World famous comedian Gilbert Gottfried is coming to Springfield on November 4th. He will be appearing at Scotty's Comedy Cove! Go to https://gilbertgottfried.com/classes/springfield-nj/ for more details.
In an exclusive telephone interview with Gilbert, the Patriot Times Editor chatted with him for over half an hour. Many of you know Gilbert for his screeching comedy routines, and no, that’s not his real voice. Gilbert related that he first appeared on stage at age 15 in New York City. His sister told him she knew a place he could go and sign up to perform his comedy routines. You didn’t get paid, but hoped you got noticed. His initial routines were imitations. It’s funny, but when he said that, “Rich Little” came to mind and then he said, well like “Rich Little, Frank Gorshen, Fred Travalena and Will Jordan, famous for his Ed Sullivan imitations.
He also did a season of Saturday Night Live, “SNL”. While we talked I remembered that season, 1980 I believe, and Gilbert commented it was tough as it was the first season after the original cast had left. Even Lorne Michaels the producer was out. It was a difficult season and the idea of continuing on without them was sacrilege to the comedians. Gilbert said it was like you were going to see the Beatles, but they left so instead you’ll see Beatlemania, or if “Friends” suddenly changed the entire cast---people hated the show before it aired. I have to admit, as a longtime fan of SNL, that’s how I felt too.
Gilbert also did a stint on “Thicke of the Night”, a late night talk show hosted by Alan Thicke which was supposed to knock Johnny Carson off the air—he guesses it worked!
Gilbert performed at “Catch a Rising Star” and the “Improve”, comedy clubs of national renown. Then MTV came to him as they were looking for people to audition. They said could you come in tomorrow and audition. He did and just started improvising. MTV filmed & edited that audition and put it on the air right away. This was his first good exposure on a national level.
Gilbert also had a scene in Beverly Hills Cop 2 with Eddie Murphy which he said they improvised and he became known for that performance. He was in two “Problem Child” movies which were surprise hits and people are always telling him it was their favorite movie. He even was the voice of the parrot in Aladdin.
We discussed movies and sequels and how we both feltsometimes each big block buster sequel was worse than the last, but as they do make the studios money, they keep making them.
Gilbert does standup comedy now across the country. While he lives in Manhattan, he travels a lot to do his shows. A new documentary made by Neal Berkeley, called “Gilbert” will be released on November 3 in NYC and on November 10th in LA to a select number of theaters.
Gilbert grew up in Brooklyn watching old movies--monster, gangster and sci-fi as well as variety shows. We compared notes on many of them. We discussed the old days of only having 3 TV channels to watch and the need to have to watch the shows live or simply not see them. Yes there was life before vcr’s, dvr’s and streaming and even re-runs! Gilbert doesn’t really have any hobbies and he is not into vacations. He gets on an airplane mostweekends to work so he prefers to vacation at home and relax in his NYC apartment and catch some TV.
Check out Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast at www.gilbertpodcast.com. And don’t forget to come see him in Springfield on the 4th.
