Former ‘Full House’ star Saget can cause quite a flush, too

He’s best known for playing clean-freak dad Danny Tanner on the saccharine sitcom “Full House,” and as host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

But comedian Bob Saget is enjoying a career rebirth for showing the world his filthy side.

In the controversial documentary “The Aristocrats” (banned by AMC theaters, and not showing in Spokane), Saget easily out-dirties such fellow potty mouths as Sarah Silverman and George Carlin in his version of the world’s raunchiest joke.

And on this season of HBO’s “Entourage,” Saget played a version of himself as a divorced party animal who smokes dope and frolics with prostitutes.

This fall, he narrates the CBS series “How I Met Your Mother,” about a man in the year 2030 telling his children through flashbacks how their parents hooked up.

And now that his phone is ringing off the hook, Saget is shopping around a mature TV series loosely based on his own life as a dating-challenged divorced father of three who is “trying to figure out how to start again.”

Both “Entourage” and “Aristocrats,” Saget says, “turn whatever people perceived of me as on its ear. … I like sick senses of humor. I’m fascinated by the schizophrenia of my own life.”

His bawdy side might shock anyone who watched him cheerfully presiding over the upbeat Tanner clan on “Full House,” which ran from 1987 to 1995 on ABC.

But on the comedy circuit, Saget, 49, has always been known for his R-rated sensibility.

“Most of the world knows him as the dad on ‘Full House,’ but I know him as this funny, sick comedian,” says “Entourage” executive producer Doug Ellin.

“He and Andrew Dice Clay were the two dirty, hilarious comedians when I was growing up.”

Saget shies away from being labeled X-rated and has no regrets about doing “Full House,” but he loves being himself.

“It’s amazing. It feels like a second chapter for me,” he says. “I felt liberated after I saw ‘The Aristocrats,’ although I winced at myself a couple of times.”

When audiences catch his vulgar stand-up act, Saget says, “Some nights they just stare at me. I tell them, ‘It will be OK.’ “

And he has limits, he adds: “Anything in ‘The Aristocrats’ is stuff I wouldn’t talk about in my stand-up. I’m more interested in people’s relationships and how they have good ones.”

Yes, Saget is still in touch with his “television children”; “Full House” daughter Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) had called moments before this interview.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who took turns playing the young Michelle Tanner, caught his off-Broadway play “Privilege.”

“Ashley came again,” Saget says. “She led the standing ovation on my opening night – she and my cantor from L.A.”

The birthday bunch

Actress Rose-Marie (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”) is 82. Drummer Pete York (The Spencer Davis Group) is 63. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 59. Actress Tess Harper is 55. Actor Larry Mathews (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”) is 50. Actress Debi Mazar (“Be Cool,” “Goodfellas”) is 41. Actress Debra Messing (“Will & Grace” is 37. Actor Anthony Anderson (“Barbershop”) is 35. Actor Ben Affleck is 33. Actress Natasha Henstridge is 31.