Saget attended Temple University's film school, where he created Through Adam's Eyes, a black-and-white film about a boy who received reconstructive facial surgery, and was honored with an award of merit in the Student Academy Awards. Saget originally intended to become a doctor, but his Honors English teacher, Elaine Zimmerman, saw his creative potential and urged him to seek a career in films. The family would then move back to Philadelphia prior to his senior year with Saget graduating from Abington Senior High School. Saget's family moved from Virginia to the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he met Larry Fine of The Three Stooges and heard various stories from Fine.
Due to a lack of family in Virginia, Saget had his bar mitzvah in Philadelphia when he turned 13. Saget would later attribute the start of his developing sense of humor to being a rebellious student at Norfolk's Temple Israel, a Conservative synagogue. Early in his life, Saget's family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he briefly attended Lake Taylor High.
His father, Benjamin, was a supermarket executive, and his mother, Rosalyn 'Dolly', was a hospital administrator. Saget was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 17, 1956, to a Jewish family.
