Some of what has being written by me is rather what I hate and it is punishment to us all · 7:13am Mar 20th, 2014
Famously, the Hugh Hefner roast took place a few days after September 11th. You were the closer and the first comic to address the attacks. Why did you?
Gottfried: I don’t know. Maybe I’m self-destructive, maybe I’m just plain stupid. But if someone tells me don’t do something, then I want to do it. I’ve always said tragedy and comedy are roommates. Wherever tragedy’s around, comedy’s a few feet behind them sticking his tongue out and making obscene gestures. When you go to a funeral, the guy at the podium will say embarrassing stories about the guy in the box, and people will laugh. People lean over to the person sitting next to them with a smirk on their face, and the other person will hold their hands over their face like, Oh, I shouldn’t be laughing at this.
Had anyone said “too soon” before that? Maybe that’s where it started.
That’s the first time I heard it, and I was quite proud of that. And then I feel like, Well, okay, what makes it soon enough? I could make an argument that I’m more sensitive than people who wait and think it’s okay. You can make a joke about the Titanic, no one’s going to attack you for that. Because you’re a sensitive person, you waited all those years? You’re saying, Fuck everybody who died on the Titanic, that’s years ago. Even their grandkids are dead, and fuck their grandkids. I’m a sensitive person. With me, you could make the argument that when I saw it and it’s too soon, everyone goes, “Oh, my God, how could he do that? It’s such a horrible thing.” It’s acknowledging it’s a horrible thing.
How much do you remember about losing the room that day?
Oh my God, I was floating through outer space. Getting back to the Titanic, I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio when he loses grip of that door at the end, and he’s going into the bottom of the frozen ocean. When I was up there, it was like, Well, I’m at the bottom level of hell, and this show seems pretty much over. And then that popped into my head, because I figured, Why not go to an even lower level of hell?
