This particular roast is MC'ed by Saget's good friend and Full House co-star, John Stamos. And while no other cast members were on the dais to help give Saget some tough love, Dave Coulier (Joey), Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) and Lori Loughin (Becky) were all in the audience together. Noticeably missing were Candace Cameron (D.J.) and the Olsen twins (Mary-Kate and Ashley, who shared the role as little Michelle).
But that doesn't mean there weren't a lot of quality comedians on the stage that night. Besides Stamos, the dais also featured Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin, Greg Giraldo, Gilbert Gottfried, Cloris Leachman (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Jon Lovitz, Norm MacDonald, Jim Norton, Brian Posehn and Jeffery Ross, all of which pulled out all the stops and really hit a few zingers (against both Saget and the other roasters).
Giraldo was first up and started the ball rolling. It was clear early on how each of the people were going to be picked on. Leachman of course had her age, Posehn had his looks (okay, pretty much everyone was hit with that one at least once), Garlin had his weight and well, Gottfried and Lovitz were picked on about their obvious flaws.
I especially liked Girlaldo's dig at Stamos for having his wife stolen by Jerry O'Connell, or as he put it "the fat kid from Stand By Me." Giraldo was followed up by Lovitz, who sang a couple of songs about Saget and then read an excerpt from a book Bob's dad supposedly wrote. The focus of both the songs and this book were about Saget's secret sexual preferences.
Ross took the stage after Lovitz and mainly focused on the lack of comedy in his stand-up. At one point he said, "Bob, this isn't a roast, it's an intervention. You can keep doing the drugs, but please stop doing comedy." After that, the special cut to a brief video clip to let Lewis Black have a few words, and then returned to Essman who exclaimed that the dais was graced with many fine comedians... and Bob Saget.
But it was Cloris Leachman (who followed Essman) that really stole the show. This aged comedienne knows how to deliver a joke and uses her age and grandmotherly appearance to lull you into a false sense of comfort; then wham! She hits you with a completely unexpected comment involving nightly shows with donkies (by the way, The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget is most definitely not for kids). Quite frankly, her few minutes on the screen alone makes this DVD worth a purchase, or at least seeing.
Norm MacDonald took the stage next and, once again, showed how well he pulls off the awkward bad joke routine. Jim Norton also did a bit between videos of Sarah Silverman and Don Rickles, but personally, I believe all three of their sets weren't nearly as strong as the rest of the groups -- especially after Leachman's bit.
Gilbert Gottfried rounded off the evening with his own bits about Saget's personal and professional lives, but then Saget himself took center stage to lay into his roasters for a bit.
I have to say, it was interesting that each of the roasters seemed to ping on Saget for the same types of things over and over again. Whether it was calling him gay, or accusing him of pedophilia and generally not being funny, it seems like each comedian had the same ideas for their jokes, but took them radically different ways (especially when it came to the relationship between Saget and the Olsen twins).
Special features include the standard fare for this series; there are the TV commercials that led up to the show and the various interviews both before and after the show. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed this particular roast. While I've liked all the ones I've seen, this one is ranked pretty high, and should definitely be watched by anyone who grew up watching Saget (but already knows of his current comedic styling that takes on the curse-word-filled shock value flavor). Fans of stand-ups in general should also look for this DVD since it's one of the rare times when the dais is pretty much completely filled with comedians (as opposed to non-comedic actors or rappers or whatever like before). So you can expect a ton of laughs with this special.
