Gilbert Gottfried, boundary-pushing comedian, dead at 67
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[April 13, 2022]
By Daniel Trotta
(Reuters) - Gilbert Gottfried, a stand-up
comic with a screwy voice and a penchant for pushing boundaries with
jokes about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Japanese tsunami, has died at
age 67, his family said on Tuesday.
Gottfried, a former cast member on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and the
voice of a sarcastic parrot in the animated Disney film "Aladdin,"
suffered a long, unspecified illness, the family statement said.
"In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a
wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young
children," the statement said. "Although today is a sad day for all of
us, please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert's honor."
Born in Brooklyn, and rising up through the New York City stand-up
scene, Gottfried was known for edgy comedy that made some people squirm.
Two weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington that killed
nearly 3,000 people in 2001, Gottfried joked about it during a roast of
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, saying he could not book a direct flight
from New York to California.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Apr/13/images/ads/current/farmers_grain_sda_SFARM_2022.png)
"They said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first,"
Gottfried said, drawing laughs and moans of "too soon."
Reflecting on the moment later, Gottfried said in a television
interview, "That's the way my mind works. I wanted to basically address
the elephant in the room."
That style of humor also cost him a lucrative role as the Aflac duck in
television commercials for the insurer, which severed ties with
Gottfried after he made a series of jokes on Twitter about the 2011
earthquake and tsunami that killed 18,000 people in Japan.
"I love to go where it's a dark area. You never know what people will
choose to be offended by," Gottfried told The New York Times in 2013.
Tributes poured in from other comic actors.
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![](../images/041322PIX/ent_c.25.jpg)
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried arrives with a duck at the Webby Awards
in New York June 14, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Apr/13/images/ads/current/debbies_lda_032222.png) Seth MacFarlane, creator of the
animated series "Family Guy" and director of the comedy film "A
Million Ways to Die in the West," said Gottfried's outrageous
send-up of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address in that movie made
him laugh so hard on set that "I could barely do my job."
"A wholly original comic, and an equally kind and
humble guy behind the scenes," MacFarlane said on Twitter. "He will
be missed."
Jason Alexander, who played George on the television comedy
"Seinfeld," said on Twitter, "Gilbert Gottfried made me laugh at
times when laughter did not come easily. What a gift."
One of Gottfried's best known movie roles was as the voice of Iago,
the loud-mouthed, sarcastic talking parrot of the evil Jafar in
Disney's 1992 animated film hit "Aladdin."
He also reached what would normally be considered the pinnacle for
American comic actors by getting named to the cast of "Saturday
Night Live" in 1980, but the new cast was poorly received, having
replaced highly popular players such as John Belushi, Gilda Radner
and Bill Murray.
Gottfried said he could not enjoy the experience, telling
interviewer Joe Rogan last year that he felt like a "sacrificial
lamb."
"You don't want to be the replacement," Gottfried said. "You want to
be the replacement of the replacement."
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman;
Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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