Bob Saget gets down and 'Dirty' in new memoir

NEW YORK — Despite the title of his new memoir, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian (It Books), Bob Saget says he's not really a dirty daddy or all that filthy.

It's just part of what he calls "my yin and yang," which includes off-color humor.

In real life, Saget, 57, who's divorced, has three daughters (ages 27, 24 and 21). By turning out well — he calls them "brilliant and understanding" — they have proved "I'm a good dad," he says.

On TV, he played sweetly neurotic father Danny Tanner in Full House from 1987 to 1995. But as a stand-up comic, he enjoys "immature taboo humor — good immature taboo humor" that often involves body parts and words that cannot be printed here.

In an interview Wednesday during his book tour, Saget recalls his "biggest comic influence," his dad, who outlived four of his children before dying in 2006 at 89. "He dealt with death and hardships through humor," Saget says. "It was often sick and weird humor ... poop and penis jokes."

(His dad, Saget notes in the book, worked his way up from a supermarket butcher to became a "VP of meat. That's right, a vice president of meat. I don't know who the president of meat was at the time.")

It was a family where "dark comedy was a survival instinct. Some of it was avoidance, and some was just to get a rise out of someone else." Growing up in his family, he says, was a matter of "survival of the wittiest."

His memoir is filled with one-liners in a style he describes as "free association," but it's also occasionally serious.

He notes the death of his two older sisters, Andi at 34 from a brain aneurysm and Gay at 47 from the rare skin disease, scleroderma. Two years before Saget was born, his parents lost twins who died of dysentery within a week of birth.

Two years to the day after their birth, Saget was born. He asks, "Is that an astrologer's wet dream or what?"

But most of the book is funny. He recalls working on Full House with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, starting when they were 9 months old and "adorable." He writes, "I actually did change Mary-Kate's and Ashley's diapers once. And that was four years ago. Ashley came up with the punch line to that joke."

Before moving on to his next book tour stop, Saget quickly answers a short quiz on humor:

Funniest comedian ever?

"Richard Pryor. His humor came from truth and honesty and pain and how he resolved that."

Funniest writer?

"Woody Allen, because he's Woody Allen."

Funniest book he's read?

"Oh, man, that's an interesting question (pause). Dirty Daddy. Is that a terrible answer?"

Funniest movie?

"I'll do three: Annie Hall, Young Frankenstein and Airplane!"

And funniest TV show ever?

"I'll go with two: The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy. But there are so many others — Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm should be there, too."