For many comedians, being cast on Saturday Night Live is like winning the lottery. Not only is it that hard to get, but it's also a fantasy. But some have absolutely no interest in being part of the long-running series. Others get on the show and end up totally hating it. This was the case for iconic (and utterly filthy) comedian Gilbert Gottfried.
There's no doubt that Saturday Night Live was one of the first times Gilbert Gottfried ever got a healthy paycheck after slugging it through dingey comedy clubs since the age of 15. Yes, Gilbert spent far more time working than he did at school. In fact, in his hilarious autobiography "Rubber Balls and Liquor" (read that aloud), he stated that he was a failure in the classroom. But, as it turned out, Gilbert was a bit of a failure at the beloved NBC sketch comedy show as well. While he was fired early on, he actually hated his experience on the show beforehand. Here's why...
Why Gilbert Gottfried Hated Being On Saturday Night Live In 1981
Gilbert was and has always been hilarious. His stand-up is renowned and adored throughout the comedy world. He also has an insanely dedicated fanbase. One who totally stands by the ridiculous and often controversial jokes he makes to shock. Frankly, there may be no greater shock comedian than Gilbert Gottfried. Even during Howard Stern's heyday as the controversial shock jock, Gilbert would come on and be a hundred times more inappropriate... and downright funny. This is because Gilbert has never played by the rules. He always goes at his own speed. And that's not exactly the type of comedian who thrives at SNL. But why does Gilbert think his time on the show was so terrible?
During a 2021 interview with Joe Rogan, Gilbert went into detail about why his experience on Saturday Night Live was "horrible."
"You said SNL was terrible?" Joe Rogan asked the Aladdin star.
"Ah, yeah. Well, the season I was on -- [SNL creator] Lorne Michaels left and the original cast left. So people hated the show before it even got on the air," Gilbert Gottfried explained of the early years of SNL (1981). "But the idea back then of Saturday Night Live with different cast members that just wasn't [okay]. Now, it's like the cast changes every five minutes. But back then it was like 'No!'. It would be like saying, in the middle of Beatle-mania, that, 'Oh, we're getting four other guys to be The Beatles' or when Friends was on, 'We're recasting Friends but just watch it in the same way'."
The response to getting rid of the original cast of SNL, which included Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, and John Belushi, was absolutely negative. So, Gilbert and the rest of the season 6 cast were met with utter disdain. Funnily enough, the new cast that debuted in 1981 included Eddie Murphy who went on to become an SNL favorite. But this was long before he got the spotlight on the show.
"All the original people were gone," Gilbert said. "You don't want to be the replacement. You want to be the replacement of the replacement. Because then you get one guy who is the sacrificial lamb that they throw into the fire and then next it's like, 'Oh, well [now] it's better than that other guy.'"
Why And How Gilbert Gottfried Got Fired From SNL
Aside from going into a show that had everything going against it due to the change of executive producer and, more importantly, cast, Gilbert didn't enjoy the routine of it all. And some of this had to do with the fact that even back then he was a little bit different and marched to the beat of his own slightly deranged drum. This, however, worked to his advantage when he auditioned to be on the show.
While many actors, including Andy Samberg, had terrible times auditioning for Saturday Night Live, Gilbert Gottfried didn't seem to care. He told Joe that other comedians auditioning for the show were really unhappy about their experience and thought the casting director and the executive producers were really hostile. But Gilbert simply didn't care because he was in another realm. This allowed him to nail his various auditions for the show. This feeling continued with him when he was on the show, but that's when he was expected to care.
"I didn't like the writers and the writers hated me," he told Joe. "One time, to prove how much they hated me, they wrote a funeral sketch where I was the dead body. So, I just had to lay there in the coffin."
Unfortunately, Gilbert didn't have much of a chance to change his tune about how he dealt with the show as he and the rest of the cast were being ripped apart by the press and the show was caught in a major writer's strike. This led to his eventual firing after just 12 episodes.
There are endless stories of how major celebrities found out they were fired from SNL. In Gilbert's case, he opened up a piece of fan mail that said, "Dear Gilbert, I'm so sorry for what happened to you..." While Gilbert had no idea how this fan knew of his firing before he did, he was called into the office almost immediately after to get axed.