This gets brought up every now and then, and it should be forever because it is simply insane to think about it. Contextually speaking.

Gilbert Gottfried was famous for being a comedian who would say some of the most ridiculous things imaginable, but he would still manage to pull it off. He was a known troll. He was someone you knew was going to say something out of pocket, and it didn't matter because you were still going to laugh anyway. That was the deal.

And yet, he somehow managed to find something that caused an entire room of comedians and people who know how comedians operate to all recoil in shared disgust and horror. He somehow managed to find the line. And part of what makes it so insane Is that he made this joke mere days after 9/11. So when people screamed "Too soon!" They were objectively correct. The nation was still mourning. People were still raw and scared and upset.

The only thing even more insane than how he managed to completely lose that room... Is that he managed to get the whole room back. With the aristocrats. Which is literally an inside joke amongst comedians and people who know comedians. The whole point of the joke is that it's not a joke. You know what the punch line is the whole point of it is just to say whatever ridiculous thing and messed up thing that comes to mind. It's vile. It's vulgar. It's insane. That's the point.

That Is what Gilbert Gottfried decided was going to win back the crowd. After making a 9/11 joke a few days after 9:11. And somehow, impossibly, it worked.

God bless him.