Gilbert Gottfried Fired by Aflac Over Japan Tweets

[Walter Cronkite]

Disability insurer Aflac Inc fired comedian Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of its iconic duck on Monday after a series of Twitter jokes about the earthquake in Japan, Aflac's most important market.

Since 2000, Gottfried has voiced the duck in the insurer's TV ad campaign in the United States, quacking "Af-LAC!" in the comedian's famously abrasive voice.

Gottfried fired off a dozen jokes on the social media service over the weekend, all riffing in one way or another on the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

But the company said his comments "were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac."

Aflac said it would start a nationwide casting call to find a new voice -- and noted that it was already using a different voice in the Japanese market, where it is the No. 1 foreign insurer.

The company made its name selling cancer expense policies in Japan in the 1970s, and still derives about three-quarters of its revenue in the country.

Source: AP

[Summer Rain]

I hope he has some sort of insurance that pays you if you miss work.

[The Question]

Gilbert is the best guest in the history of Howard Stern. He's always been irreverent to an extreme. Did Aflac not have a problem with his Aristrocrats joke, the fact he referred to Obama as the N word on Stern, or his famous opening act for a Belinda Carlisle concert in the early 90's, where he said c*nt about fifty times before an audience of mothers and their teenage daughters?

THIS was the straw that broke the camel's back?

[Sodomy]

TOO SOON?

[Gambit]

To get fired over such lame jokes.

Here. Now THESE are some jokes worth getting fired for:

"This earthquake in Japan is sad news, but why do they keep interviewing the same person?"

"The Japanese seem to be finding the lighter side to this tragedy. They've never raft so much in their lives."

"The Japanese restaurant I order takeout from isn't answering their phone. I guess they're flooded with orders."

"The makers of Dial soap shipped a palette of bars to Japan. They heard that thousands are washing up on the beaches."

"My Japanese GF broke up with me but I don't mind. There's plenty more in the sea."