Bob Saget

Robert Lane Saget (May 17, 1956 – January 9, 2022) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, and television host.

Robert Lane Saget was born into a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 17, 1956, the son of hospital administrator Rosalyn and supermarket chain executive Benjamin Saget.

Early in his life, his family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he briefly attended Lake Taylor High School.

He would later say that his sense of humor developed while he was a rebellious student at the Conservative synagogue Temple Israel in Norfolk.

Due to a lack of family in Norfolk, he returned to Philadelphia for his bar mitzvah.

The family later moved from Norfolk to the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where Saget met Larry Fine of The Three Stooges and listened to him tell stories.

The family then moved back to the Philadelphia area prior to his senior year, and he graduated from Abington Senior High School.

Saget originally intended to become a doctor, but his Honors English teacher saw his creative potential and urged him to pursue an acting career.

Saget attended Temple University's film school, where he created Through Adam's Eyes, a black-and-white film about a boy who received reconstructive facial surgery; he received an award of merit in the Student Academy Awards.

While attending university, he would take the train to New York City and perform at comedy clubs such as The Improv and Catch a Rising Star; his act included a section where he would play the Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", using a water bottle to make his guitar appear to actually weep.

He graduated from Temple with a BA in 1978.

He intended to take graduate courses at the University of Southern California, but quit after only a few days.

He later described himself at that time as a "cocky, overweight 22-year-old" who "had a gangrenous appendix taken out, almost died, [and] got over being cocky or overweight".

He further discussed his burst appendix on Anytime with Bob Kushell, revealing that it happened on the Fourth of July at the UCLA Medical Center, and that surgeons put ice on the area for seven hours before taking his appendix out and finding that it had become gangrenous.

He portrayed Danny Tanner on the sitcom Full House (1987–1995) and its sequel Fuller House (2016–2020).

Following a short stint as a member of CBS' The Morning Program in early 1987, Saget was cast as Danny Tanner in Full House, which became a success with family viewers, and landed in the Nielsen ratings' Top 30 beginning with season three.

Saget was the original host of America's Funniest Home Videos (1989–1997), and the voice of narrator Ted Mosby on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014).

In 1989, Saget began as the host of America's Funniest Home Videos, a role he held until 1997.

During the early 1990s, Saget worked on both Full House and AFV simultaneously.

Saget directed the 1996 ABC television movie For Hope, which was inspired by the life story of his sister, Gay Saget, who had died from scleroderma three years earlier.

In 1998, he directed his first feature film, Dirty Work, starring Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange.

Released one year after he left his role as host of America's Funniest Home Videos, the film received broadly negative reviews from critics and earned low box office returns However, it has since become a cult favorite, due partially to Artie Lange's later popularity on The Howard Stern Show where the film is sometimes mentioned, often in unflattering terms.

In 1998, Saget made a cameo appearance as a cocaine addict in the stoner comedy Half Baked.

In 2001, Saget took on another widowed-dad role, starring on Raising Dad on The WB.

It co-starred Kat Dennings, Brie Larson, and Jerry Adler and lasted only one season, from October 5, 2001, to May 10, 2002.

He served as the voice of the future Ted Mosby, who narrated the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which ran for nine seasons from September 19, 2005, to March 31, 2014.

From 2005 to 2010, Saget had a recurring role in four episodes of the HBO TV series Entourage playing a parody version of himself.

2005 also saw him partake in "Rollin' with Saget", a song by Jamie Kennedy and Stuart Stone, about a night out with him that shows off his raunchier behaviors.

The video appeared on the MTV series Blowin' Up, and he would come to use it as a pseudo-theme song on his stand-up tours and website.

Saget wrote, directed, and starred in Farce of the Penguins, a parody of 2005's March of the Penguins, which was released direct-to-DVD, in January 2007.

Saget appeared in the Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone for a limited four-month engagement.

He played "Man in Chair" while Jonathan Crombie, who normally played the character on Broadway, was with the national tour of the musical.

He was host of the NBC game show 1 vs. 100 from 2006 to 2008.

His HBO comedy special, That Ain't Right, came out on DVD on August 28, 2007.

It is dedicated to his father, Ben Saget, who died at age 89 on January 30, 2007, due to complications from congestive heart failure.

On January 4, 2008, Saget's caricature was unveiled at Sardi's Restaurant.

In 2009, he returned to AFV for the 20th-anniversary one-hour special co-hosted with Tom Bergeron.

In April 2009, he debuted in a new sitcom along with his co-star Cynthia Stevenson on ABC called Surviving Suburbia.

He was also known for his adult-oriented stand-up comedy, and his 2014 album That's What I'm Talkin' About was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

He would later appear in the 2015 feature film based on the series.