Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian

Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian by Bob Saget Page B

Book: Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian by Bob Saget Read Free Book Online
Authors: Bob Saget
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Of course I didn’t just wind up on Johnny Carson’s show. There were a couple beats in between, during my early struggling comedian days. Stand-up is hard and success is elusive. But back in 1986, I had finally started to feel like the eight years of comedy on the road, and thousands of sets at the Comedy Store and the Improv, had begun to pay off. Especially when I got to work with Richard Pryor, in a Paramount movie called Critical Condition . He inspired me beyond words. Silly to type that, right? I mean, he was Richard Pryor.
    But before I got to work with Richard on that film, I’d spent many weekends hosting at the Comedy Store seeing him perform and getting to know him a little. He was already a big star. I mean, again, he was Richard Pryor. One night my spot was bumped because Richard had decided to go on. To make me feel better, he asked me if I wanted to go outside and see his new Testarossa. I was dumb, didn’t know it was the name of a car. Thought he was making a joke, like he was gonna show me his dick on Sunset Boulevard.
    Many years later, when he started to succumb to multiple sclerosis, I visited him at his house, where I had the honor of getting to hang out with him a little. We spent the time watching his new wide-screen rear-projection TV together. It was hard to see one of my heroes in that state—such an amazing talent. I saw him a couple times after that, and the last time was not long before he died, at a shoot for a Showtime pilot that Eddie Griffin was portraying Richard in.
    I went upstairs at the location to see him and gave him a hug. His MS had taken away most of his physical control, but he was still there. As I walked upstairs, I noticed Pat O’Brien was in the building and Access Hollywood was filming every moment surrounding Richard. I whispered something in Richard’s ear so the cameras couldn’t hear. A couple days later, when the program aired, they showed me whispering in close-up while synthesizer strings played in the background. The narration said “. . . and Bob Saget was one of the few people to make Richard laugh that day.”
    What I’d whispered in his ear was that my youngest daughter couldn’t sleep the night before, so she came into my room and lay in bed next to me. My issue was I’d been having diarrhea that night. So I described to Richard how I was afraid all night that I was going to shit the bed with her in it. He started to laugh, so I kept describing my paranoia of blasting my bowels all over the walls, like spin art. Explosive diarrhea, my A-game.
    I wish I’d spent more time with him and been able to say I was an actual “friend” of Richard’s. A lot of people who work with legends like Pryor tend to spew out what good “friends” they are with them. Richard Pryor was an icon to me. He was the King. A significant mentor also—especially after the three weeks I spent with him in High Point, North Carolina, shooting Critical Condition . He let me in to hang a little bit and know and learn from him. I know some of the people who were his true friends. And they were fortunate people. I was fortunate to just know the man and have the time I got to spend with him.
    I had some very memorable conversations with Richard during my three weeks of shooting in High Point. We were hiding in a hospital alcove waiting to be cued. There was a bit of time to kill. One of those scrubbing pads was on a medical tray in the room with us. It had a soft side like one you clean pots with and on its other side, hard plastic bristles. Richard pointed at it and said, “You see this side,” indicating the hard bristle side, “That’s the side they took my skin off with after the fire.” There was no laughing to be had, just a discussion about pain. And then we were needed in the scene, so the switch was flipped to go back to work. I was struck by what a hardcore and yet gentle man he was.
    The scene we were about to do wasn’t intended to have any laughs in it.

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