Bob Saget spent years on “Full House” playing America’s wholesome dad Danny Tanner, a role he returned to recently in Netflix’s “Fuller House.”
Come March 28, he’ll be helping even more children as he performs at “Garden of Laughs” at The Theater at MSG, alongside a who’s who of comedy, including Chris Rock, Sebastian Maniscalco, Tracy Morgan and John Oliver.
The event, hosted by Steve Schirripa, raises money for the charity organization that helps needy kids make their dreams come true.
“It’s for children facing obstacles and when you say those words right there, I don’t know how to say no to helping that,” Saget says. “And the money will go directly to centers and to kids that need help. It’s a heartbreaking thing and we’re helping kids and it has nothing to do with politics.”
Of course, Saget, 60 and a world class comedian, won’t stop there.
“We do these benefits and things like this,” he says, “because the government doesn’t do it.”
These days, Saget is filming new episodes of “Fuller House,” recently renewed for a third season; pitching a more R-rated television show to different cable companies; and developing an indie movie called “Jake,” now in pre-production, that he will star in and direct.
The film is about a 15-year-old boy “that you think is on drugs and the family that’s trying to help him is more dysfunctional then he is,” Saget says.
“I just had to make it,” adds Saget, who previously directed the comedy “Dirty Work” and the spoof “Farce of the Penguins.” “It just spoke to me. And it doesn’t happen that often.”
Saget is working on a new hour of stand-up with the intention of filming a new special.
When pressed to dish on the perceived dichotomy of his role as family-friendly sitcom father (with three real life adult daughters, as well) and his often profanity-laced routines, he says that his reputation has to do with his television work.
“I’m only called a dirty comedian because for eight years I played a guy on TV who’s squeaky clean and I played the host of a family show, a blooper show,” he says. “So people call me a dirty comedian, I guess because I drop F-bombs.”
The new special, he says, will be less blue.
“It actually has a lot about death in it,” Saget says. “It’s about the death of my mom and Rodney Dangerfield and people in my life and just the philosophy of how you deal with death and gallows humor and how it pulls you through; how comedy pulls you through hardships.”
He says that is part of the reason why he’s working on the “Garden of Laughs” and why he’s done so much charity work for the Scleroderma Research Foundation, for which he’s helped raise more than $40 million over 25 years.
“What’s happening in the world right now is really good for business,” Saget says. “People must be entertained right now and they need to laugh.”
If you go
Bob Saget is at The Theater at MSG for the “Garden of Laughs” at 8 p.m. on March 28, 4 Penn Plaza, theateratmsg.com, $250-$350
