Three weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Gottfried joked that he couldn't catch a direct flight from New York to California because "they said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first." The crowd decried "too soon," but Gottfried was able to win the audience over and quickly made headlines by telling one of the first 9/11 jokes.Īt the 1991 Emmy Awards, Gottfried made several masturbation jokes about Paul Reubens' recent arrest for masturbating in an adult movie theatre, which resulted in Gottfried being blacklisted by producers. His edgy and crude humour, however, got him into trouble on several occasions. He appeared in Comedy Central roasts of Bob Saget, Joan Rivers, David Hasselhoff, Donald Trump and Roseanne Barr, plus game shows like 'Hollywood Squares' and 'Pyramid'. In the 2000s and 2010s, Gottfried became a regular on celebrity roasts and game shows. Iago was the annoying but funny comic relief who accompanied the villain Jafar, and Gottfried reprised the role in two direct-to-video sequels, a TV series and the 'Kingdom Hearts' video games. Howard Stern frequently invited Gottfried on his radio show in the '80s, where he impersonated people like Andrew "Dice" Clay, Groucho Marx and Bela Lugosi as Dracula.īy the '90s, Gottfried landed roles in films like the 'Problem Child' movies, 'Highway to Hell' and 'Looks Who's Talking Too', before landing his most recognizable voice role as Iago the parrot in 1992's 'Aladdin'.