“>Gilbert Gottfried. No one sounds like him. No one looks like him. Furthermore, there is no simple way of describing what it is that he does on-stage.
More than three decades after his run on Saturday Night Live, Gilbert is miraculously more relevant than ever. In recent years he became a fixture of reality television shows. But more importantly, Gilbert has reinvented himself as a top podcast. He and “>engineer Frank Verderosa — are the minds behind “>Henry Winkler, Micky Dolenz, Dick Cavett, Marilyn Michaels), but also a wonderful outlet for Gilbert to do impressions and just simply be inappropriate.
In advance of Gilbert's “>www.gilbertgottfried.com — does not disappoint.
“>your shows at Carolines On Broadway, had you realized that it was during Hanukkah?
Gilbert Gottfried: That's something I haven’t thought about. I'm so unaware of holidays and everything.
Has it always been that way? I’d imagine that when you're married with kids, that “>“The Hanukkah Song” by Adam Sandler in the nineties?
GG: No, it’d be before that. I was a Jew before that song came out. (laughs)
I assume that you don't have any Hanukkah plans since you have “>the podcast still sounded like it was a lot of work for you. You were genuinely surprised about how successful it was, but it was a lot of work. Is it getting easier for you now that you've been doing it for so long?
GG: What I find is, depending on the guest…Some guests you have to work harder, and there are some guests who just like seem like they're shot out of a cannon and they just want to talk and tell stories. (laughs)
In terms of the arc of a lot of “>Frank [Santopadre] did all the research. Is that a hundred percent the story? Are there cases where you actually did the research and prepared?
GG: Yeah, I'll do some. It's like sometimes it'll work out where I just know about the topic, like we interviewed the children and grandchildren of like these old horror stars like “>some podcasts do two episodes a week and they already have interviews for three months from now in the can. Do you guys work like that?
GG: Yeah, we have a few. We try to keep up ahead of time. You know, it's not like we do them and then broadcast that day, so we do have a few ahead of time.
So in other words, you guys aren't really part of press junkets or media days. It's usually that you guys are like the only people they are speaking to, right?
GG: I would think so. I don't know, because I mean when they come on for like an hour, hour and a half or so, it wouldn't be one of those crazy press junkets where they're calling in people like and you know you've got five minutes or so…I would think when they do ours it's not one of those, when they’re doing a crazy schedule for press.
“>the podcast, you have been the subject of a documentary. What's the status of that documentary right now?
GG: I'm still not sure, I heard they’re finishing it up, and it's one of those things that…Some guy who's done documentaries said, “I've always wanted to do one on Gilbert Gottfried.” And he was talking to this woman who was a friend of my wife and she goes, “Oh my god, I’m friends with his wife, blah blah blah.”…When I think in terms of a documentary, the person should be like at least 97 years old. And you know at least had cured polio. (laughs)
Well, the documentary crew had you singing on-camera with “>the singing cantor. Do you have I mean you do stand-upm you do the podcast, you're working on the documentary, did I miss anything? Is there “>Life Animated. That had to do with a true story of a guy who had an autistic son…The son would watch animated Disney films, so the father found in his son's room a puppet of my character Iago, the parrot. He put it on, started imitating me and he started to communicate with the son that way. That was an amazing thing, and I like to think it proves I can do incredible things as long as I'm not directly involved. (laughs)
That particular appearance got a lot of people talking. That was probably the first time that the people saw you know a softer side of you. Were you worried at all about your image, about what you're known for and how that's just such a different thing?
GG: Yeah. I mean I worry back and forth about those things all the time. So it's just like I always worried about doing reality TV. But since then I've done reality shows, Celebrity Cook-Off,
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