Holy schmo, did you hear what Gilbert Gottfried said that got him fired? You know, the guy with the voice that does the commercials. "Aflac. Aflac!" Well, apparently ol' Mr. Gottfried has forgotten the first rule of comedy: Timing is...everything. Most importantly under this almighty timing category is the fact that consideration must be taken after a natural disaster (oh, say the earthquake and ensuing tsunami in Japan that occurred on Friday, March 11) occurs. Estimated time between event and joke appropriateness? More than three days.

Gilbert, a 56 year old "best known for his trademark comedic persona of speaking in a loud, grating tone of voice" according to Wikipedia, is out of his plumb job as the Aflac duck voice after tweeting a series of Japan centered jokes on March 13 that have since been deleted from his official page.

Four of the tweets read:

• "Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them."
• "I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said 'is there a school in this area.' She said 'not now, but just wait.'"
  
• "Japan called me. They said 'maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they're all sinking.'"
• "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, "There'll be another one floating by any minute now.""

From duck-voiced money-raking comedian to out of work asshat in a handful of ill-censored jokes, that's how careers are blown. Don't believe me? Get in touch with Michael Richards.

There are three problems readily evident with Gilbert's jokes:

1. The obvious clause -- Mocking a disaster in progress, which has claimed the lives of over 10,000 people, borders on inhumane. After deleting the jokes, Gilbert wrote, "I was born without a censor button. My mouth and now e-mail will continue to get me into trouble."
2. The spokesman clause -- As a seasoned celebrity veteran of the entertainment industry, Gilbert ought to well know that cracking such jokes to his 59k Twitter followers (a rather unimpressive number compared to other famous accounts) was not worth the risk of (what I assume is some) major money, especially to this broke-as-a-joke writer. Asshat!
3. The funny requirement -- The jokes themselves are mediocre at best. Perhaps some leeway might be granted for comics violating issues number 1 and 2, should their humors insight be mind-blowing works of art. Yet Gilbert's tweets are lackluster, predictable, and fall far short of some of the inappropriate crap that has popped in my head the past few days.
   

An Aflac spokesperson made a bland statement Monday in conjunction with the news of the comic's firing, saying, "Gilbert's recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac."

The thing is, while Gilbert's admitted insensitive nature has caused a mess, one has to wonder what the hell Aflac was thinking hiring him in the first place? This is the guy who made jokes about 9/11 [NSFW link right there] just three weeks after the towers fell. Did Aflac really think it wouldn't happen again?

Come on now Aflac, don't wring your hands in innocence here. You knew what you hired and have happily ridden the irritating voice of Gilbert Gottfried gravy train all these years with your head in the sand, and now you're trying to be all PC. B.S.!

Which is more ridiculous?