Saget says new act cleaner, more demented

Bob Saget says the seniors have him figured out: "You talk nasty, but we know you're a nice young man."

Others still are confused by the dirty jokes colliding with the kind face, which is at least the way he'd like people to view his mug. "My dad was like that. Kindness was his most important thing," he says of the father he lost last year.

But Saget's parents also dealt with the deaths of four children; the comedian is the only one of five siblings still alive. As a coping mechanism, "We all laughed at sick crap. Everything sick."

Saget teams up with another veteran stand-up, Jeffrey Ross, today at the Hard Rock Hotel. His routines and song parodies once again will contrast the sitcom dad of "Full House" with comedy that everyone but Saget seems to think is some of the raunchiest out there.

"I'm not cursing as much, but I think it's more demented in many ways," he says of his current set. "I don't like clinical stuff. I don't like gynecological stuff. I like talking about bathroom and sexual stuff, but kind of in a (comedic) mislead.

"To me it's not hard-core. I don't go inside the fallopian tubes. Unless it's really important, and I'm trying to save someone's life."

Saget still is trying to live down the dubious honor of being one of the filthiest standouts among 100 comedians in "The Aristocrats," a movie that explores the craft behind stand-up by having everyone tell the same dirty joke.

Saget's contribution is better understood in the long, uninterrupted version on the DVD extras. "It looked like I was saying 'Help me' the whole time, which is accurate," he says.

"It's basically me responding to Paul (Provenza) and Penn (Jillette, the filmmakers who recruited most of the comedians through personal friendships). They're egging me on, and I'm saying, 'I can't do this,' and that's the joke, really."

But it was a joke seen by more people than he ever dreamed. "I've been in four documentaries where they interviewed tons of comedians. I didn't think anyone was going to see it, and here I am talking to you three years later."

Saget since has been busy with his own "multihyphenate" career, including the film spoof "Farce of the Penguins," which he wrote and directed.

But Saget was doing stand-up on the Strip in the 1980s, before his TV career elevated him from the Comedy Store ranks. He still considers stand-up "public speaking in the purest form really," and admires the comedians such as Richard Pryor, whose stage personas were extensions of their real selves.

"If I was myself, it would be really boring because I would like to think I'm a really kind person and I get embarrassed."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0288.