ianboldsworth

Gilbert

Added 2022-04-15 10:00:06 +0000 UTC

Hello there

There are, I think, “anticipatories” on the death chart.

I mean, we are all for the chop ultimately, and there’s older family generations etc, but I also think that perhaps we have strangers that we know are going to break our hearts when they die. So, it has been this week with Gilbert Gottfried being away. There’s still a few left on my list, but they’re all at that age now…

I’ve just sat and watched Gilbert’s funeral on a live stream, which is one of the more unusual patreon benefits I’ve ever received. Yet, completely apt in the community feel his podcast cultivated.

I’ve spoken about Gilbert and “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast” a fair bit on here. It’s the only podcast that I really have a full commitment to. I listen to it every week, and re-listen to old episodes a lot. I should certainly mention the co-host, Frank Santopadre- who quite clearly did all the work - as he really doesn’t get the credit he deserves. I’ve spoken with him a few times about various things, but my only interaction with Gilbert was him saying “Thank you” to a complimentary tweet about him years ago. Even that might well have been his wife, Dara, typing it...

There’s no denying that Gilbert is the star of the podcast though. It’s tremendously educational about popular culture and the history of movies, enormously funny in every way, and exceptionally well put together (whilst managing to sound engagingly haphazard). It’s regularly intentionally inappropriate, and then a few seconds later disarmingly touching and sincere. I’ve learnt more from it than any other thing I’ve consumed. It’s also cost me a fortune in getting whatever book or movie the guest was promoting, despite often having never heard of the guest before listening. I am currently, selfishly, dreading being without it anymore.

I found out during the funeral that Gilbert had been seriously ill for some time, and was in a lot of pain. His family and friends knew he was imminently away. So that’s something that eases the loss for sure. I also had the irregular experience of really laughing through tears during the funeral. I mean, I had a proper blub when I heard he was away, but that today was a rollercoaster and a half. In my defence, it’s not taking much to set me off nowadays, and I was only marginally less tearful when my laptop broke.

The laughter element was kind of disconcerting, whilst being very much on point. Gilbert Gottfried’s stock in trade was being naughty. Saying the most horrific jokes, and somehow charming his way through it. Whenever he displayed vitriol in his comedy it was never confused with genuine anger. There were some skills going on there, and he stuck to his guns. Same as Saget, when I spoke about him, he stuck to his guns too. It made him laugh (more on that momentarily), and it made me laugh. Tons. He was inappropriate, distasteful, obscene…all words that should be negative. It some rare ability for those who can say the filthiest things, whilst still being so sweet and harmless. I genuinely believe, those performing skills aside, that the reason he could keep jumping over the line with both feet and remain adored, was because he himself laughed and laughed.

I hate comedians in conversation not laughing. As in, when others are being funny but not getting the validation of laughter from their co-conversationalists. I’m fine with anyone talking seriously, but when they are messing about, and there isn’t the support structure of laughter, it makes me uncomfortable. Especially when it’s me being funny to silence. I laugh loads, and 90% of the time it’s because I am actually laughing. The remainder of the time it’s because I would hate the person being funny to feel like they’d failed, and would hate an audience to hear that. I fill the gaps.

I don’t think, from my experience of his work, Gilbert Gottfried was ever being gracious. I think he was just a natural born laugher, and I’d defy you to hear a more pure and infectious laugh anywhere on the earth. He howled. The naughtier the prompt, the better.

That’s why his funeral was so perfect today. In everything but the necessity to have it.

It was epitomised by Jeff Ross saying to Gilbert’s kids; “Max and Lily – he spoke about you ALL the time. And not just when he was telling that Aristocrats joke…”

That’s when it was clear that Gilbert was definitely dead. Otherwise his laughter would have blown the lid off that coffin.

Lots of people know him from voicing Iago in Aladdin, which is a great job but he’s better in the sequel as he gets more to do, and a lot of people will know him from The Aristocrats movie, where comics blew the lid on the secret backstage ritual of trying to outdo each other with obscenity. Gilbert famously performed the joke in public, at Hugh Heffner’s roast in New York, a few weeks after the destruction of the World Trade Center. It was considered a defining moment for the city. That sounds like I’m over-egging the pudding, so you’d need to see the clip from The Aristocrats to put it into context. I’m sure it will be on YouTube or something. Just make sure you include the second “r” in your search, or you’ll end up watching culturally insensitive cartoon cats. Which actually might be marginally more tasteful to be honest…

I could talk about him all day, but it’d be schmaltzy and mawkish I think. It’s just really, really upset me, and countless others. I adored him. Really admired him, and he made me laugh so hard. So, I thought I’d do you a short list of my best bits of him. The things that made me laugh the most. I really don't like lists, but I'll make an exception on this occasion. You’ll have gathered by now that he won’t be for everyone, so if you’re contentedly set on not liking humour that leans that way, I can’t really see him changing your mind. If you’re up for laughing through shock, you might enjoy some of these…

1. The Rocky Horror Show

“Isn’t it enough that you’re in your underwear!?”

This is the tamest one on the list, and I think everyone will be ok with it. In the weirdly musclebound Broadway revival/reboot of Rocky Horror in 2000, there was a rotation of Narrators accompanying the main cast. They started the run with Vincent Price, and eventually got to Gilbert Gottfried, who turned up in a jumper and proceeded to disrupt the show from within. There’s a decent chance that anybody else doing this would have really annoyed me. My favourite bit is as at 46.30 (this is a bootleg recording), and I actually quoted it on a Cabin Fever a few weeks back, without saying what it was from. It was from this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF04nWCuZUw

2. Bob Saget on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast - 10 Aug 2020

“You realise this is just blatant filth?”

I mentioned this when Saget was away, and also the next thing on this list. Saget was on Gilbert’s podcast more than once, but on this occasion there was quite the cathartic conversation punctuated with a relentless expression of what sexual depravity Gilbert wanted Santa to unleash on him “for Christmas”…

(I don’t know how to link to podcasts, but you’ll work it out)

3. Gilbert Gottfried on Bob Saget’s Here For You Podcast - 30 Aug 2021

“Oh the train conductor was hurt…”

Bob Saget was really struggling when this podcast was recorded and invited Gilbert to return as a guest to cheer him up. It contains an incredible improvised flight of fantasy with Gilbert fetishizing and lusting over train conductors, which is immediately deconstructed in a search for justification. Really fascinating snapshot of a shifting cultural landscape and stupidly funny.

(I still don’t know how to link to podcasts. What? Did you think I’d somehow learn it whilst writing that last paragraph?)

4. Gilbert roasts Roseanne

“People always forget about the tail…”

I mean, you could take your pick from “Gilbert Gottried roasts…” videos on YouTube, but this is a favourite of mine. I think, bizarrely, because it reminds me of Les Dawson. It’s a spiralling collection of claims about Roseanne being an actual Godzilla-esque monster (Rosezilla), all written in melodramatic prose. Like all roasts, it’s hedonistically wayyyyyy over the line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7WvdrURadY

5. Gilbert – A Gilbert Gottfried Story

“Why? It’s not wrinkled…”

I don’t know where you’ll find this documentary if you’re in the UK. I got my Blu-Ray imported a few years back from the US, and it is region locked (luckily my player isn’t). Cynically, this doc will maybe do the rounds again imminently, maybe Netflix or something. Or if you are one of those naughty people that knows how to get stuff online in a naughty way then I’ll look the other way, but perhaps consider popping a few quid into the Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast patreon page by way of compensation for the family. This is a simply beautiful, surprising and touching documentary by Neil Berkeley, where he explores the real Gilbert. He’s shown at home with the family, with his sisters, on stage, and – hilariously – performing in a hotel that also has a war memorabilia convention on.

If you want to see him lost in that laughter I was talking about, here’s the best clip from that documentary, where he is confronted with people dressed as Nazis. Gilbert was Jewish, but never mentioned it (he did, that's the joke there).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nd4Djoa-bM

And here's the actual trailer;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Uy88M3ymw

There we go. Another hugely unfair one.