Happy New Year! Before we march any further into 2023, I want briefly want to remember someone who left us 2022 -- the wild comedian Gilbert Gottfried.
A Brooklyn-native and lifelong New Yorker, Gilbert had a massive 40+ year career as a standup comic, actor, voiceover artist, commercial pitchman, and TV host. He should never had had the big career that he did: he was physically unattractive, his voice was grating, he was beyond offensive, he was a just plain weird. In short, Gilbert Gottfried was the total opposite of what it normally takes to succeed in showbusiness and yet he did, brilliantly, because he was funny as hell, a total original. Audiences couldn't get enough of him because, in so many ways, he was them and they him.
Gilbert had some notable career highs -- he was in Beverly Hills Cops II, was a voice in the 1993 classic Aladdin, and was featured in the popular documentary The Aristocrats. He appeared on the Howard Stern radio show many time, birthing many classic bits. He was always on TV doing standup and selling out clubs. He was everywhere, all the time, and very popular.
Gilbert was also part of the notorious 1980-81 cast of Saturday Night Live, (famous for being totally awful but for giving the world Eddie Murphy).
In the 1990s, Gilbert hosted the USA cable channel show Up All Night, a truly bizarre thing where, on Friday nights, he would introduce bizarre B-movies then do shtick before and after commercial breaks. Gilbert hosted the Friday night version and then Rhonda Shear hosted the Saturday night version (I think I'm right). I would watch Up All Night and enjoyed both of them more than the movies (it's because Gilbert was funny and Rhonda was hot) and it was a real relic of my youth.
Gilbert died in April 2022 at age 67. The world, and NYC, is much less funny without him.
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