Gottfried, who died Tuesday at age 67, was the rare comedian who can get away with crossing the line, says Greg Braxton. During the 2012 taping of the Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne Barr, "no one in attendance was prepared for the comic flame-thrower that Gilbert Gottfried...brought to the party," says Braxton. "Dressed in a nice suit, Gottfried was unleashed — and relentless. Most of his jokes could not be printed in a family newspaper. I would know: I was covering the roast for a story. And I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed harder in my life." Braxton adds: "The roast marked one of Gottfried’s first high-profile TV appearances after being fired by the Aflac insurance company — he’d voiced its duck mascot — the year before, when the comedian fired off a series of offensive tweets about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan....No comedian as risqué could go a career without crossing the line, and Gottfried did — multiple times. He joked about masturbation at the Emmys. He joked about Sept. 11 during a roast of Hugh Hefner. As roast master Jane Lynch introduced him in 2012, he was 'that scary thing under your bed from when you were a kid.' Gottfried may have learned his lesson after all; he never again found himself in quite the same hot water he did in 2011. But he came up in a no-holds-barred comedy world that was rarely submitted to the same scrutiny as today’s Netflix specials and viral videos. That world is where he sharpened his knives. Because the more vicious Gottfried got, the louder the audience roared."
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TOPICS: Gilbert Gottfried, Roseanne Barr, The Howard Stern Show, Standup Comedy