryor film, Critical Condition.

[00:00:56] Friend: That's the one where Richard Pryor's a doctor? I mean, it's not John Candy, is it?

[00:01:03] Michael: Not John Candy. You might know this based here, but I don't see. He directed Dirty Work, a comedy starring Norm Macdonald. And already lying.

[00:01:12] Friend: It's, it's Norm Macdonald.

[00:01:14] Michael: Not Norm Macdonald!

[00:01:14] Friend: Oh, no, no, it's not, it's not, it's not.

[00:01:15] Michael: It's not Norm Macdonald.

[00:01:17] Friend: Ah, shoot.

[00:01:17] Michael: He said he was drawn to jokes with foul language and raw anatomical references because he wasn't supposed to talk that way in his youth. Quote, I stayed like a kid who just talked silly.

[00:01:29] Friend: Gilbert Gottfried?

[00:01:30] Michael: Not Gilbert Gottfried. He played Danny Tanner on the long running TV sitcom, Full House.

[00:01:36] Friend: It's America's Funniest Home Videos. It's Bob Saget.

[00:01:39] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Bob Saget. That's great.

[00:01:45] Archival: So you had no, no self hatred about all those shows. You know, my, my silly, uh, my funny career is that people always go, Oh, he's not the guy that you know from those shows.

[00:01:54] I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it's like saying, yeah, it is, it's a supreme joke of pop culture that I got to do that. I just want to be happy, you know. Are you? Yeah. How do you do it? It just happens.

[00:02:15] Michael: Welcome to Famous Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:18] Amit: And I'm Amit Kapoor. Michael and I are looking for ways to make life better.

[00:02:22] Michael: And we believe that the best years might lie ahead. So on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and we go through a series of categories reviewing their lives to extract wisdom and inspiration.

[00:02:34] We want to know, did they climb the upward staircase? And at the end, we answer the question, would I want that life? Today, Bob Saget died 2022, age 65.

[00:02:49] Amit: Do we acknowledge this is episode 69 for Bob's sake?

[00:02:53] Michael: Yes, I think we do.

[00:02:54] Amit: That's not intentional, people. We didn't do it. But for as much as Bob Saget was the dirty joke guy.

[00:03:00] Michael: Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I'm going to cut in here for just a quick minute. Not everybody knows that Bob Saget was not just America's dad. Uh, he is also a fairly raunchy comic, and

[00:03:12] Amit: We always have some adult content on this show and some foul language. In this episode, there's a little more than usual of adult content.

[00:03:22] So if you're listening with children, just proceed with care.

[00:03:26] Michael: All right. Category 1. Grading the first line of their obituary. Bob Saget, the stand up comic and actor who was known as Danny Tanner on the long running sitcom Full House, As the host of America's Funniest Home Videos and for his Deadpan Ribbled Stage Routines was found dead on Sunday in Orlando, Florida.

[00:03:47] He was 65. What the hell is

[00:03:49] Amit: ribbled? Okay. I'm like already talking. Ribbled. It's like a little hasty because I'm manifesting Bob

[00:03:55] Michael: Saget. Oh Saget of you. Yes. Uh, ribbled means, uh, I'm looking it up now, referring to sexual matters. In an amusingly coarse or irreverent way. Wow! Wow, that's like the perfect word.

[00:04:07] That is like the most Bob Saget y of Bob Saget

[00:04:10] Amit: words. It is, but we'll still have to talk about its appropriateness for general audience. Yeah, seriously. If I knew what that meant, I'm loving this off the bat. I think we need to discuss, I mean, it's a perfect word to describe Bob Saget's stand up comedy and his post America's Funniest Home

[00:04:23] Michael: Videos life.

[00:04:24] Perfect word. I really feel like Like, this is what I look for, man. When we critique the first line of the obituary, I want them to pull a word out of a hat that's like, Gosh, what does that word mean? That's a great, you know, SAT word. I mean, this is the artistry that I want. Like, it's not just like a good job.

[00:04:41] It's like. Excellent job.

[00:04:43] Amit: Is it even if, like, the general audience doesn't understand the definition? Like, if you have to pull out your phone But that's actually kind of what makes it

[00:04:50] Michael: work, right? I think thatso, here's what I I missed it the first time I read this a bit.

[00:04:55] Amit: And you would miss it on the 32

[00:04:57] Michael: years ago.

[00:04:58] But I think that's okay because I think this is actually the, like, third most important thing about Bob Saget in a way. You know him. They even say that. They even use the words, was known as, you know, like Danny Tanner and Full House have to get it in there. America's Funniest Home Videos have to get them in.

[00:05:14] I mean, both those, those twin properties, those twin shows, that was what we knew him for. Yes. And that was what almost everybody knew him for. And then he has this whole second life where he surprised us with being like a really blue comic.

[00:05:28] Amit: And they probably could have stopped after America's Funniest Home Videos.

[00:05:31] And a lot of people would have been satisfied except for us. Totally.

[00:05:34] Michael: Instead they go right into an obscure word which kind of gets at like his street cred as a stand up comic, deadpan ribbled stage routines, and then they even say was found dead on Sunday. Because there was a sudden death, and I think you have to use the words was found dead.

[00:05:49] Yes, you do. When that's the case. Yep. I gotta say, like, this one goes to 11 for me. Okay, well

[00:05:54] Amit: I get, uh, we gotta address what's burning a hole in me. So is saying ribbled better than just saying sexually irreverent? Yes. Why?

[00:06:02] Michael: Because of everything that is in the definition of rippled, it is referring to sexual matters in an amusingly coarse or irreverent way.

[00:06:12] This is one word doing the work of five words. Yeah.

[00:06:15] Amit: You know? You sometimes come across that in Scandinavian languages, you see a word. Yeah. That just describes something that we normally take 26 words to describe. Hundred percent, yeah. So maybe that's it, maybe you're selling me on it. So you're, you're loving it all over.

[00:06:28] Michael: When I say 11 out of 10, I kind of mean that. I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10. But yeah, this is a perfect one to me. This

[00:06:33] Amit: is perfect. Uh, I think I'm talked into the casual dropping of rib hold. So yeah, I think they nailed it. I think they nailed it. Merely retin

[00:06:42] Michael: 10. Well done, New York Times. This is why we go to you for the obituary.

[00:06:47] All right. Category two. Five things I love about you. Here, Amit and I come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. Who wants to go first? Uh, you go ahead. Okay. I'm gonna say learned to be himself by never growing up. Okay. I like it. This is a little bit of the, you know, Bob Saget story.

[00:07:09] He started doing comedy at a very young age, like, into high school, right? And he was interested in it in college, and he actually had a high school teacher say, because he wanted to be a doctor. He had a high school teacher say, you need to do something creative. You should think about writing or something else.

[00:07:22] And he got into comedy. And, you know, did his time as a comic. I mean, he came up in this sort of incredible generation of comedians with Gary Shandling and Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Pryor was around, all this comedy store, you know, lore, right? And it sounded like he was impatient for his success. And then he gets, you know, Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos, almost simultaneously, and is rocketed to superstardom.

[00:07:49] He then develops this, kind of comes out as being like a really raunchy, You know, blue collar guy who curses a lot and has a filthy mind.

[00:07:57] Amit: And that's his entire routine for the next 25 years. More or

[00:08:00] Michael: less. But he and his biography, his autobiography, does talk a lot about how he didn't really know himself.

[00:08:07] You know, he's a very classic story of, like, looking for himself kind of on stage, finding validation in the crowds, thinking it's all going to be, like, okay when he hits it big and becomes famous. And then He keeps, like, in the last 10, 15 years of his career, he keeps coming back to, you know, I just want to entertain, and I basically have the mind of a 14 year old.

[00:08:30] Has anybody ever taken Viagra here? Someone said yes on television. Sir, you have taken Viagra? Where are you? Raise your hand, sir. Raise your penis. Um, and what is your name, sir? Jack, that makes sense. Uh, why? You take them right though. You take them orally. Don't put them in the pee hole. Because, I call it a pee hole by the way.

[00:08:55] It's gonna be in my TED talk. I know it's called a urethra, but she's my favorite singer and she's retiring, so. I guess what I was trying to get at with the learn to be himself by never growing up, I think there's some things we should not outgrow. You know, you and I talk a lot on this show about the upward staircase and about like what we want out of life, what kind of life, you know, life lessons we can learn from looking at the lives of dead celebrities and so forth.

[00:09:19] Maybe it's okay for a certain 14 year old way of thinking to just occupy a certain part of your mind, your brain, and that be who you are, and that be like where you go to to make people laugh, and to make a career out of that and say I, my body will age, and I will mature, and I will encounter, you know, life's challenges and so forth, but I got that.

[00:09:37] This one part of me that's really important, and I'm gonna go back there and tell dick jokes and use the word diarrhea and so forth to make people giggle and to make myself giggle. Maybe we don't have to outgrow everything, you know? It's not exactly inner child, it's more like inner adolescent, but I love that about Bob Saget.

[00:09:55] Amit: Well, you use upward staircase, which is a phrase that both you and I love. Yeah. But there, I think there can be a misconception that upward staircase means development, right? It means actual, like, personal growth equals a certain, uh, type of maturity. Yes. And what you are saying here is that Bob Saget achieved that upward staircase, and he seemed happier, seemed more fulfilled, seemed more inside his body.

[00:10:17] Yeah. By regressing his sense of humor. Right,

[00:10:20] Michael: or by hanging on to it. You know, by never letting go about, uh, of some part that, to him, that felt true. Yeah. You know? And I, I love

[00:10:27] Amit: that about him. Who gives a flip if it's a pathway to fulfillment? Totally. So that's my number one. Okay, my number two is actually a great, uh, lead in, it's uh, Internet did not kill the sitcom star.

[00:10:39] Oh, good. Because I, I think Bob Saget was one of the last. that could exist, as he did, in this duality of, uh, being a family dad and host of America's Funniest Home Videos, yet also being a raunchy comic at the same time. The way you tell the story is, is true in the public light. Yeah. Right? He went from sitcom dad and host to raunchy comic, but he was always raunchy comic.

[00:11:03] Yes. He was always Dirty Bob Sackett. Yeah. And I don't think that could exist in a post internet world. Because there would just be too much uproar and too many clip sharings of how does this show, which is meant for an audience of age six and above, how can this guy be the lead actor in it? Yeah. Uh, and so I think he was on a very interesting, like, end of an era type of thing.

[00:11:25] So

[00:11:26] Michael: tell me what you love about that.

[00:11:27] Amit: Place in history, right place, right time. Bob Saget, 20 years later, couldn't thrive.

[00:11:34] Michael: I want to ask you about this. Like, what is your, I basically assume you have the same, uh, relationship to Bob Saget that I had prior to the research of this episode.

[00:11:45] Amit: Yes, 100%. I mean, I don't, I think, probably seen 90 percent of the Full House episodes.

[00:11:50] Oh, okay, so

[00:11:51] Michael: never mind. I'm more like 5%. Okay.

[00:11:54] Amit: Maybe 85. It

[00:11:56] Michael: doesn't matter. Well, what I'm saying is I couldn't stand the show. And I will say this, and I wonder if you had this experience. America's Funniest Home Videos, at the time, I did not like Bob Saget's voiceover. I thought his voices were annoying as hell.

[00:12:09] Boys, I don't

[00:12:10] Amit: know

[00:12:10] Michael: about you, but I'm sick and tired of these leftover stale breadcrumbs she's throwing at us. What does she think we are? Pigeons? There's no flavor in these. They're not even salted. I got an idea. Let's get her. Come on, go for the bag. Let's go!

[00:12:33] Amit: Clip's almost over. So that's another thing. I mean, we watch that as a family every Sunday night. I remember it was that and The Simpsons, it was always spaghetti dinner Sunday night. Like that, in the Kapoor household, was a thing. So,

[00:12:45] Michael: this is the thing. My parents did not watch TV with me. They were just not interested in what I was watching.

[00:12:49] So I was not tuning in to those things. Okay. So it's not my fault. Yeah,

[00:12:53] Amit: so no, but I'm saying I was raised by Bob Saget. Yeah,

[00:12:57] Michael: okay, so okay, interesting. In, in that way. So you, so your impression of Bob Saget up until, what, Half Baked, or The Aristocrats, or? No, it actually

[00:13:06] Amit: changed earlier, because the narrative is like both Full House and Funniest Home Videos ended around like 95, 96.

[00:13:12] And then he becomes this different Bob Saget. I remember very clearly seeing him on set. Something, something I think on Comedy Central or may have been like a later night talk show where I saw the raunch in Bob Saget Okay, I was like Danny Tanner is is got a putty mouth Oh, yeah, he's pretty filthy and he's funny the very first

[00:13:30] Michael: moment.

[00:13:30] I had was half baked. I'm here today because I'm addicted to marijuana Marijuana is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. I seen him Now that's an addiction man you ever suck some dick for marijuana No, I can't say I have. I didn't think so.

[00:13:51] Amit: Fourteen year old me saw him on Comedy Central and was like, Oh, this guy likes dirty jokes.

[00:13:56] Yeah. And it was confusing. Yeah. It was confusing to me. It was almost like this cool fun fact. Yeah. You know, it's like something you share at the cafeteria lunch table, like, Hey, guess what I learned? The guy from Full House says dick a lot.

[00:14:07] Michael: Actually, that's a pretty good segue into my number three. Okay.

[00:14:10] I'm going to say best kind of dad. Like, I watched enough Full House to know that he loves his kids no matter what, and, uh, and is a big hugger and is also a clean freak. Like, there's something very fatherly about him. He was very well cast for that part. Even if I didn't care for the show, like, he was the right guy for it.

[00:14:29] But even as you discover this other raunchier side of him, he never quite Sheds that, like, lovable dad quality. In fact, if anything, it's sort of like, now that you're old enough to hear these jokes, don't you love him even more as a dad? And the way he talks in real life about his real life daughters, um Which are

[00:14:51] Amit: actually three daughters that post divorce, so

[00:14:54] Michael: it's the same as the show.

[00:14:55] Yeah, there's a little bit of life imitating art there. Yes. There is an unmistakable, like, they are the priority in my life full stop. How many do you have? I have three. Uhhuh . How, how old are they? I don't know. You don't know? No. They're 23. 21 and 17. Your daughters? Yeah. They're brilliant. They're much smarter than me and I don't, do you have kids?

[00:15:13] I have none. I have no wife. I have no kids. I Do you want it? I mean, do when you hold someone's kid? Yeah. Do you run for the fence? No, I, I like kids. Do you like it? Do you hold the kid? Do you feel like I held a baby last night. She was just adorable. You know, I'm, this is a maybe generic thing to point to, but I, I love his, not just dad humor, but his like dad qualities, like I think that there's a lot to learn from him as a kind of nerd, you know, raunchy mind, but also like just so full of love, uh, like and love for the family, and, and like, I, I really think that's That defines so, so much of his

[00:15:50] Amit: character.

[00:15:51] Yeah. That you, you play the part that you need to play when you play it. Yes. That you don't abandon yourself.

[00:15:55] Michael: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that's where Sagat said he got it from was his dad. I mean, he talks in his book about his dad being his father, and I think we'll get to it as we go, but like, he learned at a very young age, humor And to some extent, taboo humor and gallows humor was, like, the way to deal with the tragedies of life.

[00:16:17] Correct.

[00:16:17] Amit: And from his father, who was a supermarket executive. My dad,

[00:16:20] Michael: we had a very weird existence. I was 11, and he was a meat executive. He was like a head of meat. He was a meathead, basically. He was this This sick guy, really funny, but just said weird stuff. He went through the depression. He would say jokes like, Ask me how I slept last night, how'd you sleep?

[00:16:35] Like a baby with your mom's tit in my mouth. I didn't know what he was talking about. He would do dumb things. He said, I read the newspaper today. I think it was a misprint. I didn't know if the guy shot himself or shit himself. Just a walking rim shot, the whole thing. Yeah, and he said it in a different world.

[00:16:49] His dad would have been in entertainment. But, you know, he's just born a child of the, uh, of the Great Depression and a working class guy. Okay. So that's my thing, number three.

[00:16:58] Amit: Nice one. All right, I'll take number four. Um, second choice. So you just made a reference a few minutes ago about he being cast in Full House, but he was choice number two.

[00:17:08] Michael: Yeah, who was number one? I could

[00:17:09] Amit: never find it. A guy named John Posey. He was in the pilot. There's a picture I found of him posing with the cast. Posey posing? Posey posing with the cast and it's everyone but Bob Saget because it's, it's John Posey just standing in place for him. So we'll put that in the show notes.

[00:17:24] Okay. Anyway, John Posey was Danny Tanner first. Okay. And Bob Saget was doing this other show called like, Wake Up This Morning or something, which was not going well. And so he gets the call, uh, to be on full house after they've already shot the pilot. So he comes in, he was not choice number one. Yeah.

[00:17:41] America's Funniest Home Videos. Do you know who choice number one was? No. John Ritter. John Ritter. Ah, wow. So Bob Saget, choice number two. Ritter turns it down, Bob Saget jumps in, and again, his second hallmark. So I love that he wasn't first choice. I mean, I think that's, that's so important to just emphasize luck here.

[00:17:59] Yeah. You know, and maybe I emphasize timing as luck before, but I'm saying it again. Yeah. Bob Saget, symbol of luck, and we all can benefit from knowing that. It's

[00:18:09] Michael: not a bad self narrative to have, right? It's a beautiful self narrative. Yeah, I think that's, and I think that's why it's number four

[00:18:15] Amit: on your list.

[00:18:16] Totally, totally. It's the non linear self narrative, and every narrative I fully believe is non linear. Yeah. And to make it look like everyone's a first choice and they all ascend to some sort of success and fulfillment. It's boring. It's not only

[00:18:27] Michael: boring, it's not true. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:18:28] Amit: yeah, yeah. And I love examples that point it out.

[00:18:31] Michael: Perfect. Why don't you take number five? I can take number

[00:18:34] Amit: five? Yeah, I was

[00:18:35] Michael: kind of hoping for it. Well, good, because I'm going to tell you what my number five would have been very quickly. Okay. He told people he loved them. He said, make a point to tell people you love them. Yeah. Amit, I love you, sir.

[00:18:45] Amit: Thank you.

[00:18:46] I love you too, Michael. Thanks, man. Um, but Bob Saget did say that, and, and that fits perfectly. Um, my number five is his friendship with John Mayer. Yeah. A very, very unlikely friendship. Yes. But what I love about it, it seems like a Tight friendship of love. Yeah. Uh, two unlikely people. I think Saggot asked John Mayer to play at the benefit for the,

[00:19:11] Michael: I'm gonna screw up Sclero.

[00:19:12] Cle. I think Sclero DOMA is, I think how you say it, it's like there's an O in there. I had been saying scleroderma, but I think it's scleroderma. Yes. So

[00:19:18] Amit: this, this foundation that OT has been on the board for for decades, he asked John Mayer to play at a benefit in 2003. They strike up a very close 20 year long friendship, which John Mayer, if you hear him describe it.

[00:19:31] I mean, it sounds so personal. Yeah. He was like, nobody could listen like Bob listens. Nobody can accept like Bob accepts of just accepting who you are, uh, bringing yourself to the present. And that's all he did and saw you as no matter what you were before. Yeah. He, he just, he just emanates

[00:19:51] Michael: love. And acceptance is the boring part of love, but it's just as important when you're accepted.

[00:19:57] You know, weird people don't think other weird people are weird. We all know who we were in high school. We're running from it. That's the great part of meeting people for the first time. They don't know that shit. And with Bob, I was a clean slate with him. And I got to have my own unique relationship with him.

[00:20:16] And I think he had a unique relationship with me because I wasn't a comic. The unlikeliness of our relationship spoke to the truth of it and the realness of it. Because why fucking would you otherwise? Why would I otherwise hang out with Bob Saget if I didn't love everything about him on a physical and a metaphysical level?

[00:20:38] The other night I had a dream and I woke up crying. Because I saw Bob. I love that, Amit. And I think it, like, I had also on my list, his, like, he is so a member of the Comedian tribe. Like, everybody talks about what an incredible friend he was. But the John Mayer friendship somehow highlights that. Right?

[00:20:57] Because it's so unlikely. And it's so Genuine, as you said, it's so genuine and

[00:21:02] Amit: with an age gap, too. I mean, they were about 21 years apart and I look like what do they have in common? Right? Nothing. I think they had. I mean, I think they may have connected on just literally serious undertones about being celebrities and having real lives.

[00:21:15] Yeah. They probably shared some sense of humor, but it seems like they're the type of friends that could just. Sort of hang out and spill secrets. You know, or, or share feelings. Yeah. Uh, and I

[00:21:25] Michael: think it was great. Uh, so let's recap. Yep. Okay, thing number one I said, learn to be himself by never growing up.

[00:21:31] Okay,

[00:21:31] Amit: number two I said, the internet did not kill the

[00:21:34] Michael: sitcom star. Uh, number three I said, great dad. Uh, number four, second choice. And, uh, number five you said, friendships, especially with John Mayer. Yep. Perfect. Alright, let's take a break.

[00:21:51] Amit: Michael, I gotta tell you about this place. There is a bookstore I discovered, and they have prices on the books. They, in fact, named the store Half Price Books. Are you talking about Half

[00:22:05] Michael: Price Books? Yeah, Half Price Books. It's not Half Price Books,

[00:22:09] Amit: it's Half Price Books. It should be Books

[00:22:11] Michael: Half Price. It's Half, H A L F, Half

[00:22:16] Amit: Price Books.

[00:22:17] Oh, as in one half. Correct. Yeah, half. No, no, no, but I, I want Full books. Oh,

[00:22:23] Michael: no, no, you get the full book and you get it at a fantastic price. That's why they call it half price books.

[00:22:30] Amit: Well, I think I have to go there now.

[00:22:33] Michael: I think you do have to go there now. Let's

[00:22:35] Amit: start by checking out the all new HPB. com where we can find our local store, plan our next trip.

[00:22:41] Buy online, pick up in store, create our own wishlist, and more.

[00:22:47] Michael: HPB. com.

[00:22:51] Okay, category three. Malkovich, Malkovich. This category is named after the movie Being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Malkovich's mind, and they can have a front row seat to his experiences. Okay, Amit and I discussed it ahead of time. I'm gonna go first. This is somewhere in the Mid 90s.

[00:23:10] This is during a taping of America's Funniest Home Videos. Bob says this is something he still feels bad about. This is from his book. I was having a frustrating day, I know, over a blooper show. Anyway, I was wearing a wireless microphone that day, and as I walked into the men's room to take a pee break, I made a gesture to the sound guy telling him to cut my mic off.

[00:23:29] I was urinal when a crew member came in to pee next to me, and I jokingly told the guy, Bad fucking audience today, right? What the fuck's wrong with them? He agreed and we had a long pee filled two minutes of audience bashing. A lot of coffee. Life lesson here, first, don't talk bad about anybody. Good luck with that.

[00:23:47] Second, don't ever leave anywhere wearing a wireless microphone and then speak to anyone. I came back into the studio and said, How are you guys doing? A young girl in the stand looked at me innocently and said, We could hear you in there. It was like a moment from a naked gun movie. Turns out the sound guy turned off the house speakers, but the audience monitors were still on.

[00:24:10] I tried to dog paddle out of it. Oh, that. The sound guy was supposed to turn the sound off. I always say that about the audience. That's how the crew and I joke around how great an audience is. It's like opposite day kind of joke. Opposite day. Okay, so. Here's why there's a Milkovich for me. Several reasons.

[00:24:26] One, you remember the scene in Naked Gun when Frank Drummond goes to the bathroom? Yes, very much. That's why there's a mic in here. Okay, I love that scene. Uh, second, like, at this point in time, He's like Mr. Wholesome, at least for most of America. And this is a little bit of the peak behind the curtain, so to speak, of who Bob Saget really is.

[00:24:56] I don't think he was too mortified, because the guy was comfortable with audiences. I think that he had served his time as a stand up comic, and knew that, Okay, this crowd has turned against me. Let me see if I can choke my way out of it. But I'm also wondering If maybe he didn't know it was a Hot Mike moment, like, maybe he's a little bit bored with his image at that moment, and maybe kind of wants to tell the audience that they suck, you know, just to, just to like, Just to test it.

[00:25:29] Just to see, cause it, I mean, the, the, the, the departure from early Bob Saget, you know, road comic, to, you know, America's dad and the guy who, Cracks up at all these home videos and is in your living room on Sunday nights on ABC. I wonder if there's not some real, like, I've lost myself a little bit here. So, I honed in on this Malkovich moment because I love the awkwardness of it, but I also kind of like the truth of it.

[00:25:55] And hot mic moments to me are interesting. They're always funny. So I wonder what's going on in his mind at that moment. I mean, I wonder how he is relating to America, audiences, the crowd, the entertainment industry. Who

[00:26:06] Amit: am I? There's a whole bit of who am I between that 89 and 96 gap. Totally,

[00:26:11] Michael: right? And I feel like it all kind of like crystallizes here for a minute.

[00:26:15] So. That's my Malkovich.

[00:26:16] Amit: Okay. So, I'm going to take it forward two decades. One thing we haven't talked about yet, which in my mind is quite significant, is that he was the narration voice of Ted in How I Met Your Mother. Yes. And How I Met Your Mother was huge. It was huge. I mean, it's one of the biggest shows of

[00:26:32] Michael: this millennium.

[00:26:33] It's funny, I've actually watched every single episode of that. Have you? Okay, it was your Full House. It was my Full House experience, and it was when the kids were really young, and we were looking for something wholesome to watch that we could just binge on Netflix. Yeah. You know, it was sort of take it or leave it, but I enjoyed it

[00:26:48] Amit: enough.

[00:26:48] Yeah, exactly. It's wholesome ish. Yeah. And I think that's my point. So this is what, when any time I heard that narration, I didn't realize it was Bob Saget for quite a

[00:26:57] Michael: long time. I didn't know it ever until doing

[00:26:59] Amit: the research for this. But immediately it reminded me of something. Did it remind you of something, of another show?

[00:27:05] Uh, Wonder Years. Exactly. Yeah. So it reminded me exactly of the Wonder Years and Daniel Stern, uh, voicing over Fred Savage. Yeah. And the Wonder Years pretty much was the same time frame as Full House. Yeah. Shifted back a little bit. Yeah. But it's this idea of an older person reflecting back on their younger selves and narrating it.

[00:27:27] Yeah. And Bob Saget was part of that cohort. And so for him to be the voice of this adult character, but Adding the wholesomeness, and the irreverence to it, and not the 80s, 90s fruitcake of it, to be able to switch into that seat, but still be a sitcom star. Is the Bob Saget that I want to see behind the eyes from because it's exactly as you were saying as this whole, who am I, I see this as a great signature piece to the actual Bob Saget, but no longer having to be Danny Tanner, and I want to see if he Yeah.

[00:28:07] Got that satisfaction without being the raunchy comic. Yeah. Because here we only have two poles of Bob Saget. We have sitcom dad, and we have raunchy comic. And this is the perfect in between, and I want to see where it's at with

[00:28:22] Michael: him. Yeah. That's good. Okay, let's move on to the category. So Amit and I discussed it ahead of time.

[00:28:28] We have decided we are gonna go with Simpsons Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or The Simpsons as well as impersonations. And I just want to say Amit and I are also talking about this more in terms of Cameos in general, even though we're calling it Simpsons Saturday Night Live, we're going to talk about some other things here, I think.

[00:28:50] Amit: Yeah, we're broadening our horizon as we narrow our scope.

[00:28:52] Michael: Exactly, well said. So, Bob Saget hosted Saturday Night Live in 1995. No surprise. He never voiced himself on The Simpsons. That was a little surprising to me and a little bit disappointing. There is a pretty funny joke where Chief Wiggum is taking, did you see this?

[00:29:07] Chief Wiggum is taking his wife out, like, for a night on the town and Lisa says, Okay, Chief, enjoy Bob Saget! It's Bob Seger! Ah, crap. Bob Saggot was a guest on Arsenio Hall. I think those guys go back. I looked at as soon as you Google, uh, Hollywood Star, Bob Saggot, you get to see a picture of Bob Saggot, uh, there celebrating the Hollywood Star for John Stamos.

[00:29:31] Yes. Yeah. But did he have his own? No, I don't think so. But this is, he is in the category of, um, they might nominate him within a certain amount of time. So, I think he could be. I guess, like, the reason I wanted to do this category, and the reason you and I decided to do Simpsons Saturday Night Live, is that I do think that, in some ways, the most interesting thing about Bob Saget is the thing we've already talked about.

[00:29:55] We saw him as this nerdy, wholesome You know, TV dad on ABC kind of guy. And then, the two things that flipped the script for me were the cameo in Half Baked. Um, the other one was The Aristocrats. Mm hmm. That documentary about comedians telling this, like, unbelievably filthy joke. And everybody in that movie is like, well, you gotta get sagging.

[00:30:17] Yes. Right? Those things changed the story a lot, because I basically didn't care for the guy. I found him annoying. Um, I used to Even now. Now I see him as a, Good, professional comic, and you also see him, like, in a crowd with other great comics. I'm not head over heels in love with his comedy, though. Like, there's, there's very few instances where I am rolling on the ground.

[00:30:42] But the cameos continue. Entourage. Yes. Uh, you know, the entourage, like, appearances were fantastic. Hey, welcome to the neighborhood. Hey, Bob Saget. Aquaman himself. How you doing? I've been reading about you all morning, man. I live right next door. I'm a big fan, Vince. Who do you think is more recognizable, you or me?

[00:31:03] Seriously. Uh Anyway, I've taken up enough of you guys time. I'm right next door. Good to see you. Welcome to the neighborhood, man. Congrats.

[00:31:12] Amit: Who the fuck

[00:31:13] Michael: was that guy? And then he kind of like, becomes this, almost like, I don't know, cameo darling in a way. Yes. So, how famous is Bob Saget? And how desirable is this public story?

[00:31:25] I guess those are the questions I

[00:31:26] Amit: have. Yeah, I, I mean, I would think he's not famous at all. After America's Funniest Home Videos. Yeah. After 97. It's only people that have that reference point, and are thereby just somehow tickled by the new raunchy Bob Saget. Or the quote new raunchy Bob

[00:31:41] Michael: Saget. He kind of gets recast into a cult like role.

[00:31:45] In a way. Yeah, but

[00:31:46] Amit: like you said, he's not funny enough, I think, to where people in the next generation are like, Oh, this is a hilarious stand up comic, you gotta go see Bob Saget live. Yeah, I mean, I think

[00:31:55] Michael: you, if you, You are a student of comedy. You are impressed by his professionalism and by some of the things I was talking about a second ago, like ability to manage a crowd, like you have respect for him.

[00:32:06] But I don't know that he's somebody who's like style is so unbelievably unique. He's a very good professional kind of Vegas style comic, but he's not somebody who, you know, you're like, this is the mind of a generation who is challenging the way we think and is offering commentary on the human condition or on society or anything like

[00:32:27] Amit: that.

[00:32:27] Yeah, and so much of his success, I think, is attributable to the contrast, right? It's like, that's why we were so tuned into it or we were so aware of it. Within the comedy circles that you talked about with his buddies and those really well established stand up comics, I think he was a presence. You know, he went, he grew up with them in the clubs, and he's clearly bright.

[00:32:47] Yeah. Right? But maybe he wasn't the sharpest in terms of wit. Yeah. But he was quick to make a joke, and like they said, everyone loved him. Because he emanated love, and I think that's what, like, That's why he was a fun hang in those circles. And this is why I think cameos matter, because it gets yourself out there to change that image, to change the narrative that's already been ascribed to you by the viewing public.

[00:33:11] And I think that's why these Bob Saget cameos are so classic, because he had a narration he wanted to change. And I don't think it's so specific to entertainment either. I think the same thing happens, like, when you run into somebody from work. You know, you run into him, like, late at night at a bar, and you see this different side of him.

[00:33:28] Yeah. Right? You don't always get the chance to see that different side of people. And that's just what Bob Saget cameos were. He's like, I, I've got an image to change. You think it was intentional? I got to think it first, because if this is really, if things, if he did want to be a stand up again, and did want to be true to his nature, your thing you love, number one, Then he's got to easily segue into it, and he's got to take those opportunities to say, Okay, you know, for, in half baked, you know, write me a cocaine and blowjob joke.

[00:33:57] You're right. You know, um, so yeah, I could see it being

[00:34:00] Michael: intentional. Yeah. Okay, I don't think that this applies to everybody in terms of, like, non celebrities don't have to reckon with the public narrative around them. But we all have reputations. Absolutely. Right? And we all have, you know, Some presence on social media, whether that's LinkedIn, TikTok, or whatever.

[00:34:19] I mean, we're all kind of out there and available to be learned. Like the world can learn about us in different ways. How desirable is it to have a secret persona? Or maybe that's not

[00:34:32] Amit: the right language. Not secret. I don't like secret persona. I think it's the ability to Change the expectations that people have set of you.

[00:34:41] Yeah. I guess that's just due to environment, you know, and I talked about John Mayer and John Mayer's tribute to sagat. John Mayer opened his tribute by saying, you know, like none of us are the people we were in high school. We're all running from that. Yeah. Right. And that's what makes us all human. And that's what makes us all closer together.

[00:34:58] Yeah. And to hear John Mayer, you know, who is. Just an unquestionable heartthrob, even still, somehow. Yeah. To hear him say that, you know, that we're all just running from like this image that other people formed in high school of us, I think that's a testimony. You've gotta, you need that ability to do it, and there are all these other pathways.

[00:35:15] Cameos is one of them. Mm hmm. To do it and to just set your own agenda and set your own image. And you don't have to carry the old baggage behind you. Even if that baggage is 50 million from Full House and America's Funniest Videos, what's actually going to maybe perhaps make you feel fullest inside is being yourself and being able to approach people where they don't.

[00:35:37] Observed you with baggage and judgment,

[00:35:40] Michael: whether it's fame or whether it's something as simple as a reputation, you know, we all have a story about what we think others expect of us and on some level we can be protective of what we think our story is out there. You know, I do feel like the people who I admire the most are the ones who don't worry about that, right, who are simplest, and they may be multifaceted, and they may have a side that is right for the G comedy and right for the R rated, if not X rated comedy, right?

[00:36:09] But I guess what I'm trying to get at is I do feel like back to the upward staircase idea that Bob Saget found his way back to himself. I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, but I guess I'm trying to like take

[00:36:22] Amit: that story of what Bob Saget went

[00:36:25] Michael: through of like America's dad to raunchy comic in terms of self perception and is that a path of like liberation and freedom for oneself, right?

[00:36:34] And it kind of looks like it is, but I also don't know what that felt like on the inside. Hmm. I don't know, I think that's why I mostly wanted to talk about this. Yeah. Alright, should we go on to the next category? Yes. The other category that we're going to do is Control Z. This is where we look at the big do overs, the things you might have done differently.

[00:36:54] So, just so you know, I've got some real reservations about bringing this up because it gets uncomfortable. Okay. One thing we haven't talked about, Bob Saget's life was full of a lot of tragedies, just sort of all around him. His dad had like, three or four brothers, these uncles were dying all the time at young ages, unexpectedly.

[00:37:14] Like dropping dead from heart attacks. He had two older sisters who both died prematurely, one from sclerodoma, another from, like, an aneurysm. And his dad taught him about gallows humor at a very, very young age. And that became essentially his coping mechanism for dealing with life. And you read through it, it's almost like, Jesus, this guy feels, like, cursed in terms of how many deaths he's bumping up against in his personal life.

[00:37:39] It's really, like, sad, in a way. It's really hard to write, because I don't ever want to relive any of it again. And I had to, in writing a memoir kind of thing, you do your life story a little bit, and I do it in moments. I was going to say spurts, but that's about two thirds through. Because it's a dirty book.

[00:37:56] But, but it was really hard because I didn't want to go through it again. So, I found myself missing them a lot, and I went through the pain of their death, which was untimely, and painful for both of them. Uh, and so that, and then there was another chapter after that where, um, my ex wife almost died

[00:38:13] Amit: giving

[00:38:13] Michael: birth.

[00:38:14] When his first child is born, it winds up being a absolutely Terrifying moment. So, this is, he's with his first wife, he's 26 years old. She needed to have an emergency C section. While they were administering the epidural, they went into his wife's spinal column, incorrectly with the needle, and the meds went into her bloodstream.

[00:38:35] All of a sudden, this is a stage. You know, five, emergency, thirty doctors surround him, and Bob has no information about what's going on. This is absolutely terrifying. It has a happy ending. Everybody makes it out okay after hours and hours, but it sounds like unbelievably emotionally draining. So I'm holding my baby.

[00:38:56] We all have tears in our eyes. My wife is sleeping just down the hall, and we're back with Paul and Jackie where we left off. Paul looks at my baby in my arms and says, She's very beautiful. And I, allegedly, auto respond back, You can finger her for a dollar. Time stopped. It was one of those gallows jokes that just spewed out, Apologies to the universe.

[00:39:20] My poor taste comedic response poked its irreverent head out of a sea of overwhelming relief warped through tears. Oh, this is where I'm most conflicted about, Bob Saget. Okay. I made the case in Five Things I Love About You that I do love. This commitment to adolescent humor that he is willing to go to the most inappropriate, not okay, how horrific, who the hell are you, kind of places.

[00:39:49] Yes. He's also pretty clear that he doesn't want to hurt anybody. He's not attacking groups, he's not attacking individuals, he's not To use the parlance of today, punching down. Yeah. And he's very careful about that, actually. He's not even all that dirty in a way. He's more perverted, and he's more just, like, disgusting, than he is mean.

[00:40:10] Well put. This is what I find, I guess, really interesting about him. I think that this is one of many instances where, as he grows, as he To use the metaphor we've been using, walks the upward staircase of life. I think he is looking back enough to say, was I in the right there? I want to be brave. I want to be unfiltered.

[00:40:31] I want to be the kind of comic who says, fuck it, I'm going to go on stage and say whatever comes into my mind because that's what people want. But is my heart still always in the right place? This is, you know, his. Day's old baby daughter we're talking about here. And this daughter, and this ex wife, sounds like they think, they know Bob enough to love him to say, to put this story in your book, it's funny.

[00:40:52] Yeah. Right? So I wasn't going to include that tale in this book, but my ex wife said to me, you have to. It's who you are. It's what the book is about. It's about how you and our family dealt with the unthinkable things that have happened. I don't know, I mean, this is a real question for me

[00:41:08] Amit: about the It was obviously still enough of a question for him if he put it in with, in a positive in the book.

[00:41:13] Yeah, but

[00:41:14] Michael: also with all these caveats of like, you have to understand what I just went through, that we almost lost this kid, and all of that. No, what does that have to do with it? Time plus tragedy equals humor, or whatever it is. And I, I'm very, very drawn to that as a big life lesson, right? I want to be able to, the things that are most painful in my life now, God willing, 10, 15 years from now, are the things I'm going to laugh hardest at, right?

[00:41:38] And I, I want that to kind of always be true. But I do think that humor is risky in the sense that you never know who it's going to hurt. And, and maybe it's very hard to sort of police all that and have your eyes. Attentive to everybody who might be hurt by the wrong kind of joke. And so I wonder about that, like, unsettled anguish that can exist inside if that, if your instinct is to want to laugh, but also knowing that there is this risk to it as well.

[00:42:04] Yeah. And that, to me, is like, this is one story about a potential control C. Maybe Bob Saget wishes he hadn't said that about his days old daughter, DeParle Provenza, back in, you know, whatever it was, 1987. Correct. But, at the same time, I wonder about how he feels about that, about all his humor, about his entire career.

[00:42:22] Any joke you wish you could take back. Actually, like, 80 percent of them. I think he's at peace with that, but this is what I wanted to talk about. I

[00:42:33] Amit: think he is, too, with the exception of the, like, intentional things like the roast, where you're supposed to cut somebody down, or be filthy. Yeah. I think the key to a lot of comedy in his is to be nonspecific in your name.

[00:42:47] That's how you don't hurt people, is you don't name people. You don't listen. You refer to, uh, uh, you know, a character. Yeah. Right, and a fictitious character. All your jokes are about fictitious characters that are amalgamations of certain people that you cross in your life. Yeah,

[00:43:01] Michael: but they may share characteristics with a group that gets stereotyped, or that gets marginalized, right?

[00:43:07] I mean, even if you're not being specific about an individual, you can still hurt a community. Absolutely. So here's the thing, is that, like, okay, so we've now said two things that I think are really important about Bob Saget. One, you know, we like and respect him, but he's not necessarily our favorite comedian.

[00:43:21] He's not necessarily pushing, like, he feels like he's pushing boundaries, but he's kind of sort of not. In part because I do think that there is something about him that is very, like, wanting to be Both raunchy and safe, you know, um, and, and that, that's adolescence for you. So, to turn this back on us, and to turn this back on, like, what we are interested in, in terms of what we can learn about Bob Saget, and what we can learn in life stories, and, well, you know, what the life lessons are here, what to make of that.

[00:43:51] As we look at this category, Ctrl Z, I tend to think of it like, does this keep you awake at night? And I do think Bob Saget is sensitive enough and attentive enough to the relationships that matter in his life that he's, like, there's a certain neurotic element to him where I think he cares about it. I do see a kind of, Peace with himself in the last five, ten years.

[00:44:19] And even in putting this into a book. He's even got a chapter in here about things I wished I hadn't have done. And he talks about being an asshole on, you know, America's Funniest Home Videos. I mean that, there are other things that he is regretful about. But I think he, in his more objective moments, can look back at his life and say, I think I put more love and joy into the world than I caused pain.

[00:44:45] And I did it in a profession where threading that needle is no simple task. And I can be proud of myself. So, I don't think he's got big control Z moments, even though he may second guess a couple maneuvers here and there. Yeah.

[00:45:01] Amit: And he was obviously cognizant enough of pain that may have been caused later, saying, listen, daughter, this joke was told about you when you were three days old.

[00:45:10] Does this hurt you? Yeah. And they had that out and that's why it was included in the book. So obviously he was

[00:45:15] Michael: concerned. My conclusion of all this. Based on available information, is that at the end of the day, he's okay with himself. And he's okay with that joke? Is he okay with that joke? No, I think he's not.

[00:45:28] I think he cringes when he thinks on that joke. Yeah.

[00:45:31] Amit: I would leave it with this, Michael. And I think this is where, where we don't live as a world right now, and haven't for a few years, if not decades, is maybe just cringing at it is okay. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Maybe it's not a redo or regret, but just cringing at it is okay.

[00:45:49] Michael: I like that. I think it's okay to look back and cringe. Well said, Amit. All right. Coffee, cocktail, or cannabis? This is where we ask which one will we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them we are most curious about.

[00:46:10] It's funny

[00:46:10] Amit: because he's joked about doing like every drug imaginable off of like some hooker's anatomy. Yeah. Um, and so it's, it's, it's kind of funny that That, that plays through my head as I think about this. Um, but we're talking about Bob Saget the human. Right? What I see in him so much is a pretty happy guy, right up until the end.

[00:46:32] And I

[00:46:33] Michael: actually see more contentment as he grows

[00:46:35] Amit: older. Yo, absolutely. I mean, that's the upward staircase that we're talking about here is contentment, fulfillment, whatever words you want to insert. Yes. Um, and I think this guy's got some secrets to share about the way that he looks at the world. And maybe you hinted at one of them a minute ago when you said he's Could be one of those people that thinks that everything is a joke, and the whole spinning globe is just one joke, and everything is a target, and if you look at that, maybe those are the happiest people on earth.

[00:47:01] Maybe that's his wisdom, I don't know, but I want some of that Bob Saget wisdom. I don't need his sense of humor, but I want some of his wisdom on looking at the world. So how will I get that? I think it's alcohol for Bob Saget.

[00:47:13] Michael: I went the same way for the exact same reason. Yeah,

[00:47:16] Amit: I'm not sure he could handle his marbles on weed no matter how much he talks about it.

[00:47:19] No,

[00:47:20] Michael: he's a little too fast normally and a little bit, you know, frenetic as is, so I don't want coffee. I want him lucid, but I also want him a little vulnerable and just as fast. And I kind of feel like a cocktail, like he would also He might, I think he would be probably more funny one on one than he would be in a

[00:47:39] Amit: crowd.

[00:47:39] Oh, absolutely, because he plays for the cameras even in a one on

[00:47:42] Michael: one interview. I can see him belly laughing on the floor for, you know, days and hours or whatever, right? Um, yeah, I'm the same. Same substance for the same reason. Yeah,

[00:47:52] Amit: the other thing I think about this, this session where he's going to tell me over drinks, you know, how he views the world and how that may or may not make him happy, is I do think Bob Saget is also the type of guy that elevates your humor.

[00:48:04] Not because he's funny, but because he's always telling jokes. Yeah, he's a

[00:48:07] Michael: yes and

[00:48:08] Amit: improv kind of guy. Yeah, and you know those people, right? That you know that you're going to sit down and you're going to have a meal and there's just going to be a lot of jokes that are going to go back and forth. Yeah.

[00:48:15] And that he is one of those people that as soon as he sits down at the table,

[00:48:18] Michael: that's where you're going to get. Let's team up together to make this moment funny, right? Like he's got that improv gene of a yes and. All right. Yeah. All

[00:48:26] Amit: right, so we're both drinking with Bob Saget. I love it. Consecutive nights.

[00:48:29] Any kind of drink you

[00:48:30] Michael: had in mind?

[00:48:31] Amit: Um, I'm feeling whiskey.

[00:48:32] Michael: Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was thinking a little vodka. Like, I do sense a little bit of that, like, deep sadness that, you know, the great Russian novelists have. Yeah. Um, so that's why I'm going vodka. Shit, I guess we've arrived. Our final category, The Vanderbeek, named after James Vanderbeek, who famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want your life.

[00:48:54] Alright, based on everything we talked about, do you want this life?

[00:48:58] Amit: I will say this, that I was well prepared when we decided to do him to, uh, find out evidence against. So

[00:49:05] Michael: was I. I was expecting drug abuse, didn't see it. I, I, I assumed some neuroticism, which was there, but not more than I expected. And, as we keep talking about, like, the evidence for the upward staircase is stronger than I

[00:49:19] Amit: expected.

[00:49:20] It's visceral, right? You see it. You feel it. A hundred percent. Couldn't agree more.

[00:49:25] Michael: So, you know, and that is kind of

[00:49:28] Amit: what this category is about for me. I don't know. Case against. Not being funny. But, uh, that's serious. I'm very serious about that, because I would have a problem with that. I don't think he's not funny.

[00:49:41] I just don't think he's great. Yeah, but I think as long as you think you're funny. And he obviously has enough assurance of a few million fans or whoever turned out to the shows and bought the albums and so forth. Right, he has enough validation that he is funny. Well, and he's B plus funny, at least. Like, he

[00:49:56] Michael: is making me

[00:49:57] Amit: laugh some.

[00:49:58] I'm chuckling. Would you want to be a professional comedian and have people call you B plus funny? Like, that's your remembrance? In anything

[00:50:04] Michael: I want to do, I set a high standard for myself and I can be a perfectionist and I work hard, you know, I, I don't know if greatness is so

[00:50:13] Amit: necessary. Acceptance is pretty good

[00:50:15] Michael: and he certainly was accepted into a community, um, and I, you know, I, I also think like there's a lot he can point to that was just interesting, funny, and proud.

[00:50:25] I'm calling it a B somebody else might call it an A somebody might call it a C, somebody might call it an A Yeah. Bob Saget even talked about this. Like, he got to a point in his stand up where, yeah, he could always spot the guy in the crowd with his arms crossed not laughing while everybody else around him is chuckling.

[00:50:42] He's like, that guy used to get to

[00:50:43] Amit: me. I'm not for him. That's fine. So, what about this case? And I, I have an answer to this, but I want your opinion before I hint at it. Yeah. So, playing your inauthentic self for ten years, and that's the reason that you are famous, and that's the reason that you are, quote, wealthy.

[00:50:59] That is a stronger

[00:51:00] Michael: argument to me, because that feels like not exactly living a lie, but there's something cynical about that. If your dream is to be a comic and then you're watching your friends have breakout success, Jerry Seinfeld and Robin Williams, and he does talk about a certain kind of desperation taking hold, and it does

[00:51:19] Amit: feel a little sell out y

[00:51:21] Michael: to do Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos when That didn't seem like the perfect

[00:51:26] Amit: fit for him.

[00:51:28] Yes.

[00:51:29] Michael: I don't know. That's a much

[00:51:31] Amit: stronger knock against, though. Yeah, I, I think it's okay in his case. I think there's a lot of people that that is true soul destruction. Yeah. But I think he was lucky and I think he was grateful for it. Yeah. Like, he, he knows where his, his fortune and his fame and his Yeah.

[00:51:46] It allowed him to stay in the scene, to get elevated at least in the entertainment scene, still hang around all of the comedy community, and then basically be able to go at it with fuck you money. But I think these friends of his in the intellectual comedy community as he describes it were with him all along.

[00:52:04] Yeah. I think the case for Bob Saget most for me. is like what I said about John Mayer. I want to be roasted. Yeah. I do. To me, that's like, if somebody, if you're worthy of a roast, Yeah. that's, that's probably enough. Honestly, that is enough to validate a life. Because that means this many people love you, and they love you so much that they know they're not going to hurt you by making fun of your deepest, most sensitive things.

[00:52:30] We know you can take it. We know you can take it. But also, yeah. But how do you know someone can take it? Because you really, really know them. Yeah. And this seems like a guy that really, really knew a lot of people. Yeah. This guy was super duper close to a lot of people, and to where they're still kind of shedding tears.

[00:52:49] Now it's been two years after his death, but when those memorials ran, it was one year. Yeah. And man, that seems like a valuable, validated human being. You sound like a yes. I am a yes. He had fun with life. We can, we believe he more or less minimized hurt. He was conscious of that. I see an upward staircase, certainly not in maturity, but in contentment.

[00:53:12] So yes, I want your life, Bob Saget. Well

[00:53:14] Michael: said about maturity and contentment. That's, that's the lesson here, is that to me, you can divorce those things. That they don't necessarily have to be, like there is a way of growing up. but not

[00:53:26] Amit: growing out of. Isn't that the exact opposite of what, like, not only what we're grown up to believe, but what we even look around every day and see and expect of ourselves?

[00:53:34] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's actually a really Incredible insight. I'm also a yes.

[00:53:41] Michael: You completely convinced me. Because if there's one thing I learned about this guy, everybody felt like he was their best friend. And he was so, like, a member of a community because he gave back to that community. And the art was sort of separate from that.

[00:53:55] It was, you know, I'm here to mentor and to be mentored. And I'm, you know, here to participate in this thing. There's a showing up in his life all throughout that, yes, has some conflicts and maybe some moments of self deceit, but overall, incredible amount of

[00:54:10] Amit: fulfillment. It's an incredible life, actually. I want your life, Bob Saget.

[00:54:14] Okay.

[00:54:17] Michael: Amit, you are Bob Saget. Standing before you, uh, at the pearly gates is St. Peter, the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. You have an opportunity to make a pitch. What was your great contribution to the stream of life?

[00:54:33] Amit: St. Peter, I Grew out of myself, and then into myself. What I committed to this dream of life is, is that voyage.

[00:54:43] That non linear voyage of finding yourself. When the outside world thinks that success has fallen on you already, but you keep looking for the success that feels right inside. That's what I left behind. That's my message. That's all the fun I had. Let me in.

[00:55:04] Michael: Famous and Gravy listeners, we want to hear from you. We need people to participate in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity. You can email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends. You can find us on Twitter, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Threads. Our handle is at Famous Eng Gravy.

[00:55:24] We also have a newsletter you can sign up for on our website, famousengravy. com. Famous Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss. Original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.