Bob Saget loved working with kids for his role on Full House
When the cameras stopped rolling for ABC's Full House, Bob Saget and the other members of his family would continue to share close bonds off-screen, just like they did onscreen for eight seasons.
Full House is a show about exactly the title of its name: A house shared by three grown men and three growing children — all living under one roof. And that was just for the first three seasons! The Full House family expanded even more in season four when Becky, Nicky and Alex moved in.
Bob Saget starred as one of TV's best dads: Danny Tanner, a San Francisco talk show host and widower with adorable daughters.
The three grown men dealing with three growing girls made for many funny moments on camera. These moments came naturally for Saget, who was a stand-up comedian before he was Danny Tanner.
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"It took about 13 weeks for me and the writers to figure out who Danny is," Saget said in a 1989 interview with Palm Beach Post. "It's the first time I've had an opportunity to develop a character. It took me longer to get a grip on my character than other actors. I knew I wanted him to be neat and I knew I wanted him to hug a lot. Those were the external things."
Saget bounced between stand-up sets, acting gigs, hosting jobs, and his own family at home. At the time of the Full House premiere, Saget was married and had one baby daughter named Aubrey. He said he liked working with his three fictional daughters and said they helped him prepare for the real duties of being a dad.
"They're my pseudo-children," Saget said. "I'll do things with the girls that I know I'll be doing with my own daughter when she gets older."
Full House had steadily performed in the ratings each Friday night, which pleased the Philadelphia native.
"I knew when I was four that I was funny," Saget said in a 1989 interview with Citizen Register. "It's been the only thing that I've really been secure about and the thing that's been constant, except for that dry spell in the sixth grade."
Saget said he was similar to his character in the series, and he was almost the same person as he presented himself to be on stage. He described his stand-up as: "PG, kind of a cross between Opie and Robin Williams."
A great perk of Saget's Full House job was working with his co-stars, Dave Coulier and John Stamos. According to the interview, Coulier and Saget met 10 years prior to the premiere of Full House when a mutual friend suggested that Saget let Coulier crash on his couch for awhile. And of course, that's essentially the plot of Full House, but a whole decade earlier.
Transitioning from stand-up comedy to becoming a full-time actor wasn't the easiest journey for Saget. According to the interview, Saget would go to at least three script reads a week and get rejected for all of them.
Despite the slow start to Saget's acting career, Full House pulled him out of his rut and into the limelight, where he would become one of TV's favorite dads. He said he owed it to his humble beginnings and to his Full House family.
"People always ask me which daughter is my favorite," Saget said. "I tell them parents aren't supposed to favor any one of their kids. So I can't say, but it's the oldest one."
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