Expect a tsunami of audacious comedy when Gilbert Gottfried returns to Zanies Comedy Nightclub in Vernon Hills on May 7.
"People will either laugh or throw a chair at me," said Gottfried, 56. The fare will include lots of dirty jokes and riff on recent events.
Known for his sharp wit, flawless delivery and distinctively irritating public voice, this Brooklyn native straddles the entertainment world with his feet firmly planted in both children's entertainment, as a voice actor for Disney, and the anything-goes poster-child for the dark corners of adult stand-up.
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He said he feels bound to discuss the reasons he's been the recent subject of media scrutiny. "Like the elephant in the room, it is impossible to avoid it," said Gottfried.
That elephant would be his firing last month as the voice of the AFLAC duck in commercials, a job he's had since 2000. The supplemental insurance company that does 75 percent of its business in Japan, felt he'd gone much too far when he used his Twitter account to post several jokes in questionable taste about the tsunami and earthquake that shook that country.
"Centuries from now, when aliens land and they are digging up the remnants of our society, they'll probably see all the reports and think I was the cause of those tsunamis," said Gottfried.
Finding the funny in disasters is nothing new for him.
"I was the first one to do a September 11 joke," he recalled. "The funny thing about that is it was with a September 11 joke that I completely lost the audience, and won them back by talking about bestiality and incest."
Oh, Gilbert. What won't you say? Besides "AFLAC," which you are no longer legally allowed to say.
