Tonight I attended my first Temple University alumni event in over a year. The last event I made it to was the Dodgers-Phillies game on my birthday last year (8/11/08). The last event I blogged about was the first alumni event I ever attended, when they put on this great shindig at the Getty Center, one of my favorite cultural venues in L.A., in December 2007. The L.A. chapter of TUAA (Temple University Alumni Association) typically puts on one event per quarter, sometimes two. I think last winter they hosted two events, both of them college basketball viewing parties at some sports bar or other. One of them was in Long Beach on a Sunday, which I couldn't make both because it conflicted with football Sunday and because I don't otherwise feel like driving that far on a Sunday. The other one was in Hollywood, which is close, but I think it was on a weekday night and I didn't have the energy. I'm not a big college b-ball fan anyways.
I'm very impressed with TUAA LA. They definitely have their ducks in a row, what with their Facebook page, their e-mail communications, and the variety of events they put on. A year ago May they had a cheesesteak and wine tasting party at the house of a Temple dental school alum in Encino. That still ranks as the best cheesesteak I've had since moving to L.A. eleven years ago. As much as I enjoyed tonight, I have to put it second to the Getty Center event. My father, a professor at Temple, is blown away by the kind of outreach this Philadelphia university has. His jaw dropped when I told him Temple has over three thousand alums in Southern California. I have to say I was a bit surprised too when I first read that. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Temple prides itself on its School of Communications and Theater, which was my school. At every alumni event I see a good share of SCT folks. You can tell by the label on their shirt that includes their school as well as the year they graduated. SCT alums are everywhere. Their film department, formerly Radio-Television-Film and now called Film and Media Arts, tends to rank well in the area of documentaries. That's too bad because I'm more into feature films, storytelling, spinning my own yarns. Still, I did at least develop an interest and proficiency in the fundamentals. And I have to credit Temple for getting me interested in films made before I was born. Seriously, before Temple, if I was flipping channels and came across a black and white movie, I'd move on right away. Black and white films were anathema. Movies that weren't playing at my local multiplex must not've been worth seeing. Temple's film professors changed all that. In four short years my cultural spectrum expanded exponentially.
Tonight's event was called Talk Back with Bob Saget. You've heard of Bob Saget, right? Whenever I hear his name, I think Full House. He's done plenty since then, but Full House put him on the map. It was a sitcom that ran for eight seasons (1987-95) and almost two hundred episodes. Since 2005 he's been the narrator on How I Met Your Mother. Once in a blue moon he directs something. It's too bad he doesn't direct more, since that's why he went to Temple. He was an RTF major, class of '78. Wait a second. What am I talking about? I also majored in film at Temple and haven't directed shit. I do hope to change that with 48 Broad (http://fortyeightblog.blogspot.com/). But still, until then, how have I used that degree besides that part-time production assistant job from 2001-03? I wonder if I ever will get 48 Broad made as a feature film. I'm determined, but so many things can go wrong in making a feature. Let's put it this way: Either I will or I'll die trying.
Another cool thing about tonight's event was that it took place at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in the center of Hollywood, on Highland Ave. just north of Hollywood Blvd. This joint's still pretty new, only built in the last six or seven years or so as part of Hollywood's grand revival. If you only know Hollywood as synonymous with the movie biz, you should also know that it is a neighborhood in Los Angeles. No, it's not its own city. It used to be, back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then in 1910 it was annexed by L.A. because of water supply issues. What else is new, right? The only movie studio that's actually in Hollywood, by the way, is Paramount Pictures, located on Melrose Ave. Anyway, for a long time Hollywood was a ghetto, a blight on the landscape you did everything you could to avoid. Case in point: My mom grew up in L.A. in the forties, fifties, and early sixties. Hollywood as a rubbish heap is how she remembers it. On Melrose and La Brea is a very famous hotdog joint called Pinks. It's been there since the 1930s. So you might think my mom may know of it, right? Especially since dogs and burgers are her two favorite food groups. But when I asked her during one of her visits a few summers ago, she had no idea what I was talking about. When I told her the address, she was like no wonder. Her folks avoided that part of town. Most people did, especially people from the tony Westwood neighborhood where she grew up.
Then about ten years ago or so, around the time I moved out here, the city of L.A. coughed up close to half a billion to bring Hollywood back from the dead. By 2002 or thereabouts, most of the work was done. Mind you, Hollywood definitely still has its shady side and its fair share of characters, but that central area around Hollywood and Highland has been vastly improved. And they've expanded from there, centering improvement projects around popular landmarks. The Sunset and Vine area, which includes the Cinerama Dome and the Palladium, has been rejuvenated. Old abandoned buildings have been restored as residential living spaces. The Cinerama Dome was closed in 2000 and reopened in the spring of 2002 as one part of the new ArcLight Hollywood movie theater complex. And the Palladium only just reopened this year after the Los Angeles Conservancy spearheaded its renovation (see my Last Remaining Seats posts about the Conservancy). Across from the ArcLight is a brand new complex of mixed-use residential and commercial buildings and restaurants.
A couple blocks up from Sunset and Vine is Hollywood and Vine, where you have the grand old Pantages Theatre, one of my favorite theaters, which has been beautifully preserved. It used to be a movie palace back in the day. Citizen Kane premiered there in 1941. Now it's a stage theater. I've seen stuff there like Wicked, The Lion King, Peter Pan, and The Producers. Hollywood and Vine also has the Avalon nightclub and concert venue, which reopened in September 2003 after a million-dollar renovation. So you see? Hollywood's coming back, the real Hollywood, slowly but surely.
I didn't mean to digress like that on Hollywood's decline and fall and resurgence, but the hotel I was at tonight is the biggest symbol of the renaissance of Hollywood, which is why it's too perfect that the hotel itself is called the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. So I couldn't help myself. I'm proud of L.A. and the commitment it's made to this area. After all, the very word "Hollywood" is probably this city's biggest tourist draw.
The invitation said the reception started at 6:30 p.m. and that the event would kick off at 7:30 with a speech by Temple President Ann Weaver Hart. That was how it worked at the Getty Center two years ago. I got to the Getty just as the reception started. They were holding it in the restaurant. While it was cool to be in the Getty restaurant, where normally I never go because it's pretty expensive, it was awkward as hell standing around by myself while everyone seemed to be part of a group or with their significant other. All I could think to do was alternate between strolling around and standing to the side. In that interminable hour I had something like three beers. I don't know about you, but three in an hour is more than my body's used to. By the time we adjourned to the auditorium for President Hart's talk and the lecture by that art historian, I was feeling great, but my attention span had been compromised a bit. Although not so much that I couldn't whip up a pretty thorough blog post about it. Check it out if you haven't already.
Tonight I just didn't have it in me to stand around for an hour and look stupid. Hey, it's Monday, cut me some slack. So what I did was, I got to the Renaissance at 6:30, but instead of heading up to the mezzanine level, where the TUAA folks were set up in the restaurant Twist, I stayed down on the first level and hopped over to the lobby bar. I got one Corona and nursed it while watching Monday Night Football and chatting with the middle-aged Hispanic barkeep. Miami was hosting Indianapolis. The barkeep seemed to be pulling for Miami, although I admire his efforts at neutrality on the off chance that he might offend any Colts fans in the vicinity. I'm a Skins fan so it made no difference to me, but he had a point. L.A.'s chockfull of transplants. You'll find fans of every team right here.
It was ten past seven when the first half ended. Time to suck it up. I went up to Twist, signed in at the table by the entrance, grabbed some free pens and pins, and headed in. As with the Getty event, the TUAA folks had arranged for a buffet. I wasn't hungry, but I did get another Corona from the barkeep, another friendly middle-aged Hispanic guy. Again like the Getty, I wandered around, made awkward eye contact, and met absolutely no one. Although I did recognize this one alumna with whom I'm linked on Facebook. She was sitting at the bar and eating dinner while chatting with everyone in her general vicinity. Eventually I got comfortable against the bar and snapped photos with my cell, including one of Bob Saget chatting with another alum about his age, whom I found out during Bob's talk is a high-up at Warner Brothers. I did manage to talk to one or two alums before the event started, but not long enough to remember their names. Too bad. One of them was this adorable gal about my age.
It was ten past seven when the first half ended. Time to suck it up. I went up to Twist, signed in at the table by the entrance, grabbed some free pens and pins, and headed in. As with the Getty event, the TUAA folks had arranged for a buffet. I wasn't hungry, but I did get another Corona from the barkeep, another friendly middle-aged Hispanic guy. Again like the Getty, I wandered around, made awkward eye contact, and met absolutely no one. Although I did recognize this one alumna with whom I'm linked on Facebook. She was sitting at the bar and eating dinner while chatting with everyone in her general vicinity. Eventually I got comfortable against the bar and snapped photos with my cell, including one of Bob Saget chatting with another alum about his age, whom I found out during Bob's talk is a high-up at Warner Brothers. I did manage to talk to one or two alums before the event started, but not long enough to remember their names. Too bad. One of them was this adorable gal about my age.
First to talk was Deborah Fowlkes, Executive Director of TUAA. I can't remember if she was at the Getty. Could've been. She joined Temple two years before that, in the summer of 2005, after she'd led Duke University's alumni association for a good while. I wonder what happened there. Certainly Duke is more prestigious. At any rate, Deborah was decked out in a business outfit with blouse and tight knee-length skirt that was cherry red, one of Temple's colors. Her hair's mostly silver with some black here and there. And she was well spoken, very distinguished overall. Since replacing John MacDonald, who'd been with Temple forty years, she seems to have settled in well. Deb didn't talk all that long, just wanted to thank us for being there and impress upon us what a difference the alumni make in helping get the word out about Temple University. And, of course, the difference we make in keeping Temple in business. This year marks Temple's 125th birthday, she said. I knew that. I've known 2009 was Temple's lucky 125th since last year at least. Temple has a quarterly alumni magazine called, not very originally, Temple Review. I read each issue cover to cover, which is by far the best way to keep up with what's going on over in Philly. Main Campus has grown and changed quite a bit since my days there in the mid nineties. It's also nice to read about their more successful alumni ("Class Notes"). Anyway, I believe it was last year or the year before when they announced their big fundraiser to coincide with the 125th anniversary of Temple's founding by Russell Conwell, a lawyer and Baptist minister from Philly.
After Deb, Bruce Waxman gave a little spiel. Now him I remember because he speaks at all the alumni events. Bruce is in charge of the Los Angeles chapter of TUAA. Since finishing Temple in 1983 with a Bachelor's of Business Administration, Bruce has done quite well for himself. He started out at the public accounting firm of Laventhol & Horwath in Philly, and then moved to their L.A. office. He worked a good ten years or so at Ryan Miller and Associates. In 2003 he founded his own company called the Waxman Group. Located on Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood, the Waxman Group is basically a headhunter for the media industry. Bruce has relationships with folks like ABC, Technicolor, Lucasfilm (awesome!), Sony Pictures, and a bunch more I can't remember from Deb's introduction. I also can't remember if he got this kind of introduction at past alumni events. I don't think I did an exposition of him in my Getty post. Usually Bruce comes up and speaks first thing and doesn't waste time boasting of his accomplishments. But maybe he should. Shit, he's got an office in Westwood. That can't be cheap. And he resides in the Pacific Palisades. He's also on the President's Advisory Board for Temple. Need I say more? And graduating in '83, you've got to figure he's pushing fifty, right? Dude doesn't look a day over forty, what with his jet black hair and youthful countenance.
Bruce didn't talk for very long. Usually he talks about upcoming events, but apparently they don't have any scheduled because he didn't mention anything, not even a football or basketball viewing party. He did say more events were coming, though, so that's good. I don't doubt him. The man's obviously type A. He also said something all us Temple folk can relate to. We scared the shit out of him with our last-minute registration for this event. Temple folks always show up for class a bit late. I almost never did, but many others certainly do, that's true, especially those 8:40 a.m. classes. Brutal! True to my character, though, I did not wait until the last minute to register for tonight's event. I signed up when I got the invitation back in July. But I know what he means. See, the way Temple has folks register for events is through their networking site, myowlspace.com. You can also see the list of everyone who's registered for a particular event. Now and again I would check the Bob Saget event just out of curiosity. No joke, as recently as Friday (three days ago), less than ten people had registered. It may have been five. Seriously. That was the last time I checked it, so obviously most of the fifty or so people there tonight all signed up over the weekend. Hilarious.
After his spiel, it was time for the Grand Poobah, University President Ann Weaver Hart. It's a big deal, her being here, the president of a university with over thirty thousand students. It's the second time I've seen her at an alumni event, the first being at the Getty two years ago. Like I said, I always read the alumni magazine so I can't help but follow what this gal is up to. Her hiring was the alumni magazine's cover story in the summer of 2006. I remember reading it that August (Ann became President July 1) while Mom and I were hanging out at Santa Monica Beach.
I read the whole article. Originally from Utah (the article never mentioned if she was Mormon, not that it matters), Ann's been married to the same guy for a long time and now has four grown kids who are themselves thriving, and six grandkids. She just turned sixty last year. Before Temple, she was President of the University of New Hampshire, and before that Provost and VP of Academic Affairs at Claremont in California. She got her doctorate in Educational Administration from the University of Utah. She's the first woman President in Temple's history. I always read her little columns in the front of the alumni magazine.
She spoke for about fifteen or twenty minutes, mainly about all the great stuff they're doing on campus, the new buildings and what have you. Student enrollment's higher than it's ever been. They have to reject many more applications than they used to. The average SAT score of incoming freshmen has gone way up. I'm glad I went when I did because I sucked at the SATs. I took them two or three times. Aptitude tests just never suited me, even though I got good grades and graduated from Temple summa cum laude. Anyway, so Temple's doing awesome. Nice and recession-proof, right? Actually, I did hear that its budget does rely in part on the state of Pennsylvania and that looming state budget cuts might trickle down to the state schools and result in layoffs. Ah well. I guess no one's immune. My employer's had three layoffs in the last two years, so it's not like I don't know what that dread is like.
To be perfectly blunt, a good part of why she trumped up the school was to appeal to our wallets. Part of Temple's 125th anniversary includes raising as much money as possible. They set a goal a couple years ago, well ahead of time. I forget what it is, but it's pretty high. They want to reach it by the end of this year. I've given Temple money only once, and it was before this drive started. Man, it must be almost ten years now. What's wrong with me? I should give them a few ducats before the year's out so I can at least say I participated in the anniversary. Gotta give them credit for persistence, though. They call me all the time. I never answer, but I know it's them thanks to that ever handy caller ID. Temple's got the number that starts with 215-204. Seriously, though, I need to give.
Okay and now for Bob Saget. During all the preliminary spiels, he'd been standing in the back. Ann gave him a nice intro, and he hurried up to the little stage while Ann took a seat in the front row next to Bruce Waxman and Deborah Fowlkes. He immediately made us laugh by looking at the two or three bottles of water on the table next to him and asking if any of us were thirsty. Then he observed the mug of coffee he was nursing and remarked how weird it was to have coffee right after he'd had a beer. Bob warned us that with such a push and pull, he could understand if he sucked tonight.
Actually he didn't suck at all. He was hilarious, and I'm afraid my talking about it here won't do it justice by a long shot. On the other hand, he wasn't splitting our sides for the entire hour he spoke. A lot of it, in fact, was sincere, especially the stuff about his nephew Adam, and his sister dying of scleroderma, and the TV movie her death inspired him to make. I learned a lot about Bob Saget tonight, including the fact that just because Full House is long gone doesn't mean he's been starved for work. Quite the contrary, he's got a lot going on. His story's also yet another example of how luck must be on your side at some point if you're to make it in this business, no matter how much skill and intellect you have. Clint Eastwood said this during one of his Oscar acceptance speeches. Not the one for Unforgiven, one of the more recent ones. And the older I get, the more I see how fundamentally true that is.
Bob's originally from the Philly area. Abington to be exact, which is about twenty minutes north in Montgomery County. He went to Temple in the late seventies. Damn, I was still a baby when he graduated. Like I said above, he majored in Radio-TV-Film in the School of Communications and Theater. Bob talked about the cooperative nature of the program as he experienced it. He'd do grunt crew work on the films of some of his classmates, and they'd return the favor. Apparently this high-up from Warner Brothers, who sat behind me, was a student at the same time. So they all worked crew on each other's films. That's great. Sounds like their classes were more conducive to that kind of supportive environment. Me? No way. I made most of my film projects by myself. And yeah, I sort of had a crew for my senior thesis film, but I had to force my two senior thesis professors, who didn't get along with each other, to make a sort of sign-up sheet for crew. They were hoping crew work would be organic within the class. Hell no. Most of us didn't know each other. The guy I got stuck with was this douche bag named Pasquale. I went to his house once for a shoot during our junior year. I said hi to his father, who sneered at me and yelled at his son. Nice family. Pasquale was one of maybe two I could get to help me senior year. Neither he nor the other one, a circus freak of a diminutive woman, could do anything. Instead, we wasted an entire night shooting film that the bitch hadn't fed through the camera properly. So it was all a complete waste of time. And then the asshole Pasquale, who for some reason thought Pat was a good nickname, said he'd told me so. He told me so? Really? What a prick.
I had a good time at Temple overall, but as far as their film department went, I caught them precisely when they were going through a big transition, and my education suffered for it. It probably says a lot that I chose to get a masters in creative writing and have since devoted my artistic energies wholeheartedly to writing ever since. Only now, at thirty-three, has the film bug bitten me. 48 Broad, here I come!
Glad to hear Bob had such a supportive environment, but it wasn't only that which helped him succeed. He recognized a great story in his own home. Bob's nephew Adam was born with a defective facial bone structure. It required a lot of surgery to keep him going, and with that you had all the associated drama about whether he'd make it. And what about Adam himself? What was life like for him? That was the premise of Bob's senior thesis film, a documentary called Through Adam's Eyes. While Bob had been discovering his comedic chops during his Temple years as part of a student troupe, Through Adam's Eyes was anything but a comedy. It was tender, heartfelt, and very sobering. Get this: Through Adam's Eyes was nominated for a Student Academy Award....and won! Even cooler is that Adam himself was there tonight, sitting right behind me. Seemed like a quiet, unassuming guy. I guess he'd be about my age. He had a beard, blonde scruffy hair. And glasses like his uncle. And his woman is beautiful. He didn't speak or anything, just stood up for a second and waved and smiled and avoided eye contact.
The Academy Award for Through Adam's Eyes was Bob's ticket to any graduate film program of his choice. He opted for USC's MFA program. The way he told it tonight, he quit the program on the third day and decided to tough it out on the local comedy circuit. Now to me, that'd be a pretty ballsy thing to do, to throw away an education that would almost guarantee you a successful career as a filmmaker. Now he didn't say anything about what really informed that decision beyond his interest in comedy, but there must have been more to it than that. He must have really either stopped liking filmmaking and/or really loved doing standup considering there isn't much money in that racket. And/or he had an ego the size of Texas to think his comedy was good enough to warrant dropping his already proven skill with directing. At any rate, a full scholarship to SC, one of the top film programs in the country, and he quits the first week. That really is amazing. I wish he'd talked just a bit more about that and what his emotions were leading up to that decision. Was he conflicted at first? Did he feel the program was going to be too hard?
What I mentioned above about luck applies to what happened next. The venue he hit the most was The Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. I've never been inside, but I walk by it whenever I go down there to see a concert at the House of Blues, which is right down the street. Bob's starving days at The Comedy Store coincided with the starving days of many other future big names. We're talking Dave Letterman, who was the MC, as well as Jay Leno, Robin Williams, Bobcat Goldthwait, all those kats. Richard Pryor performed there, but by the time Bob showed up in the late seventies, Richard's acting and writing career had already taken off. Bob toiled in that place for eight years before landing the Full House gig. While he skirted his SC dropout decision, he went on and on about how long people usually have to tough it out there, and that by the time they make it, the media sometimes makes it seem like they're an overnight success. Those were eight long goddam years for him. One comedian he talked about who's still not well known (although that might change now) is Zach Galifianakis, who stole the show as Alan in The Hangover this year. If you haven't seen that, please do, if for no other reason than to see this guy. I'd never seen him in my life. Bob's known him for the twenty years Zach's been a regular at The Comedy Store. Twenty years. And he didn't land a single acting gig until the late nineties. The Hangover's probably the most visible thing he's done, but he has been working somewhat steadily since that first small role on the short-lived show Boston Common. Dane Cook is another example he cited of someone who toiled in The Comedy Store trenches for a long time.
Richard Pryor was a great influence on Bob. Indeed, his two idols were Richard Pryor and Don Rickles. You talk about two schools of comedy as far apart as you can get. Rodney Dangerfield was another one he looked up to. Now there's a guy who paid his dues. A few years before he died, Rodney did this interview in TIME where he talked about all the odd jobs he endured. The only one I remember was aluminum siding installer. But there were a ton. He gave up on comedy at one point, figured he had no future in it, before finally giving it another go years later. Thank God he did or where would people like Bob Saget be? Back in the eighties Rodney hosted this young comedian special on HBO. I kind of remember it, but I can't remember which comedians he had on since, of course, they were nobodies then. Apparently Bob Saget was one of them. So was Jerry Seinfeld.
It was inevitable Bob would get Full House questions from the audience tonight. This one older guy who sat near the front said he lives right down the street from Dave Coulier (Joey). Bob said he still sees Dave now and again and that he's one of the nicest guys he knows. In fact, they tour the comedy circuit together. One thing I admired about Bob was his complete lack of pretense or tact. The cold truth is, Full House drove him nuts. If you've ever seen him doing standup or anything, if you know how he really is, then you know he's one twisted, vulgar mofo. Did you see that documentary The Aristocrats a few years ago? It's about this inside joke comedians tell each other. It has this very open-ended premise, and it's up to the comedian to make it their own. I'll spare you the details, but the premise of the joke is already kind of raunchy. They had almost every comedian you've ever heard of in this flick. Look it up on IMDb. It was weird seeing someone like Drew Carey telling a joke like this. Like Bob Saget, he's someone you associate with family TV. He used to have a sitcom, and now he's hosting The Price I$ Right for Pete's sake. Anyway, one thing all of those comedians could agree on is that as gross as they could be, they didn't hold a candle to Bob Saget.
One or two young women in the audience tonight were egging him on to be his usual nasty, raunchy self, but he resisted. For the most part. Anyway, that's why Full House drove him nuts. On the one hand it was a godsend because it meant he'd never have to worry about money again. It was eight solid years on one of the highest-rated sitcoms on the air, but it didn't exactly conform with his desired career path. His costar John Stamos felt the same way apparently. That's the compromise you make when you're a starving actor. Talk about out of character, two years before Full House, Bob landed a guest role on one episode of the third and final season of The Greatest American Hero. I just watched that season last year. The episode's called "Wizards and Warlocks," and it centers around this nerdy group of college kids who devote themselves to a Dungeons & Dragons type game. David Paymer's in it. He's pretty much in everything now. Bob and Dave played two of the nerdy kids. Hilarious, huh?
As with Dave Coulier, Bob keeps in touch with John Stamos. He raved about John's performance as Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret on Broadway a few years ago. And John's on Broadway again. Just this month he scored the role of Albert in the Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie. Bob does some theater, most notably The Drowsy Chaperone a few years ago. I got the impression he wants to do more. One thing he did say about Full House was that, despite his feelings at the time, he does look back at it fondly. Nonetheless, when someone up front asked about the possibility of a reunion, Bob was pretty doubtful. Partly it's because he and his costars have compartmentalized friendships with each other. So in other words, he'd never hang out with Dave Coulier and John Stamos at the same time, or the Olsen sisters with John Stamos. He didn't elaborate on that bit of diplomacy, but it can only mean some of those people must not like each other. But they all like hanging out with Bob. He joked that if a reunion does happen, it'll be on Twitter.
Another person up front, I think one of those women who wanted Bob to get dirty, asked about Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's comment at this year's Emmys: "Broadcast TV is dead." Bob was like, "She said this on broadcast TV?" He did concede that broadcast TV is certainly cutthroat. Earlier this year he was on this midseason replacement sitcom called Surviving Suburbia. I can't say I remember it at all, but then again, I'm not much of a sitcom watcher. Anyway, it did its half season of thirteen episodes and got the axe. Bob said the best night they had was 3.5 million viewers. While that's not a lot compared to the more successful stuff like Grey's Anatomy, all the CSI spinoffs, House, American Idol, etc., Bob couldn't help marveling that having over three million people tune in just wasn't good enough. Most comedians would kill for that kind of audience.
I might have to put For Hope on my Netflix queue. That's the TV movie Bob directed in 1996 in honor of his sister. The Hope character was based on her. I'm intrigued after hearing about it tonight. Bob did get serious for a few minutes when he talked about his involvement in raising awareness for scleroderma, the disease that killed his sister, whose real name was Gay, at the age of forty-seven. I mean I'm sure the movie's depressing as all get-out, although Dana Delany, who plays Hope, is never hard on the eyes. And besides, I've become a Bob Saget fan after tonight. He's hilarious and seems like a decent guy, for all his raunch. I see on IMDb that Henry Czerny's also in For Hope. He's no big name, of course, but he always plays these interesting roles, ambiguous types about whom you're not sure how to feel. Examples include Clear and Present Danger, Mission:Impossible, and The Tudors. Harold Gould's in it, which makes me impressed with Bob's clout.
You have to cut Bob some slack when it comes to his gross humor. Dude's personal life has been beyond rocky, if not downright depressing. He didn't go into it much, but I certainly can't blame him for that. Even before Gay died, his other sister Andrea had already died of an aneurysm at thirty-four. His wife divorced him in the late nineties. His mom had two babies that died at childbirth before Bob was even born. And then in 2007 both his mom and his dad died. They were ninety, so their deaths weren't a shock. But still. They were Mom and Dad. They say comedians are often crying on the inside. Of course most comedians deny that emphatically. But come on now. Just look at what the guy's been through.
Speaking of toughing things out, he also talked about his part-time deli job during his Temple years. He worked at this one deli in Cedarbrook Plaza in Wyncote. I forget the name, but I guess it's still around because when he said the name, people in the audience seemed to recognize it. Bob said it was a great place to meet all kinds of people and practice his comedy. One guy came in, dipped his hand into the pickle vat, pulled one out, and ate it right there. Another time he was cutting open a can of meat and hacked up his hand pretty good. Seriously, he showed us the scar. Another nice thing about the job is that it gave him the cash to buy film stock. That's pretty much where all the money went, 16mm black and white film stock for those Swiss-made silent film cameras which, I should say, is what Temple was still using when I showed up there almost twenty years later. They're okay and everything. Durable. But they're silent, so you have to cough up more money for mag film to record the sound. It's the old fashioned way, I reckon, but at least you learn by getting your hands dirty. Bob and this Warners hot shot behind me shared fond memories of using those old cameras, going on night shoots, helping each other out on film projects.
Speaking of that Warners guy, he turned out to be just the contact Bob needed to get Farce of the Penguins made. You saw March of the Penguins, right? That French-produced documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman about the annual pilgrimage of the Emperor penguins? Well if not, you should. It's pretty decent. Bob? He and his friends like it too, but they're comedians so they can't help themselves. What they'd do is, they'd mute it and then put in their own voiceovers, impersonating the stereotype of old Jewish guys with Yiddish accents. Then this Warners guy got Bob a meeting at the studio to talk about the idea of a satirical sendup. Bob didn't take it seriously at all. He figured his old Temple pal was just humoring him. The meeting wasn't with this hot shot, but one of his colleagues in the development department. So Bob shows up and pitches the idea. This was in the fall of 2005 (the film came out that summer). He figures it'll be a short meeting, right? Thanks and see ya? Well, as it turns out, the suit in question wanted Bob to come back for a second meeting to elaborate on the idea further. The way Bob told it tonight, he was speechless. All he could think of saying at the time was, "Wh-.... Wh-.... Really?!" And so he goes back. You know the rest. In early 2007 Warners releases the mockumentary Farce of the Penguins, written and directed by Bob Saget. Hilarious, huh? Hollywood, I tell ya. But look at that. It pays to have contacts, does it not? Networking. It was only thanks to Bob's pal setting up the introduction. Check out all the actors he got. Samuel L. Jackson did the narrating. The penguins' voices were supplied by the likes of Jason Alexander, Christina Applegate, Jim Belushi, Lewis Black, Dane Cook, Dave Coulier, Drea de Matteo, Harvey Fierstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Gilbert Gottfried, Alyson Hannigan, Jon Lovitz, Norm MacDonald, Mo'Nique, Tracy Morgan, Jonathan Silverman, John Stamos, Damon Wayans. Amazing, huh? All for a comedy released the time of year usually considered the dead zone, after all the Oscar bait and before the summer tent poles. It couldn't've cost much to make, and I'm sure it made a fortune on DVD.
Speaking of networking, that's how he got some of those people to lend their voices. More than once tonight he brought up Norm MacDonald. They're pals. He also talked about Lewis Black when someone asked him about comedians he admires today. Someone in the audience got excited when he said that name. I'm afraid I don't know too much about him. He also loves Chris Rock. The great thing about Chris, Bob said, is that he has this whole philosophy of life, and the comedy springs from that organically. Interesting, huh? I suppose when you're a comedian, you make a point of studying and analyzing other comedians' techniques. Just like when you're a filmmaker or aspiring filmmaker and you watch other films, you discern things not noticeable to the lay viewer. I've seen Chris Rock perform on TV enough to know what Bob's talking about, but it would never have occurred to me to phrase it the way he did.
Bob talked about staying close to his comedy club roots. No matter how far along you get, you should always take those trips back to the mic. Robin Williams does it all the time. He likes to pop into clubs unannounced, especially when filming on location. In addition to The Comedy Store, Bob mentioned this venue in New York. It only seats about a hundred fifty people so it's relatively small. And it's there that he gets to see Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. Damn, I wish I could remember the name of that place because apparently those two perform there regularly.
So that was it for the night. What a treat. Bob seems like a pretty kool kat. And I'm very impressed Temple University could set this up and that Ann Weaver Hart flew out, what with all the responsibilities she has to shoulder. I can't wait to see what their next big event will be.
