He was genuinely funny. Side-splitting at times.
And suddenly the annoying voice and odd mannerisms all worked in his favor. Go to a comedy club today. Fifteen comics who all do essentially the same act or someone else’s act.
Not Gilbert. He was an original.
What most people don’t know is that that was just a character. Offstage he tended to be quiet and mouse-like. Just a very easygoing sweet guy. I directed him on BECKER and my one note to him (that I had to give him several times) was “Be more ‘Gilbert’.”
For the last few years Gilbert had one of the most successful podcasts on the net. Along with his excellent cohost, Frank Santopadre, he discussed comedy with various big name entertainers. He must’ve run out of them because a couple of years ago I was his guest. You listen to that episode and see yet another side of Gilbert. He was a great laugher. Lots of comedians are so insecure they’re threatened by anyone else who says something funny. Not Gilbert. He liked to be entertained as much as being an entertainmer. He was genuinely supportive and appreciative of other people’s talents.
We need more fearless comics, especially today. The more we take ourselves seriously the more we need someone like Gilbert Gottfried. We all will miss him. He was only 67. To answer the immortal comics’ question: YES. Too soon.
38 comments :
I'm at a loss. I really liked him, and his podcast and yours were pretty much my main entertainment when I was making my ridiculous long drives to events (Hurricane Utah this week, via Huntsville Texas from Ann Arbor Michigan....)
I suspected he was sick, but had no idea. He never mentioned his health on the podcasts.
Your blog entry is wonderful. He was truly an original. His podcasts explored a lot of interesting topics, and there was a lot of digging and insight. I hope Frank continues the podcast.
Absolutely the best teller of the aristocrat joke.
I was stunned to learn of Gilbert's death yesterday, and I was listening to an episode of his podcast at the time. I had no idea he was sick. The reported "long illness" was a fast heart rate compounded by a form of muscular dystrophy. If he had those all these months, or years, he and Frank hid it well. The Letterman YouTube channel posted two of Gilbert's Late Night routines. If you're a regular listener to the podcast, you'll recognize the bits and impressions in those routines. I credit Gil and Frank for bringing many films, TV series, and actors to my attention.
For Peacock subscribers, the eponymous Gilbert documentary is available to watch, and I highly recommend it.
Ken, your episode was among my favorites. Due to my compartmentalized mind, I only remember "and there's a drive...!", but I did enjoy it.
Always loved Gilbert on the Cosby Show (I know, I know) as the guy who outed Cliff for being a doctor while trying to buy a new car.
I listen to the podcast because he and Frank are kindred spirits of mine. Their knowledge of all manner of show business is encyclopedic. And where else can you sample a fine impression of John McGiver?
From J. Elvis Weinstein: A lot of stand-ups can be called "a comic's comic" Gilbert was "a comic's comic's comic."
I knew Gilbert a wee bit. Did stand up with him way back in the day.
Anytime me and my family went to NYC to see a musical or play, he and I would hook up at Junior's for cheesecake for breakfast. He really was a great person.
My condolences to his family.
Nice tribute. I once did a satellite interview with Gilbert when I worked in TV news in Phoenix and tried to get him to drop the persona and just be himself. No luck. He was "on" the entire time, which made some of his answers, while funny, seem disingenuous. I always wondered what he was really like and it's nice to see so many folks who knew him say he was a nice guy.
This is the best strawberry malt ever.
Loved Gilbert and the podcast. You mentioned him being a great laugher, which is true. But I'll go one step further - he laughed even harder when the joke was on him. So many times people would make a wisecrack or one-liner at his expense and nobody laughed harder at those than Gilbert himself. He will be missed.
If nothing else, go look on You Tube for Gilbert's Hollywood Squares appearance where he was the only square left and neither contestant could get the right answer.
Re: Gilbert on Hollywood Squares: "You fool!" That entire sequence was played (audibly) when Tom Bergeron was a guest on the podcast.
YOU FOOL!! Loved that one and the excerpts of him narrating the audio book Fifty Shades of Gray.
His podcast is great. His humor will be missed. Many blessings to his family and friends.
Ray's profile: Is that the one where Gilbert kept bellowing "you fool!" at the contestants? That's where I went from hating him to loving him (if you can "love" Gilbert Gottfried).
Awful news, and agree with all the wonderful things people have said about him.
And this is "too soon", but I hope Frank Santopadre finds a new podcast home somewhere. Nobody did more research, prepared better, or kept a gentle but firm hand on the interview tiller.
I first saw Gilbert on "SNL" during that disasterous sixth season. He didn't do much of his trademark mannerisms on that show, perhaps because he wasn't enjoying his time there as this was the first time Lorne Michaels and his original cast weren't there, and only Brian Doyle-Murray remained among the writers from the previous season. Lorne's replacement was associate producer Jean Doumanian and her first show was so disasterous that executives already wanted her fired but she stayed on for 12 eps until after one show, her "breakout star" Charles Rocket accidentally said "fuck" on live TV. Despite that, they both stayed on for one more show when "SNL" veteran Bill Murray hosted. By that time, Gilbert's time on the show was less and he really didn't make much of an impact so he was fired by Jean's replacement, Dick Ebersol, which was also the fate of most of the rest of that new cast, especially Rocket, except for breakouts Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy. So when I saw him on David Letterman a few years later, I was surprised by how different he seemed compared to his "SNL" stint. What really got me in his corner was when he did a hilarious monologue at the Emmys about Pee Wee Herman's arrest at a porn theatre and started doing several masturbation jokes that I later found out were censored on the West Coast. Incidentally, he was presenting the Best Variety Show Writing of which "SNL" was one of the nominees...
I had no idea Gilbert Gottfried had a podcast until today. I either need to get out more or stay in more. I was amused when he cleared his throat. There is a lot of catching up to do.
I just listened to your appearance. You could take a leisurely shower during Gilbert’s intro of you, which you should loudly broadcast on an endless loop from your car when driving.
I always was struck by him being so professionally courageous. It didn’t seem to fit him. Now we know why.
Just visited the podcast website. According to it, Amazing Colossal began in 2014. It seems like far more than 8 years that Gilbert & Frank have been bringing undescribable joy into my life. I feel a bit guilty now recalling how I'd roll my eyes when Frank & guest would indulge Gilbert with an encore of James Mason or Peter Lorre (and all the others!) or the orange wedges, coffee table, fucking chickens stories.
I've just ordered my orange wedge pin & will wear it proudly.
Imagine my thrill when, more or less recently, Gilbert showed up on stage at the Gotham Comedy Club on 23rd St.
One thing a modern-day comic does not do is tell "jokes", per se. Individual mini-stories which are self-contained, with a beginning and end, and with no contextual tie to any other "joke".
So that's exactly what Gilbert Gottfried did. He told dozens of "jokes". More like, reared-up that loud, grating voice and fired them point blank at the audience, one by one, relentlessly.
He KILLED.
I'm sad to hear of this loss, and grateful as hell to have caught one of his last performances.
"A Million Ways To Die In The West" is a terrible "forced comedy" movie but when Gilbert showed up as Lincoln, he briefly raised the laugh level substantially.
Any time he was in Chicago, he would be 'on' WGN morning news. The anchors loved him, despite being a big star, he would do bits with the anchors. Had them all laughing as well as the audience
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One of the funniest things I ever saw Gilbert do, was the Arsenio Hall show. Came out, NEVER let Arsenio say a word, just kept going and going. Funniest 'interview' I ever saw. Arsenio did a great job
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So help me the man made me laugh. And as TERRY mentioned above, he knew his image and could poke fun at himself. He was a guest on some sketch show many years ago. In the bit he was firing a gun. He turns to the camera and says, "That's not funny. That's just loud and annoying." Acknowledging that that was the way a lot of people thought of him.
He also had a hilarious essay in PLAYBOY about the myth that "...women want men that can make them laugh." (Sorry. I can't remember which issue.)
Coincidentally, I just saw him on an episode of "Married with Children." He cracked me up!
R.I.P., Gilbert.
M.B.
Gilbert's podcast was excellent. I actually learned about you from your appearance on his podcast, and have been following your blog and podcast since. One thing that was great about Gilbert and is great about Frank is their deep respect for old movies, television and pop culture. Gilbert was hilarious, but he was really well-read, too. May his memory be eternal.
Gilbert Gottfried was also the first voice of the AFLAC duck. At an insurance advertising compliance conference I attended in a previous work life, an AFLAC compliance head brought little AFLAC ducks as freebies to his presentation. Occasionally as he spoke, somebody would accidentally or mischievously squeeze a duck, and the poor guy put his hands on his hips in mock annoyance as the duck produced Gottfried's "Aflac .. Aflac ... AFFF-LACK1!!!" vocalization. I regret that I didn't get my hands on one of those ducks.
Re: Gottfried's voice, Bobcat Goldthwait was in Seattle directing the Robin Williams movie "World's Greatest Dad", and performed standup at a local club one night. While promoting his appearance on a radio station, Bobcat sighed, "If I had known I would've had this long of a career, I would've picked a character that wouldn't strain my voice so much."
I should add that being a gay man, I was always attracted to Gilbert. I'll miss him dearly.
The man gave me a lot of laughs over the years. He did three episodes of "Wings" that made me laugh very hard. It's nice to know that in his private life, he was a loving husband and father. Rest in peace, good sir.
There was a documentary called Life, Animated (2016?) about a young man who couldn't speak until he listened to Disney films. He (Owen) had a club and he invited Gilbert to one of their events. He was such a mensch.
@Liggie: Listen to Bobcat's appearance on Gilbert's podcast. Both talk about how people in public are surprised when they don't sound like their on-stage personas. Even better is their description of when they'd meet at a restaurant and when people saw them together they'd have a little fear in their eyes that a shouting match would break out.
BTW, another fun Bobcat story. I took my daughter and her friend, both about 22 at the time, to see Bobcat at a fundraiser for his friend, comedian Barry Krimmins. My daughter had never heard of Bobcat before, despite having watched Disney's Hercules a million times as a kid. So she enjoyed his set, where he only briefly did "the voice." As we're driving home I told her to look for his old routines on YouTube where he did "the voice" and after watching five minutes, she said that if she'd seen that before she wouldn't have gone with me because she would have expected him to be in character the entire time.
He was hilarious on Becker and Wings.
Lovely tribute, Ken. Thank you.
Back in the 80s, I saw Gilbert perform at The Comic Strip in Manhattan. He was not really known then, but man, did he stand out. First, it was his voice, then his lunacy.
He grabbed a small wooden salad bowl from an audience member, dumped the contents, and put it on his head like it was a yarmulke. Then said, "Today you are a microphone!" (parodying what's said at a bar mitzvah ceremony "Today you are a man."). My buddy and I laughed at his silliness while saying who the hell is this guy? Wow, we thought. Wow. RIP GG, and thanks for all the laughs. You made the world a happier place.
Worth seeking out on YouTube is a video of Gottfried and Penn Jillette talking about the night they met in a restaurant shortly after their mothers died. They coped with grief by telling the filthiest, most disgusting jokes they could come up with. Grief coupled with anger, comedy as life-affirmation. Brilliant.
@Glenn
If you remember, the car salesman was played by a pre-famous Sinbad. Bill must have liked what he saw in him, as he was cast on A Different World the following year.
@tavm
When Gilbert was on SNL, the Gilbert persona was only one of his characters. After he was fired, he eventually figured out that the Gilbert persona was the winning one, so that's what he went with the rest of his career. Much like the comedian Andrew Clay who had multiple characters and did impressions of Jerry Lewis on stage before figuring out that the Dice persona was the winning one.
Very funny man.
Last Night on Fresh Air Terry Gross reprised her interview of, not Gottfried, but his persona. Included - a number of impressions by his persona.
Bill Maher said he spent years around Gilbert but you didn't really get to know the real him. He was always "on". You could not have a serious conversation with him.
Gilbert on Trump..
"Trump is sort of like Hitler without the empathy" lol
Gilbert was an acquired taste for me. I know his abrasive and often obnoxious humor turned a lot of people off, but when I discovered his podcast several years ago, you could tell how beloved he was by fellow comics and how he won over unsure guests with his self-effacing humor.
He displayed his depth of movie knowledge when he guest-hosted a series of movies on TMC with Robert Osborne and was able to hold his own, which is pretty impressive. Nobody knew old horror movies better than Gilbert.
I will miss his podcasts, which always brightened Mondays and made the long week more bearable. Highly recommend the documentary on him, which showed his sweet side as a doting brother and father. So glad he found love late in life and had two children he adored and who thought the world of him. So sad he won't get to see them grow up.
Losing Norm MacDonald, Bob Saget, and Gilbert -- all around the same age as me -- in less than a year is really difficult to comprehend. Loved them all.
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