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EmailPrint..– Mon Mar 14, 7:13 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – 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. One joke suggested Japan needed an urgent shipment of rubber ducks, though many tended toward the crude and sexual.
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.
Gottfried's agent was not immediately available to comment.
In one his Twitter remarks, Gottfried said, "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They'll be another one floating by any minute now.'"
In another tweet, he wrote, "Japan is really advanced.They don't go to the beach.The beach comes to them."
The stream of Gottfried's tasteless jokes continued: “I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said, ‘Is there a school is this area?’ She said, ‘Not now, but just wait.’”
The tweets have since been removed. The 55-year-old comic has not issued a statement.
Aflac said it will immediately set plans in motion to conduct a nationwide casting call to find a new voice of the Aflac duck.
