In the Wrong Funnel

Watching Bob Saget scramble to reconcile his clean sitcom image with the unglamorous realities of infant care gives his 1990 stage performance an uneasy tension. On stage, he acts like a man running on four hours of sleep, jumping between domestic neuroses, diaper details, and twitchy crowd interactions that hint at the filthier club comic lurking beneath his network polish. No special exists under the title In the Wrong Funnel; the project referenced is Saget’s August 1990 HBO Comedy Hour presentation, In the Dream State. At the time of broadcast, he occupied an unusual perch in American television, concurrently starring as Danny Tanner on Full House and hosting America’s Funniest Home Videos, both commanding massive prime-time ratings. Looking to showcase his filmmaking background from Temple University, he directed the broadcast himself and co-wrote the material with his wife, Sherri Kramer. The hour split into two distinct halves: a twenty-five-minute scripted fantasy where a sleep-deprived Saget wanders his house hallucinating musical numbers while his wife, played by Mary Gross, battles a sinus infection, followed by a live stand-up set. His stage routine focuses on feeling like an unpaid sanitation worker next to his breastfeeding wife, imagining his infant daughter radioing in dirty diapers over a nursery monitor, and suggesting jumper cables to revive a quiet front row. Contemporary reviews were mixed to critical, with the Orange County Register calling the dream sequences self-indulgent and forced, though the broadcast still earned Saget a 1991 CableACE Award nomination for direction.