I was under the impression he simply recorded his voice once and they replayed it over and over
I understand that’s how they screwed June Foray out of residuals for voicing the road-runner. She said “beep” once and they just repeated it.
I thought the joke about the school was kind of funny.
While it is true that they do most of their business there, considering that he doesn’t voice the duck there, how could they even really have a reaction to it at all? If anything, I’d expect this firing will have a Barbara Streisand Effect and make them aware that they had a connection that they otherwise wouldn’t have made.
That is, if they’d not done anything, I doubt the Japanese would have even made the connection on a large enough scale. Without regular exposure to him being associated with the company, why would they pay any more attention to his tweets among likely many others making similarly tasteless jokes? Instead, now that association is definitely made, and they’ll definitely see that AFLAC had knowingly associated with him. Any minor amount of bad will that the handful that would have found out could generate would easily be outweighed by providing the best service possible in the crisis. Frankly, had they not fired him, I doubt I would have even heard about his tweets, so what is the likelihood that someone in Japan would have?
Seriously, imagine a Japanese comedian did comercials that only air in Japan for a primarily American company and then tweeted something similar after something similar here, like 9-11 or Katrina or the like. How would we even really find out in large enough numbers to have any meaning? But then imagine they made it public that they had associated with that comedian and why they were firing him. Then we’d have it all over the news and they’d be presenting us with questions like “why did they ever associate with such obvious scum?” or “why are they worrying about firing him when there are so many people suffering?” Yes, they’re dumb questions, but those are the likely angles I’d see coming up, and it would certainly raise a lot more ill-will than simply handling the situation well.
That’s why I think it was a decision made based upon US reactions, because we’re the only ones who were likely to make a meaningful connection between the two and, as we’ve recently demonstrated with other firings related to tweets, we’re apparently fickle enough to care.
I disagree. Tensions are high enough and getting higher every day. The world is connected closely enough that the Japanese public would have discovered this. All it takes is for a highly placed and vocal figure to latch onto it and it can become a major issue. I don’t think the US public would care. I think there’s a good possibility that the Japanese public would.
Was it a wise business decision? I don’t know. But the backlash from this could jeopardize the company and so it’s a trade off that makes sense. After all, getting a new voice actor or changing the advertising campaign, while not trivial, isn’t a major risk.
Interesting side note: GG provides voiceover for a kid’s show on PBS called Cyberchase. He plays a talking bird.
Why would that negate the need to pay residuals?
Revtim:
Heck, until just now, I didn’t even hear that that guy existed in the first place!
What did Gottfried say after Giraldo died? I heard about his death almost immediately.
What jokes did he make then?
Nevermind. I found it:
I’m confident my terminology is quite wrong, but the rumour was that the voice-actor for the road-runner got screwed.
I thought it was a joke on the Simpsons.
Interestingly enough, Gilbert was on the Donald Trump Roast tonight and made a 9/11 joke.
He’s still got the Shoedini gig to fall back on, yes?
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that Gottfried doesn’t come across as using humor to relieve the stress of tragedy, because he’s not suffering at all. It’s one thing to make jokes about 9/11 when you live in New York. It’s another thing to make jokes about Japan when you’re safely on the other side of the world.
There’s a timing issue too. Gottfried was making jokes about 9/11 very soon, but the immediate tragedy was nonetheless over by then. By contrast, he was joking about floating bodies in Japan while hundreds of floating bodies were still washing ashore. Also, millions of people are still without power and under a nuclear cloud. It’s like joking about 9/11 while people are still jumping out of windows.
That was wrong? Should I not have done that?
Not if you want to keep your job as spokesman for Otis Elevators. 
Gee, tell us what it’s like to be all grown up and stuff.
I haven’t been able to find anything to support this, for what it’s worth. June Foray didn’t do the voice, and the guy who was responsible for it recorded it multiple times.
Your post piqued my curiosity, so I spent a minute or two looking up the Roadrunner yesterday.
I just saw a new AFLAC commercial. It resembled an old-time silent movie with the duck rescuing the damsel in distress from the train tracks. A card at the end of the commercial said, "Be the next voice. Go to AFLACDuck on Facebook. They didn’t waste too much time.
I started seeing that commercial last week and it got me thinking that it was almost too soon after Gottfried’s “firing” to make any sense. Has he actually said he was fired or is this all Internet heresay? Because that commercial was put together fast, almost as if it had nothing to do with the tsunami.