By Giselle Barkley and Chelsea Katz
He’s got it, dude. If “it” means having the raunchy brand down pat.
Bob Saget brought his not so family-friendly humor to a full house Thursday at the Staller Center. Doors opened at 7 p.m. with lines of students waiting well into the Administration Building’s shadow and the audience itched for Danny Tanner to leave his gig at “Good Morning San Francisco” and for Bob Saget to take the main stage on campus.
But before Saget took the stage, opener Liza Treyger warmed up the audience, joking about her personal life and her love of drugs. Then, the man of the hour entered the spotlight.
“I’ve never been here but I’ve had sex with most of the campus,” he told the packed crowd. But his mind is not always in the gutter.
Saget originally made his name in an ABC sitcom from 1987 to 1995 as a single dad raising his three daughters with the help of his friends. He was also the original host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” He was the adult voice of Ted Mosby in CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother,” which ran from 2005 to 2014.
Before pursuing any of his acting dreams, Saget dreamed of being a doctor. While attending Temple University in Philadelphia, Saget took several science class, but he still had not found his place until he enrolled in film school.
During his first time on Stony Brook campus, Saget spent the first part of the night trying to figure out what a Seawolf was.
“I’m in Stony Brook. It’s four f***ing thousand miles from everywhere.”
Saget’s comedic roots took hold when he was 17. But raunchy comedy was not accepted in the early 1970s. According to Saget, comedians just had to be weird.
“In the beginning, I said my mother was Gumby my father was Pokey and I’m Mr. Potato Head,” he told student media.
And he got weird with the Seawolves with his own raunchy flavor. He incorporated them into his stand-up by hitting on some students or insinuating that some were on drugs. He also catered to the full house- pun intended-by responding to students who yelled to him on the stage from the crowd.
His stand-up was a complete 180 from his iconic role as family man Danny Tanner. But that role was really just another paying job.
“You do what you get hired to do, to do family programming,” he said prior to the show. While Saget’s style of comedy was a shock to those who know him as a family man in the beginning, Saget said that after 20 years, people get used to it.
His comedy routine bridges the gap between different generations as sons have brought their mothers and fathers and daughters have brought their fathers.
“When a daughter brings their dad I’m like ‘what is going on here this is so inappropriate’ and I’m the one that’s offended not them,” Saget said. Regardless, his stand-ups have become a family affair.
In his show at Staller, Saget paid homage to his family man roots by reminiscing about his scripted emotional talks with his “daughters.”
Saget brought up James Jr. Iannotto to the stage and sat him down. Emotional music filled the air. The music sounded “like I used to talk my daughter, Michelle.” Saget put his arm around Iannotto. And then he did not say anything remotely like Danny Tanner would say to his fictitious daughters DJ, Stephanie and Michelle in the last five minutes of Full House.
Screams grew louder and louder each time he name-dropped Full House characters and actors, specifically Dave Coulier, who played Joey Gladstone. Though the screams were definitely higher pitched when it came to Uncle Jesse, who is better known John Stamos. Ask Saget—Stamos always has greek yogurt dripping his mouth.
Before the night ended, Saget broke out a guitar—that is right, he did not stop singing after he split with Uncle Jesse and Joey—and sang self-censored songs and others that were not meant for television.
His performance might not have been one that an audience would expect of Danny Tanner, but it was completely saturated with Saget.
“I was told that he was going to be raunchy but I was not expecting that all,” Nisha Rath, junior pharmacology major, said.
