Bob Saget lives.

| 11 Nov 2014 | 12:05

    BOB SAGET His shirt and brown jacket are unwrinkled, his hair perfectly combed over and his smile, chiseled and wide, could launch a thousand game shows. He's a father of three in real life, a family man. All of which makes what comes out of his mouth that much more shocking and downright strange:

    "Tell me why I sucked dick for work? Danny Tanner was not gay."

    Full House fans know that this line could only be uttered by Bob Saget, raunchy-comedian-turned-sitcom-dad-turned-tv-host-turned-raunchy-comedian. Now 47, Saget is in town to celebrate the opening of the new Laugh Factory just west of Times Square. Most famous for playing Danny Tanner on Full House, the tv father of everyone's favorite twins, Saget is rediscovering his roots as a stand-up comedian in New York after, as he puts it, "being a whore in L.A."

    Saget started doing stand-up 28 years ago, working the old Improv and Catch a Rising Star, his punch lines every bit as crass as those of his idols Richard Pryor and George Carlin. But Saget has always looked like he should be doing Encyclopedia Britannica commercials, not NC-17 routines where the fart jokes are the timid material.

    Worse than his annoyingly prim appearance, however, is that his jokes haven't been screened for funniness:

    "Tonight's specials are cake and cock, and we're out of cake."

    "Don't touch me, I have SARS."

    (To a woman in the audience) "What instrument do you play? The male organ?"

    At one point he picks up an audience member's cellphone and dials the number for Miguel, no doubt to hear Miguel's shock to be speaking with the former host of America's Funniest Home Videos. No such luck: Miguel has never heard of him.

    Backstage, Saget's in a chatty mood. We talk about censorship and family and the show that continues to haunt him: Full House.

    "I can't watch it. I'd be a fool to complain, but I get tired of hearing it everywhere I go. I'm not ashamed of what I did, but I just wasn't allowed to be funny? I couldn't come out and grab my crotch."

    Right, funny.

    He gabs on the phone for bit, hangs up and says, "That was Ashley," referring to one of the Olsen twins. John Stamos was on the line before that, he jokes. "We're still close," he says of the former cast of Full House. For eight years they were his family as much as they were America's.

    A photographer asks to take a picture of the ever-grinning dad from tv. "He wants a headshot? He wants to give me head?" Saget asks, flashing a wide smile for the camera.

    Right, funny.