Legendary comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried will be performing two stand-up comedy acts on Sept. 20 at the Mauch Chunk Opera House in Jim Thorpe.

The shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m. are for mature audiences only. Tickets for the shows are on sale now by calling the opera house box office at 570-325-0259 or visiting SoundCheck Records in Jim Thorpe during business hours or at the box office the day of the show.

A lifetime of laughs

The 64-year-old lifelong New York City resident has been dedicated to comedy since the age of 15 when he started forming his act in amateur NYC comedy clubs, which was originally his sister Arlene’s idea.

It was only a short few years later, in 1980, when the writers of “Saturday Night Live” took notice and hired him as a cast member.

When asked what drew him to a career in comedy, Gottfried jokingly said, “I’m too stupid to do anything else.”

He said he was inspired in his comedy by everything he saw on television, such as the Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis.

“It was like a mix of everything that I saw,” Gottfried said.

In the NYC comedy clubs, he started out with classic celebrity impressions.

He imitated a variety of celebrities such as Rich Little, George Kirby, Will Jordan and Cary Grant.

However, “after a while (of) going to clubs over and over, I got tired of it and started screwing around with anything that popped into my head and that developed into my act now,” Gottfried said.

A man of many talents

Gottfried went on to wear many hats over the course of his career and take part in a plethora of roles including Iago in “Aladdin,” Sidney Bernstein in “Beverly Hills Cop II,” Mr. Peabody in “Problem Child I and II,” Abraham Lincoln in “A Million Ways to Die in the West” and both the horse in Season 5: Episode 15 of “Family Guy” titled “Boys Do Cry” and the dog whistle in Season 17: Episode 4 titled “Big Trouble in Little Quahog.”

According to Gottfried, one of his most famous scenes, as Bernstein, was actually improvised.

He said that while arguing with Eddie Murphy’s character, Axel Foley, over unpaid parking tickets, the two actors ignored the script and acted out the scene differently each take, just having fun until they got it right.

Early in his career, Gottfried was hired by MTV to film a series of comedic promos for the new channel.

Recently, he has read “Fifty Shades of Grey” for College Humor which received over 5 million views on YouTube.

He’s also released a DVD and CD titled “Gilbert Gottfried Dirty Jokes” and novel “Rubber Balls and Liquor,” which gilbertgottfried.com describes as “part memoir, part twisted social commentary, and part scratches on the bathroom wall.”

He has made numerous TV appearances on talk shows and Comedy Central and was also the host of the late night movie series “USA Up All Night.”

Aside from Iago, he has done many other voice acting parts such as the AFLAC insurance duck, Digit on the PBS series “Cyberchase,” Alfalfa on “The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange,” Mr. Mxyzptlk in the “Lego Batman 3 — Beyond Gotham” video game and Kraang Subprime in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

A controversial comedian

Gottfried is most known for his controversial humor, specifically as the first comedian ever to make a 9/11 joke, just three weeks after the attacks.

“I feel like my career is walking the tight rope between early morning children’s programing and hard-core porn,” Gottfried said of his comedic range.

He said he receives inspiration from his favorite George Carlin quote which states, “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

“It’s fun to hit a sensitive area, and I think people want to laugh at that, they want to hear something that they’re not supposed to hear and not supposed to say,” said Gottfried. “In their day, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers were crossing the line.”

To this day, Gottfried is racing to keep up with modern times in show business. His most recent project is his Amazing Colossal Podcast, which he has hosted, alongside comedy writer Frank Santopadre, since 2014.

Originally an idea by Gottfried’s wife, Dara Kravitz, with whom he has two children, the podcast focuses on old show business and interviewing older celebrities, including both Rich Little and Will Jordan, who he did impressions of early in his stand-up career.

When asked how he manages to keep up with the times and stay so successful, he said “it makes it sound like I have some real thought involved and I actually don’t … to me, it’s (just) keeping your claws holding onto show business.”