Cho remembered the late comedian and actor exclusively with ET.
Bob Saget died unexpectedly on Sunday at the age of 65. Following Saget's death, those in the Hollywood comedy circle and his former co-stars paid tribute to the late comedian and actor, whose memorable roles included Full House (and the follow-up Fuller House), narrating How I Met Your Mother and hosting America's Funniest Home Videos. On Sunday evening, comedian Margaret Cho, who shared on Twitter following the news of his death that she had just seen him last week, remembered Saget in an exclusive interview with ET's Kevin Frazier.
"I just couldn't believe it. It was just so shocking. And it's somebody that you can't imagine, you know, and I'm still kind of trying to figure out how this really impacts me and all comedy," Cho said of how she felt when she first heard the news. "It's really staggering to lose somebody like [that] because he was such an active part of our communities. Because he was such a supportive part, because he was such a fan of comedy as well as being a great comedian... He was a very important, stable part of our foundation as a community and so it's very jarring. He was so young and also seemed very young to me. I think he loved the art form. He loved performing, he loved other comedians. I think all of that kept him really very youthful and he was still very much a player in the business of it. I feel like he had so much more to give in so many ways, not just in front of the camera [but] also behind the camera as well as a director/producer."
Cho revealed that she recently saw Saget last week to record an upcoming episode of his podcast, Here for You. She offered a small glimpse into the conversation they shared while taping the podcast.
"I was just on his podcast -- this was a little less than a week ago," she said. "I’m a longtime fan, and so you see somebody that was just a constant in the comedy community and just a really amazing guy. We're just sort of breaking down what it was like trying to be a comedian during this era of lockdowns and... I’m really in shock. Like, I I really don't know how or what to say, even though it's very, very difficult."
The 53-year-old, who "grew up watching him," recalled Saget's genuine "enthusiasm" for comedy.
"He has this incredible appreciation for the art form, and I think that people who knew him well from his appearances on Full House and Fuller House and all those kinds of TV dad moments really don't know how incredibly raunchy he was as a standup comedian," she remembered. "Just a classic dark, difficult journey as a comic that you never really know anybody fully. You can have one side, there are other sides to them that you can acknowledge. But with Bob, you've got everything. You got this incredibly dirty comedy and then this incredibly wholesome side that it's so interesting how that could be embodied in one artist and he was the one."
When asked if she had a favorite act Saget did during his comedy career, Cho confessed she enjoyed "a lot of them."
"He's got an amazing body of work to look back on. And there's so many things, but it was just more the point of view that I loved that everybody knew him to be this very traditional father figure and really it was that other side that I think was just so compelling," she explained. "So what is fortunate is that he is one artist that we do have a lot of material to look back on and I think that everybody should just go enjoy that to celebrate."
Cho also acknowledged that the pandemic, which curtailed many artists' tour plans, forced comedians like herself and Saget to reprioritize what they enjoyed most. Saget, who was in the middle of a North American comedy tour at the time of his death, was set to wrap in late June.
"There are a lot of hours alone. There's a lot of hours of reflection, certainly in this pandemic. It's been very challenging because we're so used to going out and performing and reliving that moment as a comedian every night on stage. Bob was talking about how hard it was that he wasn't able to do that as much, and that he was just getting back into a new [tour and] so excited about it," she said, adding that "he was really excited to getting back to doing that."
As for what Saget's legacy will be as Hollywood mourns Saget, Cho reflected on a fond memory they shared years ago.
"He will be seen as somebody who really loved comedy as much as he was loved. And what a great thing," she said. "What a great person and yeah, I'm just, I'm still really in shock. But I'm grateful for all of the different times I got to spend with him. One of my favorite things is once we were at an audition -- I was in the waiting room and he was there with me. He was helping me audition. He was [taking] the part of the little girl of a 9-year-old. But he was doing it so seriously. Like, applying his old Bob Saget [act] next to this 9-year-old girl's part was so funny. But that's what he was. He was just naturally funny, naturally ridiculous. And it's really sad. I'll miss him a lot."
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