Among the passing of James Mtume, locally raised comedian, actor, director Bob Saget has passed, as well as the infamous Robert Durst.
While the Sunday night passing of South Philadelphia-born percussionist and composer James Mtume has been covered in dM by the illustrious Bobbi Booker, it is important – and indeed sad, even in the first case – to make note of two additional Philadelphia deaths – Bob Saget and Robert Durst.
Robert Durst, the oddball Durst fortune heir, convicted murder and subject of HBO docuseries “The Jinx,” was born in New York and died a prisoner in Stockton, Calif at age 78 on Monday. But his university roots and his college days hangs occurred while getting a bachelor’s degree in economics from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
That’s right, Lehigh Valley ladies. You may have dated Robert Durst back in the day.
Bob Saget.
This one stings.
The stand-up comedian and television icon – “Full House”, “Fuller House”, “How I Met Your Mother” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” – was a mainstream sweetheart by day and one of the most foul-mouthed and caustically dark and dirty comics by night.
From Abington Senior High to Temple University’s film school, Bob Saget was probably funny. But, he wasn’t “Saget” funny. That didn’t happen until the top of the 80s before he was cast as the family-friendly Danny Tanner in Full House.
The real Bob Saget is probably closer to the guy who directed Norm Macdonald and Artie Lang’s “Dirty Work”, who played the mean spirited coke addict in “Half Baked”, and best of all the documentary “The Aristocrats”, the 2005 film where Saget – along with Richard Lewis, Penn Gillette, Gilbert Gottfried and more told the foulest most disgusting joke ever.
Somewhere lost in my archives is an interview I did with Saget surrounding the 2005 film, one where I’m pretty sure I never got a question in edgewise.
Bob Saget will be missed. Durst. Not so much.
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