This year, Bob Saget has become the show's idol. The two B.J.s have decked the Yard with eerie two-tone posters of Saget's head above the text, "Obey Saget." Those expecting Saget's saccharine sitcom smile might find a more subversive side to the star, Novak warned.

"Saget might surprise," Novak says. "We wouldn't want it any other way."

The Life of the Artist, Briefly

It's difficult to reconcile the spectacle Novak makes of himself with the quiet manners and thoughtful stare of the off-stage man. What led Novak to his strange style of showmanship was a long search for the largest spectacle he could find. And if he stood at the center of attention, so be it.

"I always wanted to make big things," he says.

In junior high, it was carpentry-"I liked to build stuff"-but when he realized that houses would be too small, he scaled up his plans, and decided to be a real-estate developer, a "Donald Trump with a sense of the absurd."