COMEDY REVIEW : Saget Draws Strength From Lively Audience

Bob Saget’s style as host of ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” is glib spontaneity; he comes across as a nice guy who thinks fast and funny, if he’s lucky. More than likely, the truth is that he operates from a well-rehearsed script, with all the ad-libs carefully penciled in.

But after seeing Saget perform Friday night at the Hyatt Regency Alicante’s Top Secret Comedy Club, it’s not a big leap to believe that all his between-videos patter is impromptu. Saget’s show was less a stand-up act than a prolonged conversation with the audience--some of it was witty, some of it amusing, some of it corny, some of it flat.

Whether his stream-of-consciousness manner consistently worked or not, one thing kept coming through: Saget is a middle-America ideal, a soft-focused comic who rarely threatens, and when he does, it’s usually with an unspoken apology. He’s the type of guy every mother could love, or at least tolerate.

In other words, he’s perfect for TV.

While he had a few regular bits, Saget generally depended on improvisation--he hasn’t done stand-up in a while, so you can forgive him the dearth of material--and he is quick. He’s got a bright comeback for everything.

But his riffs didn’t carry the lunatic fringe of the great improvisers, like Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters. Comics like those two take us into their uncanny world and provide a different, charged outlook. Saget maps out more familiar, often mundane terrain.

Much of it comes from his audience interactions, and if he has a bunch of duds out there, watch out. It’s safe to say that Saget, when at his best Friday, was only as good as his audience, and he was fortunate to have a lively crowd with a few peculiar stories to tell.

Take the woman who had neck problems after her husband sat on her. Saget grabbed that almost immediately and used it like a touchstone through his hourlong set. When the tempo or attention flagged, he shimmied over to the neck lady; the audience loved his pirouettes around her physical troubles.

They talked back to him, he talked back to them, and everybody seemed to enjoy it. Even the more constructed bits involved a good deal of give and take, like when Saget discussed the merits of stores like K mart and Target. He sang a ditty about the two competitors getting along and gabbed about the tackiness of their products.

It wasn’t long before he was inviting comments from people who shopped there. Or those who buy clothes at Woolworth’s, eat at Denny’s or like Judge Wapner on “The People’s Court.” These were sardonic but always friendly exchanges that underscored his agreeable approach.

At one point, Saget confessed that he used to hate obnoxious people until he discovered he was one. True, his routine can be trying, especially when he rambles on, and there’s an unctuous shading in the rapport he creates.

But obnoxious is too conclusive a word; Saget just doesn’t have the edginess to assume that description. In some ways, you wish he did.