Rico says it wasn't like they didn't know who they were hiring:
Aflac considers Gilbert Gottfried, for years the voice of its trademark duck, to be "lacking in humor": The company fired Gottfried in reaction to jokes he'd tweeted making fun of tsunami victims and the situation in Japan following last week's massive earthquake.
"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," Michael Zuna, a senior VP and chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "Aflac Japan and, by extension, Japan itself, is part of the Aflac family, and there is no place for anything but compassion and concern during these difficult times."
Three-quarters of Aflac's business is in Japan. The company, which says it is Japan's Number One insurer based on policies in force, donated a hundred million yen (a little more than $1.2 million) to the International Red Cross toward recovery efforts.
Maybe it was all funnier to Gottfried before the thousands of bodies began to wash up onshore; his dozen or so messages (which have since been deleted from the @RealGilbert page, but they included the following one-liners:
“Japan called me. They said: ‘Maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they’re all sinking.’”
“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.’”
It's not the first time Gottfried has gotten topical inspiration from tragedy. He sent out a joke about comedian Greg Giraldo's death on 29 September, the day Giraldo passed away. That tweet was still posted Monday. And still not funny.
No comments:
Post a Comment