Comedian Bob Saget first noticed Miller Theatre by accident. He passed by the venue while on a campus tour with his daughter, Lara Saget, now a sophomore at Barnard. “I flashed, ‘I wonder if they do stand-up in here,’” said Saget.
On Wednesday night, Miller Theatre did do stand-up, Bob Saget-style, to a sold out crowd. Organized by Bacchanal, a student-run campus organization dedicated to organizing student events and promoting Columbia spirit on campus, the event featured an opening performance by sketch comedy group Chowdah and an hour-long set from Saget.
Saget said he was honored and excited to perform for Columbia students. “I also like to give back to the schools,” he said. “It’s a really really amazing school … and to have a kid going here is a real honor.”
Saget is known for his philanthropy as well as his comedy, and all of the proceeds from his Columbia appearance will go to the university. “It’s just nice to do something,” he said. While Saget did not choose a specific destination for the money, he expressed a desire for it to contribute toward Columbia’s arts programming. “I want it to go to the things that allow people to follow things they love to do—if it’s art, if it’s literature,” Saget said.
Saget confessed that he likes playing the college scene. “College kids love ‘Dirty Work’ and ‘Half-Baked,’ but nobody saw it when they came out, and ‘Aristocrats’ is weird and ‘Full House’ they grew up on,” said Saget. “I feel like I’m better for people of college age almost than my own age.” Saget’s hopes for the evening were high: “Hopefully it’ll be a night people tweet about.”
On Wednesday night, his comedic style was a characteristic mixture of ADD-induced grade-school potty jokes, graphic sex humor, and tailor-made jabs at Columbia. Saget’s rapid-fire approach barely left the audience time to breathe between laughs. Instead, Saget carpet-bombed the crowd with jokes—sometimes using a quick pace to compensate for a lack of creative material. “I’m a work in progress,” he said.
His stream-of-consciousness style included several self-referential asides, often referring back to earlier hilariously crude comments. While the pace took some getting used to, Saget’s Columbia-specific material kept the performance personal.
Before making his first crack at Barnard, Saget ripped into audience member Daniel Weinstein, CC ’11, for everything from his stereotypically Jewish last name to more intimate—and hidden—physical attributes. Much of Saget’s humor stemmed from attacks on individual audience members and on Columbia in general.
“When a Jew hears seven dollars [the price of admission], they show up,” he joked. Though the humor sometimes played on stereotypes, Columbians were only too willing to laugh at both themselves and the not-so-P.C. humor.
Saget lived up to his naughty reputation, inundating the audience with no-holds-barred sexual humor. As he announced on stage, “Dick jokes, that’s what I do.”
The second half of Saget’s set featured a change of pace. The comedian sang original songs including “My Dog Licked My Balls”—a crowd favorite during what was a weaker half-hour.
Following up with the tune “Danny Tanner Was Not Gay,” Saget segued into the comedic highlight of the evening—his “Full House” material. He declared John Stamos the “gayest man on Earth” and informed the audience that Uncle Joey shaved his balls. He also recounted his usual response to girls gushing that they grew up watching him on “Full House”: “Now watch while you go down on me.”
Despite his sometimes gag-inducing material, Saget contends that he takes his profession seriously. “Comedy is an art and it’s a craft and I love it,” he said. While his career includes credits in filmmaking, television, and Broadway, Saget said, “Stand-up is an immediate thing. I liken it to a hard-drive, it’s always whirring in a performer.”
“It [comedy] is like a base station that you get to go off into other galaxies for a while,” said Saget. “But I love going back to it all the time,” he said. “It’s home plate.”