Gilbert Gottfried, the veteran comic whose death was announced on Tuesday at the age of 67, will be remembered for many things. He had one of the most iconic voices in Hollywood, most notably lending his shrill, instantly-recognizable shout to the role of Iago, the loquacious parrot-sidekick of the villain in Disney’s Aladdin. He was beloved and revered by fellow stand-up comedians for pushing boundaries in his sets. And he will also go down in comedy history as having told possibly the best version of the age-old Aristocrats joke.
For those unfamiliar with “The Aristocrats,” it is essentially an inside joke amongst comedians, believed to have originated in the Vaudeville era. The setup and punchline remain consistent, and both are secondary. The Aristocrats is really about how outrageously raunchy the comedian can make it, and how long they can keep people laughing by putting their own spin on it. It’s an exercise in imagination and, above all, delivery. The lengthy, decades-old joke is so pervasive in the comedy world that it was the subject of a 2005 documentary from Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette (of magician duo Penn & Teller).
The setup of the joke is as follows: a family walks into the office of a talent agent and the agent asks them what their act consists of. Over the course of several minutes, the comic telling the joke proceeds to describe the vulgar “act” that the family demonstrates, each new line filthier than the last.
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Told correctly, the joke violates nearly every unspeakable taboo one could think of—incest, rape, pedophilia, bestiality, animal cruelty, you name it. There’s also plenty of gross-out, bodily fluid-oriented humor thrown in for good measure. Finally comes the punchline. It’s not just about crossing the line, it’s about leaping past it. When the agent asks what they call themselves, the family ironically replies that they call themselves “the Aristocrats.”
What makes Gottfried’s iteration of the joke so special is not just his delivery or the increasingly disturbing scenarios he comes up with. (Though, to be clear, both are impressive—his insertion of the aside, “This is based on a true story,” and an ad lib about the anal elasticity of rats are positively gut-busting.) But the context is crucial. Gottfried decided to tell the joke, completely unplanned, after bombing spectacularly at the 2001 Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner.
As explained in The Aristocrats, the roast took place mere weeks after 9/11, and comedians were treading lightly as the country was still reeling from the terrorist attacks. Gottfried told a joke about the attacks, saying that he was nervous for an upcoming flight to Los Angeles with a connection at the Empire State Building, and he was met with resounding “boos”—with even one audience member shouting that it was “too soon.” As Gottfried explained in a 2019 Vulture interview, he “lost an audience bigger than anybody has ever lost an audience.”
With nothing left to lose, he launched into the Aristocrats joke, shifting gears with a decisive, “OK, a talent agent is sitting in his office.” He goes on for nine minutes and 50 seconds, garnering huge laughs from the unsuspecting crowd and entirely remaking the joke as his own.
Amazingly, it was his first time doing it on stage, but it would go on to become one of Gottfried’s signature bits.
The only other comic to approach Gottfried’s legendary delivery of the impossibly dirty joke was none other than late comedian and Gottfried’s longtime friend, Bob Saget. The landscape of comedy will be forever altered with the loss of these two filthy-minded greats.
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