Bob Saget, a comedian who delivered squeaky-clean punch lines on the family-friendly sitcom “Full House” and raunchy gags on the stand-up stage, died Sunday in Orlando, Florida, at age 65.
A tweet from the Orange County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office said Saget was found unresponsive in a room at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, and pronounced dead. No cause of death was given, but the sheriff’s office said, “Detectives found no signs of foul play or drug use.”
On Saturday, Saget had performed a two-hour set in Jacksonville, Florida, and he posted later that night on Instagram that he loved performing before the “very appreciative and fun” audiences.
“I guess I’m finding my new voice and loving every moment of it,” Saget wrote.
Saget was best known for his 1987-95 run on ABC’s “Full House” as Danny Tanner, a role he reprised on the recent Netflix reboot “Fuller House.” He told the Sun-Times in 2016 that stayed close with his co-stars, who included John Stamos, Dave Coulier and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen.
“There’s a piece of magic that hit with the casting years ago, and as a result we all got to have friends for life,” he said. “Every single person on that show has been there for me in a different way.”
Stamos tweeted, “I am broken. I am gutted. I am in complete and utter shock. I will never ever have another friend like him.”
All the while he was playing neat-freak Danny as part of ABC’s fun-for-all-ages TGIF sitcom lineup, Saget was performing adults-only routines in clubs. He named his 2014 memoir “Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian.” In the 2005 documentary “The Aristocrats,” about an infamously vulgar joke, his version of the bit stood out for its unbelievable smuttiness.
“My [comedy] that people perceive as dirty or foul or filthy, it’s really just silly,” he said in the Sun-Times interview. “Actually it used to be worse. Twenty five years ago, while doing ‘Full House’ and ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ I was stomping my feet saying, ‘Hey c’mon I’m not that clean-cut guy,’ but now I just do it because I love the art form and being able to be funny.”
Saget was the first “America’s Funniest Home Videos” host and lasted eight seasons on that ABC show, also a family favorite. On the 2005-14 sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” he narrated as the unseen father of two teens learning the story of their parents’ courtship.
He directed two very different films in 1998: the Norm Macdonald comedy “Dirty Work” and the 1998 made-for-TV drama “For Hope,” starring Dana Delaney.
On social media, Saget was mourned by comedians including Jon Stewart, Joel McHale, Patton Oswalt, Joe Rogan and Gilbert Gottfried.
“Bob Saget was as lovely a human as he was funny,” legendary TV producer Norman Lear wrote on Instagram. “And to my mind, he was hilarious. We were close friends and I could not have loved him more.”
