Bob Saget was a Philly ‘kid with a dream’

Bob Saget — one of Philadelphia’s favorite sons — died Sunday at age 65.

The foulmouthed comedian-turned-squeaky-clean TV dad-turned back into foulmouthed comedian was beloved by the comedy community and Philadelphia, the city where he was born and had some of his first breaks. Over the years, he’s talked of his love for the city, where he graduated from Temple University, and the ways it molded him into a lifelong jokester easy with a four-letter word.

Here are some of the times Saget spoke affectionately (and otherwise) about Philly.

In his own words, from his 2014 book Dirty Daddy, Saget was often confused for a “Navy brat,” moving from place to place after he was born in Philadelphia. But, after a stint in Virginia, he moved back to the Philly area.

“I was born in Philadelphia, moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and lived there till I was fourteen, then moved to Encino, California, to learn about materialism, and then moved back to Philly at seventeen, just for my senior year, graduating from Abington,” Saget recounted in his memoir. “What you have just read is why I often got bad grades in English. I only had one teacher who gave extra credit for run-on sentences.”

» READ MORE: Comedian Bob Saget dies at 65; Temple grad started his career in Philly

After 11th grade, Saget moved back to the Philadelphia area from Los Angeles and graduated from Abington Senior High School, he said. It was in the Montgomery County school where Saget began to think of stand-up comedy as a viable career path, harnessing the nervous energy that he was known for.

“I had always gotten off on making people laugh, in my household and at school,” Saget said in his book. “I still didn’t think I’d actually become a stand-up, but somehow it just started to happen. At about seventeen, on a fluke, I entered an FM radio station contest (WMMR in Philadelphia) and won. I went onstage at a club and sang a song I’d written called ‘Bondage.’ At seventeen. I wasn’t exactly Janis Ian, although I looked like her a little. I’m glad the song was loud and upbeat so I couldn’t hear people asking for their checks.”

After making a movie called Beach Blanket Blintzes, Saget had a screening for the film in Elkins Park at the junior high school. Although he called the movie “the worst movie ever made,” Saget introduced the film with a stand-up comedy routine, one of his first stints at the craft.

But Saget’s first break was courtesy of lifelong friend and Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr. Then a nightclub promoter with the club Stars in Queen Village, Starr gave the young comedian some stage time.

“He invited me and allowed me to open for people,” Saget told The Inquirer in 2016. “He had me opening for Frank Stallone and [his band] Valentine, which, if you’re opening at Second and Bainbridge, you can’t get more appropriate.”

» READ MORE: Like Bob Saget? Thank Stephen Starr.

Through his years at Temple University, Saget did stand-up throughout the city, getting tons of stage time at Starr’s club. Starr’s early belief in Saget’s comedy started a friendship that lasted for decades.

“Stephen is really the first person of note that thought I was funny and gave me my start,” Saget said in his book. “You can blame him”

At Temple, while continuing to do stand-up gigs, Saget also made films, and a documentary about his nephew called Through Adam’s Eyes won a student Academy Award in 1978.

In a tribute to his friend Monday, Starr posted a message Saget had sent him, playfully (read: inappropriately) wishing him well and celebrating the 20th anniversary of Starr’s restaurant The Continental.

“I am truly heartbroken. I helped launch his career when he was an unknown and performed at my nightclub Stars. He was an incredible talent and I knew some day he would be a superstar,” said Starr.

For several years, Saget bounced from comedy gig to comedy gig, serving as the MC at The Comedy Store and warming up crowds before tapings of Bosom Buddies, the Tom Hanks sitcom.

A producer on the show would introduce Saget to his big break.

In 1987, Saget shot to stardom when he was cast as Danny Tanner, the wholesome, goofy patriarch in the hit sitcom Full House. Then just 31, Saget told The Inquirer that moving from New York to Los Angeles with a wife and child was difficult.

“It was pretty stressful,” Saget said in 1987. “I had 10 days to shoot a pilot, find a house, get two cars, and order a phone.”

Coupled with a stint as the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, Saget became a household name and paved the way for a decades-long career.

On train rides from Philadelphia to New York in his freshman and sophomore years at Temple is where Saget would conjure up dreams of success in show business. He’d sign up on a 12-hour wait list to perform at The Improv and Catch a Rising Star, both renowned comedy clubs, Saget said, hoping to get a few-minute set in what would be his ticket to some sort of fame.

“That train ride built character,” Saget said in his book. “I was the kid with a dream — and a really s — guitar. Not quite a regular-sized guitar, not quite a ukulele, kind of a Shetland guitar. Being such a freakish instrument, maybe it made my music seem larger in scope than it was. Right, no, it did not.”

While at Temple University, juggling documentary filmmaking and stand-up comedy, Saget received guidance from Lew Klein, broadcasting pioneer and namesake of Temple’s media and communication building. Klein served as his mentor, always rooting for Saget and vouching for him, even when Saget wasn’t sure he was worth vouching for.

“I want to talk for a second — not long — about how Philly changed my life and how the experiences and the people that helped me changed my life in Philly,” Saget said at the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards. “I was doing stand-up comedy. I won a radio contest at WMMR. Stephen Starr — the wonderful restaurateur — took me in at a club called Stars. And then Lew Klein. Lew Klein, a hero of mine. A mentor of mine.”

While at Temple, Klein helped Saget get his first internship in show business, a gig at The Mike Douglas Show. There, Saget was a gofer, getting suits for Douglas and writing cue cards when the usual guy was off, he said.

But that internship got him started, said Saget, as he learned through “osmosis.”

And when Saget made the documentary about his nephew, Klein used his sway to get local chapters of the Academy to take a look at the film.