Althouse: "Gilbert Gottfried's jokes about Japan just cost him his job as the Aflac Duck."

March 15, 2011

"Gilbert Gottfried's jokes about Japan just cost him his job as the Aflac Duck."

Okay... and... are we allowed to make jokes about that?

56 comments:

Automatic_Wing said...: The AFLAC commercials with the duck are on Japanese TV all the time.; 3/15/11, 1:03 PM
Toad Trend said...: Yeah the 2nd joke they shared in the story/link was a bit 'insensitive'.

Indeed Mr. 'Gottfired' fails to understand what 'too soon' means.; 3/15/11, 1:09 PM
Anonymous said...: I have many Japanese Facebook friends. One of them just passed on this joke now going around in Japan:
"I'll let you know one Joke in Japan.
Gilbert is really advanced. He doesn’t take a Holiday. The Holiday comes to him."; 3/15/11, 1:10 PM
PaulV said...: quack; 3/15/11, 1:12 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: His sin - and it's always a sin in comedy - is the jokes weren't funny.; 3/15/11, 1:14 PM
charley foster said...: He should have told the Aristocrats instead.; 3/15/11, 1:22 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Crack is right about the jokes being unfunny. At least about the ones I saw. The unforgivable sin..; 3/15/11, 1:29 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: AFLAC must have been flooded with complaints.; 3/15/11, 1:30 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Bad taste? OK. Unfunny? Get the hook!; 3/15/11, 1:30 PM
SteveR said...: While it seems impossible, he's less funny than Kathy Griffen.

Hmm, a duck voice, hard to fill, ya think?; 3/15/11, 1:30 PM
El Presidente said...: Gottfriend understands exactly what "too soon" means. He is intentionally exploiting people's conceptions of it. He did the same thing with 911 and his career was just fine. It is the job of the comic to push boundaries.; 3/15/11, 1:31 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Godfrey being fired is only part of the big shakeup at AFLAC; 3/15/11, 1:31 PM
vbspurs said...: Whew, can you imagine what would've happened to Gilbert if he had complained about their cell phone usage in libraries?; 3/15/11, 1:31 PM
Unknown said...: This is Gottfried's second fall (remember him on the Oscars a few years ago?).

One attributes his survival to being a big DNC contributor.; 3/15/11, 1:32 PM
vbspurs said...: I'm still trying to figure out how Rosie O'Donnell didn't get fired for her ching-chong slam. Or for bringing Taboo to Broadway.; 3/15/11, 1:33 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Frankly, I find the whole subject radioactive.; 3/15/11, 1:34 PM
virgil xenophon said...: And of course Gilbert must be asking himself: "Who Knew?" After all, his entire career has revolved around doing NOTHING but bad jokes..

Just heard: AFLAC does 75% of its business in Japan. NOW I understand...; 3/15/11, 1:34 PM
MadisonMan said...: AFLAC does 75% of its business in Japan. NOW I understand...

I wonder how that happened.

Does a duck have some kind of special meaning in Japan?; 3/15/11, 1:37 PM
vbspurs said...: People who should never be voice-over artists.

Gilbert Gottfried.
Fran Drescher.
Sarah Palin.
Barney Frank.
Charlie Rangel.

Glad you finally came to your senses, AFLAC.; 3/15/11, 1:37 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: I doubt Godfrey is worrying much. Whenever the need arises for the strained anxious voice of crackpot, the offers come flooding in.; 3/15/11, 1:38 PM
DADvocate said...: I heard the job wasn't all it was quacked up to be.; 3/15/11, 1:38 PM
vbspurs said...: Does a duck have some kind of special meaning in Japan?

There's PEKING DUCK! ...close enough.; 3/15/11, 1:38 PM
bridgecross said...: The imprudence of THOSE particular jokes by HIM had me gobsmacked. AFLAC is just as big a company, if not bigger, in Japan. If you asked most Japanese, they would tell you it IS a Japanese company. That damn duck is on Japanese TV all the time. And on top of that, it's an INSURANCE company. You know, the folks you're supposed to call when things go south?
And just for extra measure, he used a device favored by hack comedians; bring up a recent event and shoe-horn a semi-humorous statement into it. What a doofus.; 3/15/11, 1:38 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: No hat tip to Lem? He posted this in a comment thread yesterday.

I didn't recognize Mr. Gottfried as the duck. Given how much I hate his jokes and his voice, I was shocked to learn that. I actually find the duck jokes kinda funny. Not major funny, but funny.; 3/15/11, 1:39 PM
vbspurs said...: DADadvocate wins.; 3/15/11, 1:39 PM
vbspurs said...: LMAO!

wv: saechongs

...I'm dying...; 3/15/11, 1:39 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: He'll be buried with offers.; 3/15/11, 1:40 PM
rhhardin said...: I'd assume the jokes are a protest of "at all costs don't tune away" media coverage.

Every national tragedy demands jokes.

It's not too soon if you see the coverage, called viewer whoring.

What you're seeing is a reaction to a not very wholesome American entertainment choice.

Guys are more into the jokes as a result. Women are more into tearful watchful empathy.

Guys are the ones that manage to do something when it's called for.

Take your choice.

The beach comes to them was okay.; 3/15/11, 1:42 PM
vbspurs said...: Rhhardin wrote (hey there!):

Every national tragedy demands jokes.

Remember when Joan Rivers tearfully went on the Tonight Show, after the Challenger explosion? She didn't find it a time for funny-hahaness, but the suits insisted.

Cut to 25 years in the future, and the suits finally found their humanity.; 3/15/11, 1:45 PM
Pogo the Merciless said...: I am currently Temporary Director of Human Services at AFLAC.

I fired him not because of the jokes, which were I suppose stupid.

I fired him because of his appearances on Hollywood Squares.

Unforgivable.; 3/15/11, 1:48 PM
MadisonMan said...: @Victoria (welcome back btw), yes, I thought of that. But that's the only connection I could come with. Seems a bit of a stretch.

It never occurred to me that the voice behind the Aflac Duck was anyone famous, if you can call GG that. TTalking like a duck doesn't take much talent, so why hire one person to do it? I hope they didn't pay him more than about $10 per commercial.; 3/15/11, 1:55 PM
rhhardin said...: Remember when Joan Rivers tearfully went on the Tonight Show, after the Challenger explosion?

No.

But why would the entertainment media queer the viewer suck-in that they've got going for them.

As for Challenger (which one was that?). going 17,000 miles an hour isn't supposed to be all that safe.

A nation of wusses watches TV.; 3/15/11, 2:06 PM
vbspurs said...: MadMan wrote (hey there, too!):

TTalking like a duck doesn't take much talent, so why hire one person to do it? I hope they didn't pay him more than about $10 per commercial

It's just that they needed an intelligent foil for Yogi Berra.; 3/15/11, 2:06 PM
vbspurs said...: As for Challenger (which one was that?)

That one in January of 1986 where Peggy Noonan had her finest hour by having St Ronnie quote a Canadian poem's best line, "they have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...and touched the face of God".; 3/15/11, 2:09 PM
Trooper York said...: A duck and a skunk are set to cross the road. The cars are wizzing by and they decide to go one at a time.

The duck starts to cross and a tractor trailer whizzes by and skims him and knocks him out. The skunk dusts him off and goes "Are you allright?" The duck goes "Man I all fucked up. I have no idea who I am or what I am?" The skunk replies "Well that's easy. You walk like a duck, you talk like a duck....dude you're a duck." "Thanks man, I have to rest a minute."

So the skunk decides to try but don't you know just as he is starting a big SUV zoom zooms by and skims him and he is knocked on his ass. The duck runs to help him. "Are you ok buddy" asks the duck. "I don't know man. I am so confused. I hit my head. I don't know who I am or even what I am?" "That's easy" replies the duck."You are half white and half black and you stink. You're a Puerto Rican."; 3/15/11, 2:11 PM
Ron said...: Victoria! Gilbert is the perfect voice...for a duck!

My Gilbert/Fran Drescher RomCom is still possible...."The Days of Whine and Roses"; 3/15/11, 2:13 PM
Ron said...: TY -- you should write ad copy for AFLAC; 3/15/11, 2:14 PM
rhhardin said...: "they have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...and touched the face of God".

Surly? What the hell kind of poem is that? Going for alliteration over sense.

It's probably a misprint. Burly maybe. Go with bonds instead of slipped.; 3/15/11, 2:14 PM
Ron said...: I have an old video tape of Gilbert hosting a Go Go dancer competition in Jersey...the "judges" would have been turned down by the Sopranos casting people as too "cartoony Mafiosi"...but they were real.; 3/15/11, 2:19 PM
Trooper York said...: Now you can adapt that joke for topical political humor by saying:

"You are half white and half black and you stink. And you can't find your birth certificate. You're Barack Obama."; 3/15/11, 2:21 PM
Trooper York said...: But I don't like political jokes.; 3/15/11, 2:21 PM
Peter Hoh said...: This bit of news is for all the people who were wondering if anything good would come out of this disaster.; 3/15/11, 2:31 PM
vbspurs said...: My Gilbert/Fran Drescher RomCom is still possible...."The Days of Whine and Roses"

LOL! We need to Jew that up a tad. How about "The Days of Whine and Latkes"?; 3/15/11, 2:32 PM
Unknown said...: Of all the offensive jokes Gilbert has told over the years, NOW they fire him? Did they only just notice?; 3/15/11, 2:37 PM
William said...: Gottfried is as crass and unfeeling as a tsunami. I suppose AFLAC hired him to reinforce people's fears that fate is malign and cruel. His voice has no peace or joy or help for pain. His voice illustrates why you need insurance in this world.....Gottfried's crassness, like Sheen's lechery, was a career builder, but one can always go too far.; 3/15/11, 2:38 PM
Alex said...: Funny when I think Gilbert Gottfried, the first thing that comes to mind is "Kentucky Fried Movie" night.; 3/15/11, 2:57 PM
pst314 said...: Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--"High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.; 3/15/11, 2:59 PM
Toad Trend said...: Not all the news coming from Japan is bad.

Why I just saw a woman interviewed that had a sort of a 'glow' to her.

Absolutely radiant.; 3/15/11, 3:09 PM
rhhardin said...: I have droned over the Boonton reservoir practice area for the ten-thousandth time and wondered why there are no good places to eat at small airports.; 3/15/11, 3:10 PM
Alex said...: DT2012 - how come Madison doesn't have any "radiant" women?; 3/15/11, 3:12 PM
Toad Trend said...: @alex

"DT2012 - how come Madison doesn't have any "radiant" women?"

OK Alex, I'll bite - why?

wv - expun

A former joke; 3/15/11, 3:30 PM
Anonymous said...: We finally get a chance to tell natural-disaster jokes that don't involve trying to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull and we're not going to take advantage of it? Yeah, right.; 3/15/11, 3:58 PM
David said...: “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'There'll be another one floating by any minute now.; 3/15/11, 5:06 PM
Harry said...: Shouldn't Obama be fired? After the Japanese earthquake, he said that "the friendship and alliance between our two nations is unshakeable."

That was about on a par with Gottfried's jokes.; 3/15/11, 6:01 PM
Jason said...: The poet and author of High Flight, John Gillespie McGee, was not a Canadian, but the son of an American father and English mother. He was born in China, but mostly raised in the UK. He visited the US in 1939 and couldn't make it back when the war broke out. Insteady, he volunteered to fly for the Royal Canadian Air Force in October of 1940 and shipped off to England to fly fighter planes against the Luftwaffe, though he didn't arrive until June 1941. He trained on the Spitfire, and was then assigned to an operational squadron.

He was killed in a midair collision on December 11th, 1941, just a few days after Pearl Harbor, but he had already been flying combat missions against the Germans for weeks.

He was 19 years old.

He did ok in my book.; 3/15/11, 8:22 PM
jr565 said...: rhardin wrote:

As for Challenger (which one was that?). going 17,000 miles an hour isn't supposed to be all that safe.

A Challenger joke. Why does NASA drink Sprite? Because they couldn't get 7-Up.
Actually a clever joke. Probably not a good joke to tell the day after the event.; 3/15/11, 10:39 PM