Actor Gilbert Gottfried may once have provided the voice of Iago the parrot, but last night he gave that honor to Wharton senior Paul Treichler of Penn's Mask and Wig comedy troupe.
The Eighth Annual Intercollegiate Comedy Festival, held in Irvine Auditorium, featured performances from Gottfried, who also provided the voice of the AFLAC duck of commercial fame, and students representing four universities.
As the host, Gottfried opened the show with a string of one-liners, but it was his delivery of the joke from the movie The Aristocrats that brought many of the approximately 1,200 students in attendance to their feet.
The veteran comic performer shared the spotlight with the members of Mask and Wig, whose skits included a mock trial of Saddam Hussein, with Gottfried presiding as the honorable judge. The witnesses included characters from the movie Aladdin such as Iago, Abu, Carpet and the Genie.
"Mr. Iago, would you please stop yelling? Your voice is so obnoxious," Gottfried said.
Treichler, playing the role Gottfried made famous in the 1992 Disney film, responded, "Did you say AFLAC?"
The case was eventually declared a mistrial, to the delight of the audience.
Off-Off Campus, a group from the University of Chicago, performed a three-person skit involving a dinosaur-obsessed boyfriend, and another that featured a father criticizing his son, who switched his soda preference from Coke to Pepsi, for being a "flip-flopper."
Yale University's Fifth Humor mocked a motivational speaker addressing a high school senior class on prom night.
Yale junior and ComFest veteran Justin Noble, who co-wrote the skit, later said, "As long as it's done correctly, there's no topic too taboo for comedy."
Members of Sketchup, from the University of Maryland, introduced the iTodd, which promised to save its user from "any awkward moment" by picking just the right song for the occasion.
Wharton senior and Mask and Wig member Jimmy Fanelly, who played a female University trustee alongside Gottfried's rather misogynistic character, praised Gottfried's willingness to learn his role so quickly.
"My favorite part was any time Gilbert Gottfried broke character," Fanelly said after the show. "He was awesome as a host."
Gottfried also spoke to The Daily Pennsylvanian by phone from New York a day before the Comedy Festival. Some highlights:
DP: You began doing stand-up at age 15. When did you know you wanted to be a comic?
GG: Pretty early. I'd been thinking about it for a while. I don't exactly know when, I just knew sometimes the class clowns grew up to become shipping clerks.
DP: You're co-hosting ComFest with Paul Provenza, [a Penn alumnus and director of The Aristocrats].
GG: Yeah, I've been at clubs with Paul before and Penn Jillette. I've seen his magic shows. Penn & Teller are pretty much the way they are on screen. Penn's wild, and Teller doesn't talk. I remember, I made him start laughing, though!
For the full interview, see
