I’ve heard stories about comedian Gilbert Gottfried — it seems, in reality, he’s a far cry from the manic nails-on-a-chalkboard character he’s made a living off of for 40-plus years. He’s said to be meek, polite, subtle, and low-key. That’s the kind of the guy I wanted to hear on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast. But what I got was a slightly nicer version of the same cloying character we’re all ready to put to in the nostalgia bin.
Having cemented a reputation as being the “too soon” guy, (he made 9-11 jokes before the tower rubble was done smoldering, and lost a lucrative contract as the Aflac duck for making “insensitive remarks” about tsunami victims) I was ready for the human being behind the button pusher. Shocking gets boring. Human continues to intrigue. I kind of wanted mundane. I wanted to hear this guy:
But I just got more of the same from what I assume to be an insightful and intelligent entertainer. The guests are all there. Paul Shaffer was on the episode I listened to. And the model’s podcasty enough. (Gottfried does the show from his New York apartment.) But an interviewer Gottfried is not. In between the occasional funny story, it sounds like the host is ticking off a list of topics, and forcing novel subject matter on the listener. Hopefully, this is just the training wheels phase of this seasoned comedian’s admittedly spanking-new vehicle.
