Gilbert Gottfried's best performances

The world's a little less funny with the passing of Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian known for his instantly recognizable voice and playfully acerbic demeanor.

Beginning in 1980 with his short-lived stint on Saturday Night Live (just 12 episodes), Gottfried amassed a series of credits on film and TV — but perhaps his most indelible role, at least to a generation of kids coming of age around 1992, was his voicing of Iago the parrot in the blockbuster Disney film Aladdin.

That, however, was among his more family-friendly appearances, as much of his comedy was laden with expletives and often-controversial material, like his now-legendary Aristocrats joke. Taking a page from Gottfried's family, who asked to "please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert's honor" in their statement on his death, let's revisit some of the comedian's best and bawdiest moments.

01 of 06

Beverly Hills Cop 2 (1987)

Sidney Bernstein Gilbert Gottfried — Paramount

In the Gilbert Gottfried School of Acting, there is but one rule and one rule only: Enter the scene YELLING. In his brief, scene-stealing cameo in the hit Eddie Murphy sequel, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Gottfried plays accountant Sidney Bernstein, who greets Murphy's Det. Axel Foley with a casual, "Oh, come right in! Don't let the fact that my door is closed dissuade you in any way from entering my office!" And once informed that his wife has racked up 25 unpaid parking tickets, Bernstein simply picks up the phone, without dialing a single number, and screams, "Bitch!" The rule never failed.

02 of 06

43rd Primetime Emmy Awards (1991)

Gilbert Gottfried — Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

By 1991, Gottfried was no stranger to controversy, and so the tight 90 seconds of (very funny) masturbation jokes he did in the wake of Paul Reubens' (a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman) arrest for public indecency led to him being effectively blacklisted. But you can't keep a good comedian down, and Gottfried was one of the best.

03 of 06

Aladdin (1992)

Who else could make an evil parrot charming? Iago is downright meddlesome, aiding Jafar in his machinations to steal the genie's lamp. But Gottfried made the cracker-hating, perpetually-peeved parrot a fan favorite, even reprising the role in subsequent sequels and TV adaptations. When asked how he prepared for the role, Gottfried quipped, "I did the whole DeNiro thing. I moved to South America! I lived in the trees!"

04 of 06

Hollywood Squares (1999)

Gilbert Gottfried Hollywood Squares — NBC

Celeb-packed game shows were once the bread and butter of any self-respecting, or self-deprecating, comedian — think Match Game, Password, and Hollywood Squares. For the reboot of Squares, Gottfried took the schticky spirit of those shows' bygone era to heart, turning an episode into a raucous free-for-all as he denied contestants the win with his taunt of "You fool!," over and over again, causing one round to last an entire episode.

05 of 06

The Friars Club Roasts (2001-2012)

The New York Friars Club has been roasting famous folk since 1950, starting with humorist and writer Sam Levenson. When Comedy Central started airing the roasts in 1998, and producing them in 2003, Gottfried joined a number of regulars taking to the dais to deliver epic burns. But, as the above supercut attests, there was arguably no one better than him. Gottfried made his final appearance in 2012 at the roast of Roseanne Barr.

06 of 06

The Aristocrats (2005)

Gilbert Gottfried at the New York Friars Club — Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect

Gottfried's lauded set at the roast of Hugh Hefner became the crux of the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats, a history of the titular "filthiest joke ever told," directed by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza. After 9/11, comedians, especially those in New York, were wary of making jokes. In the doc, Gottfried is credited with kind of breaking the spell of those in the room. Once his joke about his plane making a layover at the Empire State Building (just weeks after the terrorist attack) didn't go over well, Gottfried decided to pivot into even more provocative territory, launching into his own version of "The Aristocrats," in what truly may have been the filthiest joke ever told. And a fitting legacy.

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