Yes, that is one of the meanings of seminal.
Gilbert harkens back to Lenny Bruce. Lenny felt it was important to discuss any subject. Lenny wanted his audience to squirm. I never saw Gilbert in a club. I always thought he worked Blue. Probably toe-curling profanity. The shock factor is important.
I appreciate his vision for comedy. I’m not sure I could listen to his voice for very long. I never understood it. IIRC his real voice is on the Internet and is pretty normal.
RIP Gilbert. Thank you for the years of laughs.
That’s one of the first things I thought of. I recently listened to two “Penn’s Sunday School” podcast episodes where Gilbert was the guest. The absolutely best part of the experience was hearing Gottfried’s laugh. I couldn’t get enough of it.
mmm
Sorry to hear this. Not my favourite comedian, I quickly grew tired of The Aristocrats which is better in theory. But he was fearless, clever and quick-witted. Such a distinctive voice. I was surprised to find out I liked his talk show on Comedy Radio, even though I do not much care for celebrity culture.
I remain a huge fan of his USA Up All Night segments. Hillarious bits like The Comedian In The Cupboard and I Was The Fifth Ramone. The films on USA Up All Night were generally forgettable and not worth staying up for. Gilbert was.
I thought he was very funny but his voice became part of his persona and to my ears it was just grating – like the opposite of Ben Stein.
Here he is on SNL, before he became big, talking in his normal voice. There’s some clips on YouTube of him on Howard Stern speaking normally as well.
I thought it was awfully quiet today.
This is the funniest thing I ever saw him in:
I love this, but I hate that you posted it before I did.
I remember the voicemail messages being played on Howard Stern. It was the first time I’d heard his regular voice.
I remember Jay Leno used Gilbert in various skits on The Tonight show. I think they were good friends.
Loved his Riff on Harry Potter. The dialog isn’t very good. It’s Gilbert’s timing and delivery that sells it
Jay: In the movie you have a hard time asking a girl for a date. What happens?
Gilbert: I fall Back on plan B.
Jay: What is that?
Gilbert: Hire a Hooker.
Jay: stop with that! Your only 14!
Best part of The Aristocrats.
RIP Mr. Gottfried. You sure made us all laugh.
I saw him in comedy clubs twice. The first time he was doing some great funny material when someone in the audience was stupid enough to heckle him. He took the guy apart atom by atom. When a comedian says “I killed” that moment will always come to mind.
But the second time was all-time greatness. Almost every public event in Rochester, home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, is signed. This catches touring comedians off guard, both for the novelty, and because their timing gets thrown off when one small section of the room is laughing several seconds after everybody else.
Gottfried is odd for not wandering around the stage. He sticks the microphone right at the front and stays there, forcing the audience to come to him. The way the stage was set up in the second location, the interpreter was slightly behind him, signing to a corner, so he was very slow to realize what her presence meant.
At the end, he does old dirty jokes. And the penny dropped. He said, I don’t do this anymore but I will tonight. He meant, of course, the Aristocrats. He was funnily filthy. But the interpreter took every piece of filth and danced it with her entire body. She essentially dared him to come up with something that she couldn’t match and act out if necessary. They dueled back and forth for a long time while the audience had hysterics. She seemed funnier than he was, without a sound. If any individual piece of comedy deserved - required - video recording that was the night. It wasn’t, obviously, or it would be racking up billions on views online.
He was the master of reading the room, and funny beyond belief.
Welcome the hell back, wise and funny person.
And for anyone who has not seen Gottfried’s roast of Joan Rivers, here’s the sonically NSFW link.
I have really been enjoying his podcast the past couple of years. While he defers to his co-host to do a lot of the housekeeping and general question-asking, he’d chime in with great questions as well as crazy comments. His guests were frequently ones that I found interesting, including so many from “the old days”.
No longer moist.
I posted that up above, but I do want to point out that the actual picture was from 2016. There was confusion if the pic was from 3 months ago, but it isn’t.
Still, Saget, Louie, and Gilbert? Yeesh.
Of course comedy radio is playing a lot of Gilbert. A lot of it is pretty funny.
I loved him in Scrooged..