Bob Saget, ‘Full House’ Father Figure, Dead at 65

Bob Saget, the foul-mouthed comedian who became the family friendly face of ABC in the ’80s and ’90s as the widowed father figure Danny Tanner on Full House and as the gregarious host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, has died at the age of 65, according to a report filed on TMZ.

Saget had just kicked off a string of stand-up dates he had promoted as the “I Don’t Do Negative” tour. According to a tweet published at 3:42 a.m. today, Saget performed for an “appreciative audience” at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall in Jacksonville, Florida on January 8, but TMZ is reporting that he was found dead in his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando at approximately 4 p.m. this afternoon (January 9, 2022). No cause of death has been listed as of yet.

Saget began his entertainment career in the mid ’70s performing stand-up in comedy clubs across the nation. The Philly-born Saget earned a reputation for working blue, and was widely known for being one of the filthiest, dirtiest stand-ups on the circuit, which is very ironic considering his ascent to fame on the extremely family-friendly ABC sitcom Full House in 1987. Saget was not originally cast in the pilot; he replaced an actor named John Posey as the widower Danny Tanner, and the show hit ratings gold, running for 8 seasons and anchoring ABC’s mega-popular TGIF lineup until the show’s cancelation in 1995. Saget would go on to reprise the role in Netflix’s Fuller House, which ran from 2016 until 2020.

In 1989, Saget began hosting America’s Funniest Home Videos, a show which capitalized on a newly flush American population’s obsession with camcorders home video recording. The show was originally produced as a one time, one-off special, but hit such a nerve with the viewing public that ABC immediately dialed up a full season, which has led off ABC’s Sunday night programming ever since. (Saget turned the AFV reins over to John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes in 1998.)

After leaving ABC, Saget continued to work steadily across a variety of mediums. He directed the late Norm Macdonald in 1998’s cult comedy classic Dirty Work, narrated the entirety of How I Met Your Mother, wrote and directed the EXTREMELY dirty March of The Penguins spoof Farce Of The Penguins, heckled Dave Chappelle in Half-Baked, played himself on multiple seasons of Entourage, performed a number of stand-up specials (including 2017’s Zero To Sixty), and hosted a beloved podcast (Bob Saget’s Here For You), making millions of people laugh along the way.

Lest you think I forget, Saget’s telling of the infamous “Aristocrats” joke is only rivaled by Gilbert Gottfried’s. (For more context, definitely check out the 2005 documentary, The Aristocrats.)

Saget is survived by his three children, and wife Kelly Rizzo, whom he married in 2018.