On the value of offensive humor and why youll never see him onComedians inCars Getting Coffee.
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But a huge commercial breakout never really arrived.
And I said, Thats all I do!
(Anthony Jeselnik once dubbed Gottfried the ultimate comedians comedian.)
Like I always say, I think twice but do it anyway, he says.
His material is not only willfully offensive but also quaintly old-fashioned.
And I thought,It sounds like shes rehearsed this line.
Comedy Centralroasted Alec Baldwinin September.
Why?Thats one thing I say about the business.
Cause thats how quickly stuff just stops.
So Comedy Central stopped inviting you?Yeah, it just kind of stopped.
Youre a roasting legend.It is shocking to me that there wouldnt be an open invitation.Its one of those things.
But I dont feel terrible about not being on the roasts.
I havent been on theHoward Sternshow for I dont know how long either.
The funny thing is and its miraculous I dont really harbor any resentment.
Then one day, that was it.
I heard a story about Johnny Carson.
He used to always haveCharlie Callason.
He was a favorite there.
It was so weird.
You had to decide what multimillionaire to feel bad for.
Which multimillionaire did you feel bad for?Well, Conan was made to look like this victim.
He would be starting a new show in less than a year.
But its not quite the same.
You and Jerry both started at the Improv in the 70s, along with Larry David.
But Id imitate other comics, which would make the other comics and the wait staff laugh.
I used to imitate Jerry a lot.
He had never been on TV.
And so sometimes Id go on and like start doing jokes in Seinfelds voice.
Did it piss him off?I like to think it did.
You also used to do your Jerry impression on theHoward Sternshow.
That was how I lived.
There were snowstorms, transit strikes, but Id find a way to get to the clubs.
I had to go and perform.
It was like being on heroin.
Is that because of terror?Yeah, yeah.
That to me has gotten worse over the years.
I used to go on TV shows likeArsenioandConan OBriento do a panel with zero prepared.
Just whatever came into my mind, I used to spit out and I would kill.
I guess in the beginning, I had stupidity on my side.
And youre going, I cant go in that water.
Then you go in the water and all of a sudden its not so bad youre in it.
What was that like?Oh boy, oh boy.
I just wanted a joke to address the elephant in the room.
They were booing, hissing, chairs screeching back.
You would think a roast where the humor is always inappropriate would be a receptive audience.Exactly.
I thought,Whoa.
Ive already lost them beyond belief.
It showed that people need to laugh at times like that.
They were just eccentric.
And Liberace, the women werecrazyabout him.
Now you look at it, you go, How the hell could anybody be thinking hes anything else?
But back then you could cast them with a wife and kids and they were just nutty.
But Paul Lynde, aside from being this bitter gay guy and a drunk, was the biggest anti-Semite.
I love doing imitations of Paul Lynde making anti-Semitic remarks.
My question is a chicken-and-egg one.
They say that with fame, too: Someone doesnt become an asshole because of fame.
They were an asshole to begin with, but they hid it until they got famous.
I didnt know Cesar Romero was gay.When you see him play the Joker, it all makes sense.
Its like, Ohhh.
So there was no insertion involved?Its just hitting.
It begs the question of how that happens.
One morning do you wake up and go, Hey, you know what would feel good?
Orange wedges hitting my ass.
You always hear variations.
Some say he stood ankle deep in warm water.
Ones who know about it will argue, No, I heard it was tangerines.
It was some kind of citrus fruit.
And it proves why Cesar Romero never caught a cold in his life.
And that one I love too much.
This is a horror show of these washed-up old celebs.
But now I think it must have been fun doing that show.
Theyre just as charming and funny as they ever were.
Gavin MacLeodI thought was great.He was!
And weve had on Bernie Kopell twice.
He was Doc fromThe Love Boat.
And it was just guys talking.
And I thought,This is so much fun,and he really loosened up and was funny.
Then he called the next day quite frightened because he realized he was the spokesman for some company.
And he said hes scared that stuff he said they might find offensive.
So whatd you tell him?Well, I sure as fuck know what that is like.
And we didnt run that episode.
The last thing I want to do is go,Oh, I fucked up someone elses career.
When gigantic waves were coming at them, they were saying, How do you spellGottfried?
Thats what people do.
I remember the Christa McAuliffespace-shuttle ones.Millions.
Did you hear Christa McAuliffe had two blue eyes?
One blew this way, one blew that way?
Did you think your life was crumbling?Oh, absolutely.
I believed the headlines.
My career was over.
And there were reporters and photographers in front of my house for like, months.
How did you get cast for the Aflac ads, anyway?They were auditioning people.
I went in, I read for it.
Was there ever a line beyond Aflac?There were never any other words.
Theyd throw in other sounds, like frustrating, or mumbling, or getting surprised.
Those must have been really surreal recording sessions.Oh, yeah.
The amount of work that went into it.
I mean, your act is so much more offensive than the tweets.Yeah.
My favorite tweet that someone wrote said, Aflac fires Gilbert Gottfried after discovering hes a comedian.
That was really it.
How did they fire you?When it happened, I was coming back from a gig in Philadelphia.
Then, I didnt realize anything.
I didnt know there was this controversy until my agent called.
I found out from the internet.
Aflac never actually called you?No.
The articles headline said, Gilbert Gottfried made a series of tsunami-related jokes on Twitter this past weekend.
Like Janet Jackson showing her breast at the Super Bowl.
I didnt see that when it happened, but I saw it on a million offended news shows.
Considering the kind of material you did, its kind of amazing that you ever got corporate gigs.
Didnt Stern lose advertisers over that?When I did that, I lost an account.
I had started to do voice-overs for Kraft Miracle Whip.
They got very offended.
After it happened, on theHoward Sternshow, he brought up a Krafts Miracle Whip.
We all tasted it.
We were all laughing.
Then theyd get on the air and get very serious and very angry when theyre interviewing me.
Its surprising, considering your material, Disney gave you the role of Iago the parrot inAladdinin 1992.
Another person, when they were considering me, said, I dont know.
Gilbert Gottfried seems a little one-dimensional.
Theres still work for the parrot?Yeah.
It was my all-time favorite job.
Every now and then, theyd come out with a new whatever, computer game or internet thing.
They called me for something, anAladdingame, I think.
I came into the recording studio and they said, We just need Iago to laugh at this point.
Thats all we need.
And I said, Okay.
They said, All right … Now.
And I went, Ah-haa …, and they said, Okay, thats perfect.
You remember it?Yes, yeah.
A woman goes to a bar.
She said, I just split up with my husband.
I dont really drink.
Is there any kind of drink I could have?
The bartender says, Well, the martinis a pretty mild drink.
She drinks the martini.
Shes not a drinker, so she gets really woozy.
Then he gives her another one.
By now shes really drunk.
Then the next day she shows up at the bar again.
The bartender says, Well, would you like a martini?
She goes, No, I tried that once.
It made my cunt hurt.
In the book, you write she was gang-raped.
I was on some show, I think it was20/20,about the whole tsunami thing.
I told some joke that has to do with a prison rape.
She covers her mouth and starts laughing.
She turns her head.
They didnt leave that in the interview.
What do you mean the apology is in the joke?
Everyone is a willing participant.
And I think,Yeah, I am aware of it, and thats what makes the joke.
And you go,Oh, thank God theyre beating him up, theyll leave me alone.
Oh gosh, I really wanted to talk to you about it.
I feel like youre joking, but do you truly believe that?I dont know.
Theres this documentary that you and Sarah Silverman appear in,The Last Laugh, which concerns Holocaust jokes.
Theres footage of this concentration-camp survivor watching Sarah Silvermans bits on the Holocaust.
She didnt find them funny.
I knew it was, like, horribly bad taste, but it was funny.
Would I be laughing then?
So context matters?Yeah.
If someone outside your family says something like that, then youd be really offended by that.
But what if Heidi Klum had made that joke?
Or had made some sort of anti-Semitic remark?
Would you have been in favor of her suffering any repercussions?
The worst punishment any woman can suffer.
Were you bar mitzvahed?No.
And I was a birth defect.
Im like anyone else.
I choose what to get offended by.
I remember Mel Gibson called the policewoman sugar tits.
And said the Jews caused all the wars.
Then he started to say he wanted blacks to rape his wife, but he didnt use the wordblacks.
When you say that to a person, they say it aloud in their mind.
Everyone knows the words.
How are people being protected by those terms?
Once, I did my show at some club.
After the show, these two electric wheelchairs come out.
I remember another time there were these two people in wheelchairs.
He said it made them feel like they were part of the crowd.
He got all the big stars.
He got the cute muscular dystrophy kids.
Then they would switch over to the local affiliates.
That would be usually some local weatherman or something.
The stars would be some woman who sings in a hotel lounge or whatever.
One time they switched to the local affiliate.
They were just adorable, the ones he got.
I find the wordvaginavery offensive.
Do you ever retire material?Some bits I eventually did retire.
I never asked her out, I figured what chance do I have?
Shes waiting for some incredibly good-looking guy to come along.
I should have asked her out.
Whats the worst thing she could have said to me?
Im sorry, but you have a normal-shaped head.
I loved doing that bit.
That was the only celebrity divorce I cried about.
The bit made no sense anymore.
I saw you twice recently, and I told you how brilliant your performance was.
If someones not offended, Im not going to remind them to be.
But it wasnt funny, and he obviously suffered major consequences.
What do you make of Louis C.K.s predicament?I was particularly offended by Louis C.K.
because he never invited me to watch him jerk off.
I thought,You think youre friends with a guy …
He seems to have made a concerted effort not to apologize for anything detailed in that New YorkTimesexpose.
I feel so guilty, or is he a guy that will say anything?
Thats always confusing with apologies.
Did you think what he did was wrong?
You must have read the New YorkTimesthing.Believe it or not, Ive never read the New YorkTimesbit.
Oh, you havent?Youre talking to a very uneducated person.
I can honestly say he was always nice to me.
I said, Thank you, Mein Fuhrer.
Are you a supporter?I venture to avoid politics.
So many comedians seem to be motivated by hatred of him.
You dont seem to be.Nah, not really.
Hes an interesting case because I think part of what got him in office was this feeling of God.
Were so sick of having to watch what we say and do and Trump will say and do anything.
I think people like that.
The liberals became the most strict and most oppressive because they were so worried about offending.
In your book, you describe that your sexual awakening came through masturbating a lot to television.
The people who work there pull her out of the water, and her bikini bottom was down.
They actually showed it, and you saw her ass.
I couldnt have dashed to my bed quick enough.
I saw a girls ass there.
I dont even know if I even touched my dick and it was over before it began.
Your father owned a hardware store in Coney Island.Yeah, we lived above the hardware store.
The whole time him owning it, I can remember three customers coming in.
I imagine someone who owns a hardware store is pretty handy.
He could do all that.
I can barely change a lightbulb.
Hed get angry with me a lot when I was a kid.
Hed yell and lose his temper, and I thought back then it was scary.
It became so clear to me after I had kids why.
Both of my sisters went to college, and I dropped out of high school.
I looked like I was going to be the failure of the family.
I looked like I was going to be homeless.
I can only imagine what they thought when I was said I was interested in show business.
I would tell people uncomfortably.
Id say, I dont know, I think they kinda want me to be onSaturday Night.
Then when they let me go from the show, also, I wasnt devastated.
Back then,Woody Allen and Jean Doumanian were very close.Did you meet him?Never.
But Jean had loads of tape on everybody because millions of people were auditioning.
But this has to be partly shtick, no?No.
Why were you so bad?I was terrible about closing a deal, or even talking.
Your wife, Dara,whom you married in 2007, is lovely.
If you were so hopeless with women, how did you meet her?You got me.
Theres no rhyme or reason to anything in my life.
Ive met your wife and kids and been to your apartment in Chelsea.
Its honestly very difficult to reconcile your life now to what I understand of it before you were married.
Your friend Penn Jillette once told a reporter of your pathological cheapness.
All of the furniture was left over from when my parents were alive.
Boxes would be my filing system of my clothes and important papers.
Some are under the bed.
Some my wife put in a cabinet in a bathroom for more easy access.
So you actually use them?Yeah.
I mean, some Ill leave to my great-grandkids.
Im curious: Do you fill larger bottles with the small bottles?No.
Are you being serious?Yeah.
I would definitely do that.
Was this cheapness something that your mother or your father passed onto you?Yeah.
We didnt have money growing up.
I remember there were just certain brands that wed never have in the house, big-name brands.
[We only had] off-brands.
I always knew that these toys that they advertised on TV would never be in the house.
I remember one time in school the teacher was asking, Do you know what disappointment is?
I thought, How wouldanyoneever get a toy like that in their house?
But your apartment and its decor seem very expensive.
Its still scary to me.
How do you deal with it?Not easily.
I just sort of go along with it.
I saw on some tabloid they found some actor who used to be on a kids show.
I think it wasSmall Wonder.
They said they found the actor who played her brother living under a bridge.
And sometimes I think about that.
Particularly when Im lying in bed at night.
