| Little Hitler
>> Look out kids, it's Gilbert Gottfried! by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
"It's something that every Jewish boy looks forward to doing," he explains. "They said they wanted Hitler, and they said who's the most hated man today? They said Gilbert Gottfried. They came in, they slapped the moustache on me, and I was Hitler. I was in good company, though. As far as screen Hitlers, it puts me up there with Moe Howard from the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin... uh, Anthony Hopkins... um... ooh, I'm forgetting my Hitlers." The first time this writer saw Gottfried was as a young man... a child, even. ("Quit while you're ahead," he implores me.) Staring at the scrunched-up, constipated mug smeared on the page of an old National Lampoon, I initially refused to believe this little troll even existed. ("Most people still don't know I exist," he sighs.) He seemed too much of a cartoon, a parody of the obnoxious, foul-mouthed stand-up comedian. Moreover, I refused to believe that the article, "Ten Best Jokes to Tell 14-Year-Old Girls and Their Mothers at a Belinda Carlisle Concert," was anything beyond the wishful thinking of some frustrated little pervert, chained to a desk at Nat Lamp. The sad, horrible truth of the matter is that Gottfried does exist and the joke list was not a fraud. "I actually somehow got booked as the opening act for a Belinda Carlisle concert. I was warned not to do any blue material. So, of course, taking that advice, two minutes into the act, I was making references most gynecologists don't know about." The thing about Gottfried is, once you've seen him, you can't shake him. Tune in to Stern and there he is, mouthing off about the Holocaust. Click on the tube and he's ranting about wrapping baby seals in styrofoam and pitching them through the ozone layer. He's an exasperating, woman-hating, Jew-baiting Jew bastard. To him, anything touchy is fair game. Ask him about the UN's recognition of Palestine, for instance. "I just think that as far as recognition goes, they shoulda said, 'Oh, yeah. We recognize you. You're the people with the weird outfits and the greasy skin. Now let's get on to the next bit of business.'" In a perfect world, he'd be locked up in solitary. In our imperfect world, though, he's a graduate of Saturday Night Live, from back in the day. "Oy vey... that was in 1980 to '81. That was right after most of the original cast left. Actually the whole original cast. So everybody in the country was out gunning for the show. They said, 'Who do these people think they are?' Whereas now, the cast changes every half hour. You don't expect as much from the show. I've always said SNL is beyond good or bad. It's just a restaurant in a good location." What's really frightening is that Gottfried has gone from short-order cook at the SNL late-nite diner to a regular attraction in a kiddie franchise. Remember the damn parrot in Disney's Aladdin? That was him. "That was fun, and then it branched off into so many other odd things. They did two other direct-to-video movies, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin, King of Thieves. And then the TV series and a bunch of other stuff. Every now and then they still call me for some weird CD-ROM or something, stuff that I don't even understand how to operate." Ask him if he likes doing stuff for kids and what you get is sickening snickers. "That's a whole thing my lawyer told me not to discuss. That trial is still pending." Puerile yuks aside, could it be that this guy, who claims to be the "the most hated man today," is softening up, losing his edge? "I think now I'm turning into Art Linkletter. Beloved by families everywhere. I've always said that kids say the darndest things." As long they don't say them at the trial. Still, when the mask slips and the schtick slides for a moment, the real Gottfried shines through. There's something genuinely sweet and humble in his voice when he asks me, "But do you really think I made a good Hitler?" Gilbert Gottfried at Théâtre St-Denis, hosted by Fred Savage, Sunday, July 26, 7:30pm, $15.95-$38.50+tax |
"Oh, my god! Jeeee-sus! You're the one person who saw that!" I've just thrown Gilbert Gottfried a curveball. The flick in question is an obscure, hallucinatory B-movie from the early '90s called Highway to Hell. The reason I've brought it up is that Gottfried had a cameo in that film, one that was tailor-made for him.