Those of you that know me well know that my sense of humor can be a bit dark sometimes. I like that I can find humor where many others might not. The problem with this is that I often have to watch what kind of jokes I’m making depending on who’s around so as not to greatly offend anyone. It’s hard for me to define where the line for something like that is, but I came across something today that I think does a pretty good job of illustrating it.
Pretty much everyone knows Bob Saget from his days as Danny Tanner on Full House and as the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos. If these two family-friendly programs were the only sources of exposure to his work, you’d think that he was as G-rated as actors/comedians come. You’d be horribly, horribly wrong.
Saget has long been known as being one of the dirtiest comedians working, even before his Full House days. How he got cast for those two shows is beyond me, but I’d guess it’s because he looks goofy and pretty harmless. At any rate, he’s in a movie that’s out Aug. 12 called The Aristocrats, which is a stream of comedians all telling versions of one joke, supposedly the filthiest joke in existence (there is some info and an example here). Bob Saget is among the group of people telling it, and director Paul Provenza had this story to tell about Bob:
WARNING:
If you are easily offended, you will NOT want to read this. You’ve been warned.
To illustrate this, Provenza tells a story of the time when Saget’s wife had troubles during childbirth and ended up in a coma. “She was in a coma for three weeks, and the baby was sick and in an incubator and nearly died, and they both came through it eventually. So I called up Saget and went to visit, and he’s like “Yeah, the wife is resting, she nearly died, it was a rough time but it’s all good now; hey, do you wanna see the baby?” So I’m like, sure, and he takes me to the baby’s room and opens the door a little, and the tiniest sliver of light rolls across the child’s face and it’s the most beautiful moment. And I say, “wow, Bob, she’s really beautiful” and he says, “Yeah - I’ll let you finger her for a dollar.” That’s Saget, man, he’s just got the nastiest mouth out there. I’m like, “Saget, man!” and he says, “What? You think I can get a dollar fifty?”
Horribly inappropriate, but I was absolutely cracking up when I read that this morning. I could understand someone not finding that funny, especially a parent, but it just serves to reinforce my point. I don’t find everything offensive to be humorous, but I clearly won’t find a joke to be unfunny just because it crosses into some sort of taboo area. There’s also clearly a huge difference between laughing at something like this vs. finding it funny if it were to actually happen, which would not be the case at all (I shouldn’t have to specify that, but you never know).
The line hasn’t exactly been drawn, but I think you might have a good idea of the area it lies in. I hope you all enjoyed the joke, but I’m sure there are at least one or two of you whose jaws dropped when you reached the punchline. If I come across anything else that I find like this, I’ll try to remember to post it. People take life too seriously sometimes. It’s good to laugh.
