Gilbert Gottfried

Gilbert Gottfried (February 28, 1955 - April 12, 2022) was an American actor and stand-up comedian best known for his trademark comedic persona of speaking in a loud and grating tone of voice. His numerous roles in film and television include voicing the parrot Iago in Disney's Aladdin animated films and TV show, Digit LeBoid in the PBS Kids show Cyberchase, and Kraang Subprime in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac Duck until 2011. He appeared in the critically-panned but commercially-successful Problem Child in 1990. From 2014 until his death in 2022, Gottfried hosted a podcast, Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, which featured new episodes each week featuring discussions of classic movies and celebrity interviews, most often with veteran actors, comedians, musicians, and comedy writers. Gilbert, a documentary film on Gottfried's life and career, was released in 2017.

Career
Gottfried was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Lillian (Zimmerman), a homemaker, and Max Gottfried, who ran a hardware store with his own father, above which the family lived. At age fifteen, Gilbert Gottfried began doing amateur stand-up in New York City and, after a few years, became known as "the comedian's comedian." In 1980, the popular NBC late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live was being retooled with a new staff and new comedians; the producers noticed Gottfried and hired him as a cast member. During the 1980-1981 season, Gottfried's persona in SNL sketches was very different from his later characterization; he rarely (if ever) spoke in his trademark screeching, obnoxious voice and never squinted. During his 12-episode stint, he was given very little airtime and seldom used in sketches. Gottfried recalls a lowpoint was having to play a corpse in a sketch. Despite this, he had one recurring character (Leo Waxman, husband to Denny Dillon's Pinky Waxman on the recurring talk show sketch, "What's It All About?") and two celebrity impersonations: David A. Stockman and controversial film director Roman Polanski.

Gottfried also played accountant Sidney Bernstein in the 1987 film Beverly Hills Cop II which reunited him with friend and fellow SNL alumnus Eddie Murphy.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Gottfried was a favorite guest of Howard Stern's, often impersonating Andrew "Dice" Clay, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and a senile Groucho Marx.

Although not a regular, he also appeared in the short-lived 1992 TV series The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys and voiced a crazed dentist "Dr. Bender" and his son Wendell on the show The Fairly OddParents and the voice of Jerry the Belly Button Elf on Ren and Stimpy. Three of his most prominent roles came in 1990, 1991, and 1992, when he was cast as the adoption agent Igor Peabody in Problem Child and Problem Child 2 and the parrot Iago in Aladdin. When asked how he prepared for his role of Iago (Aladdin) in Aladdin, he said "I did the whole DeNiro thing. I moved to South America!  I lived in the trees!" Gottfried reprised the role in Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the television series and various related media, such as Kingdom Hearts and House of Mouse. However, the character was ultimately recast to Alan Tudyk for the 2019 remake. Gottfried also voiced Berkeley Beetle in 1994's Thumbelina. In 1993 he was interviewed by Chris Aable at the "B Minus Movie Awards" along with David Cassidy and Gary Coleman. Gottfried's interview aired on Chris Aable's cable TV show "Hollywood Today" in 1994 and is now part of his video "America's Craziest Home Videos". He was a co-host of the Saturday edition of USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear.

Since 2000 until 2011, he was also the voice of the duck in the AFLAC commercials and Digit in the math-mystery cartoon Cyberchase on PBS Kids GO!, as well as the magical imp Mr. Mxyzptlk on Superman: The Animated Series. He also played a nasty wisecracking criminal genius named "Nick-Nack" who used toys to commit crimes on two episodes of the TV series Superboy (he also co-wrote an issue of the tie-in Superboy: The Comic Book which featured the origin of his character, Nick-Nack). Gottfried made regular appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

He also appeared as a semi-regular in the most recent version of Hollywood Squares. He is best remembered for a 1999 episode in which a single round of play took up the entire half-hour. The contestants had each won four stars/squares, leaving Gottfried as the last square available. Because either player could win upon capturing Gottfried's square, they could not win on their competitor's wrong response and had to win it themselves. The contestants alternated agreeing or disagreeing about whether Gottfried was bluffing an answer—and missed six consecutive tries. Five of those times he admonished the contestant with an increasingly incredulous "YOU FOOL!" The seventh time he and the contestant agreed, and they finally won the square and the game. This segment has been featured on game show blooper programs and it is popular on youtube.

Gottfried was also a notorious favorite of Howard Stern, appearing on his radio show numerous times; Gottfried made more appearances than any other celebrity guest. Most famous for his impersonation of "Dracula Gottfried" he was also well known for his numerous, and often raunchy/racial, parodies of public figures including 1950s B-movie stars and a particularly accurate impersonation of the aged Groucho Marx. Gottfried also did an impersonation of Jerry Seinfeld, which he has showcased on the Stern show as well as Clerks: The Animated Series. Coming on the Stern show immediately after David Brenner years ago, Gottfried proceeded to parody Brenner's lengthy child custody problems and Brenner's former girl friend's drug addiction and her adequacy as custodial parent: "Sure she uses heroin, but she still takes vitamin C!" Gilbert was censored on the Sirius satellite version of the Stern show after making an off-color joke about Steve Irwin's daughter Bindi Irwin.

He frequently parodied rabbis and cantors, making up atonal gibberish prayers and compositions on the spot. Gilbert was known for his impression of Andrew Dice Clay...or "Dice Gottfried".

Gottfried famously told the venerable Aristocrats joke at a Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner just three weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Gottfried's quick wit saved what could have been a notorious disaster. He began his monologue joking that he had intended to catch a plane, but couldn't get a direct flight because "they said they have to connect with the Empire State Building first." Audience members nervously responded with gasps and cries of "Too soon!". Gottfried first thought this was relating to the speed of his joke. Gottfried then abandoned his prepared remarks and launched into the Aristocrats joke, effectively winning back the audience and having roaster Rob Schneider literally falling out of his chair laughing. When the laughter and applause had subsided, Gottfried commented, "They might have to clean this up for TV," to more laughter and applause. Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza used Gottfried's monologue as a segment in their 2005 film, The Aristocrats.



Gottfried was part of an online advertising campaign for Microsoft's Office XP software, showing, in a series of Flash-animated cartoons, that the Clippy office assistant would be removed. In 2006, Gottfried topped the Boston Phoenix ' s tongue-in-cheek list of the world's 100 Unsexiest Men. In April 2006, Gottfried performed with the University of Pennsylvania's Mask and Wig Club in their annual Intercollegiate Comedy Festival. Also in 2006, he made an appearance on the Let's Make a Deal portion of Gameshow Marathon (as a baby in a large high chair, he says "Hey Ricki, I think I need my diaper changed!"), and in the Dodge Viper in the big deal (where he tells the contestants "What were you thinking?!" because neither one picked it). He also guest-starred in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as Santa Claus in the one-hour Christmas Special. He voiced Rick Platypus in an episode of My Gym Partner's a Monkey entitled "That Darn Platypus". Furthermore, Gottfried appeared as Peter's horse in an episode of Family Guy entitled "Boys Do Cry". He also guest-starred in Hannah Montana as Barny Bittmen. In January 2009, Gottfried worked again with David Faustino (Bud Bundy from Married with Children) for an episode of Faustino's show Star-ving. In 2011, Gottfried appeared in the episode "Lost Traveler" on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Leo Gerber, a sarcastic computer professional working for the NYPD's Technical Assistance Response Unit, which producer Warren Leight said could become a recurring character. Gottfried read a section from the hit book Fifty Shades of Grey in a June 2012 YouTube video, which was created with the aim of using Gottfried's trademark voice to make fun of the book's graphic sexual content.

In 2013, Gottfried became a member of "Team Rachael" on the second season of Food Network's Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off. In March 2013 he appeared on ABC's Celebrity Wife Swap. He swapped wives with Alan Thicke. He is also a commentator on truTV Presents: World's Dumbest....

On May 28, 2014, Sideshow Network premiered Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, an interview series where Gottfried and his co-host Frank Santopadre discuss classic movies and talk to "Hollywood legends and behind-the-scenes talents" who shaped Gottfried's childhood and influenced his comedy. His first guest was Dick Cavett.

Gottfried was the third contestant fired during the fourteenth season of the NBC reality show The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2016 he played the 'Pig Man' in a comedy/fantasy film Abnormal Attraction.

In 2017 he appeared as himself in Episodes, where a contestant on a fictional TV endurance gameshow is penalised with "48 hours of Gilbert Gottfried".

On June 10, 2018 he appeared in a special segment of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver where, for UK viewers only, a segment about the UK's law restricting broadcast of debates from the Houses of Parliament was replaced by five minutes of him reading "3 star Yelp reviews", along with host John Oliver telling the audience "you brought this on yourself because of your stupid law". He returned on November 18, 2018 in the show's last episode of the year to read out extracts from the Brexit agreement, again for UK viewers only. He had previously performed as "the real voice of Jared Kushner" in dubbed film clips on the show.

On July 31, 2019, he appeared as a guest in episode 170 of the Angry Video Game Nerd. On January 10, 2022, he guest-starred as God on the season finale of Smiling Friends.

Personal life and death
In the late 1990s, Gottfried met Dara Kravitz at a Grammy Awards party. They were married in 2007 and have two children together: daughter, Lily and son, Max. Gottfried was raised in a Jewish family, but he said on his podcast that he did not have a bar mitzvah. One of his sisters was Arlene Gottfried, a New York street photographer who died in 2017.

Gottfried died in Manhattan from ventricular tachycardia, complicated by type II myotonic dystrophy, on April 12, 2022, at the age of 67.

Filmography
"The Playdate" (2011) The Police Officer {| class="wikitable sortable"
 * Saturday Night Live: various sketches (1980–1981)
 * Beverly Hills Cop II: Sidney Bernstein (1987)
 * Hot to Trot: Dentist (1988)
 * The Adventures of Ford Fairlane: Johnny Crunch (1990)
 * Look Who's Talking Too: Joey (1990)
 * Superboy: Nick-Nack (1990)
 * Problem Child: Mr. Peabody (1990)
 * Problem Child 2: Mr. Peabody (1991)
 * Night Court (TV series): as Oscar Brown (1991)
 * Aladdin: Iago the Parrot (voice) (1992)
 * Highway to Hell: Hitler (1992)
 * Bonkers: Two-Bits (1993–1995)
 * Problem Child (TV series): Mr. Peabody (1993)
 * Return of Jafar: Iago the Parrot (voice) (1994)
 * Thumbelina: Berkeley Beetle (voice) (1994)
 * Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas: Burt Banner (1994)
 * Double Dragon (1994)
 * Beavis and Butthead: Gus Baker (1994)
 * Duckman: (recurring role) Art DeSalvo (1994–1997)
 * Married... With Children: Ship Happens: Part 2 (1995)
 * Adventures in Wonderland (Tv series) : Pie Noon (1995)
 * Problem Child 3: Junior in Love: Dr. Peabody (1995)
 * The Cosby Show patient (1987)
 * Bump in the Night: Stink Bug (1995)
 * Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat: Additional Characters (1995–1996)
 * Aladdin (TV series): Iago the Parrot (1994–1995)
 * Aladdin and the King of Thieves: Iago the Parrot (1996)
 * Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Roy (1996)
 * In the House: Mr. Comstock (1996)
 * Superman: The Animated Series: Mr Mxyzptlk (1996–2000)
 * Adventures from the Book of Virtues (1996)
 * Big Bag (Troubles the Cat segment) (1996)
 * ''Def Jam's How to Be a Player (1997)
 * Bear in the Big Blue House: Large Possum (voice) (1997)
 * Noddy: Jack Frost (1998)
 * Hercules: Cilon (1998)
 * Dr. Dolittle: Compulsive Dog (voice) (1998)
 * Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (TV series): As himself in episodes 503 and 506 (1999)
 * Clerks: The Animated Series: the voice of Jerry Seinfeld and Patrick Swayze (2000)
 * Mad TV: special appearance, one episode (1997)
 * Timon & Pumbaa (TV series): The Woodpecker
 * Fairly Odd Parents: Dr. Bender/Wendel (2001–2005)
 * Disney's House of Mouse and Mickey's House of Villains: Iago the Parrot
 * Kingdom Hearts: Iago the Parrot (2002)
 * Kingdom Hearts II: Iago the Parrot (2006)
 * CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Season Two, Episode: Last Laugh:Comic (2003)
 * Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: Duck (2004)
 * Celebrity Deathmatch :As himself in episode Gottfried in America''
 * Cyberchase: Digit and Widget (2002–2022)
 * The Aristocrats (2005)
 * Back by Midnight (2002): Security Guard
 * Becker: A plastic surgeon
 * Meet Wally Sparks: Harry Karp
 * Ren & Stimpy: Jerry the BellyButton Elf (voice)
 * The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: various sketches
 * Son of the Beach: Noccus Johnstein in both "Chip's A Goy" and Hamm Stroker's Suck My Blood:(2002)
 * VH1's Celebrity Paranormal Project and I Love Toys
 * Billy and Mandy Save Christmas: Santa Claus (voice)
 * Farce of the Penguins: "I'm Freezing My Nuts Off" penguin (voice) (2007)
 * Family Guy: Peter's Horse (voice)
 * My Gym Partner's a Monkey: Rick Platypus (voice)
 * El Tigre:The Adventures of Manny Rivera: El Cerdo (voice)
 * Hannah Montana Season 2 Episode "(We're So Sorry) Uncle Earl": Barney Bitman (2008)
 * VH1's I Love the New Millennium 4 Episodes (2008)
 * The Emperor's New School season 2 11 Episodes (12.03.2007)
 * The Comedy Central Roast: Bob Saget (2008)
 * The Replacements: Himself (2008)
 * Gilbert Gottfried: Dirty Jokes (1 hour Showtime Special) (2008) - live stand-up performance in Manhattan, NY. Gottfried promises 'the dirtiest joke ever told'
 * The Lindabury Story (2009)
 * The View - Horny the Dwarf (Joy's Month in ReView)
 * The Weird Al Show: himself
 * Pyramid: Himself (Celebrity Guest)
 * Hollywood Squares: Himself (Regular)
 * The Comedy Central Roast: Joan Rivers (2009)
 *  Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy Himself (2009)
 *  Jack and the Beanstalk (2009 Film): Grayson (2009)
 *  'Til Death Guest starred as Tommy (2010)
 *  Stripperland (2010)
 * The Comedy Central Roast: David Hasselhoff (2010)
 *  Robotomy Tickle Me Psycho (voice)
 *  Miss December
 * rowspan="3" |2011
 * Comedy Central Roast: Donald Trump
 * Himself
 * Roast of Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
 * Leo Gerber
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"
 * rowspan="2" |2012
 * Comedy Central Roast: Roseanne Barr
 * rowspan="5" |Himself
 * The Burn with Jeff Ross
 * 2013–2014
 * TruTV Presents: World's Dumbest...
 * rowspan="3" |2013
 * Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off
 * Celebrity Wife Swap
 * "Gilbert Gottfried/Alan Thicke"
 * Mad
 * Linkong, Father, Crash (voices)
 * 2013–2014
 * TruTV Presents: World's Dumbest...
 * rowspan="3" |2013
 * Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off
 * Celebrity Wife Swap
 * "Gilbert Gottfried/Alan Thicke"
 * Mad
 * Linkong, Father, Crash (voices)
 * Celebrity Wife Swap
 * "Gilbert Gottfried/Alan Thicke"
 * Mad
 * Linkong, Father, Crash (voices)
 * Mad
 * Linkong, Father, Crash (voices)

Commercials
or.
 * MTV (1980s)
 * Pepsi (1991)
 * Pop-Tarts: Voice of the Toaster (1995)
 * Aflac: Voice of the Aflac duck (2000–2011)
 * Subway (2000)
 * Office XP: Voice of Clippy (2001)
 * Glad (2003)
 * Shoedini (2010)
 * Easterns Automotive Group commercials (2012)
 * Eat24 (2015 Super Bowl commercial)
 * }