Gilbert Gottfried, the veteran comic whose death was announced on Tuesday at the age of 67, will be remembered for many things. He had one of the most iconic voices in Hollywood, most notably lending his shrill, instantly-recognizable shout to the role of Iago, the loquacious parrot-sidekick of the villain in Disney’s Aladdin. He was beloved and revered by fellow stand-up comedians for pushing boundaries in his sets. And he will also go down in comedy history as having told possibly the best version of the age-old Aristocrats joke.

For those unfamiliar with “The Aristocrats,” it is essentially an inside joke amongst comedians, believed to have originated in the Vaudeville era. The setup and punchline remain consistent, and both are secondary. The Aristocrats is really about how outrageously raunchy the comedian can make it, and how long they can keep people laughing by putting their own spin on it. It’s an exercise in imagination and, above all, delivery. The lengthy, decades-old joke is so pervasive in the comedy world that it was the subject of a 2005 documentary from Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette (of magician duo Penn & Teller).

The setup of the joke is as follows: a family walks into the office of a talent agent and the agent asks them what their act consists of. Over the course of several minutes, the comic telling the joke proceeds to describe the vulgar “act” that the family demonstrates, each new line filthier than the last.

Told correctly, the joke violates nearly every unspeakable taboo one could think of—incest, rape, pedophilia, bestiality, animal cruelty, you name it. There’s also plenty of gross-out, bodily fluid-oriented humor thrown in for good measure. Finally comes the punchline. It’s not just about crossing the line, it’s about leaping past it. When the agent asks what they call themselves, the family ironically replies that they call themselves “the Aristocrats.”

What makes Gottfried’s iteration of the joke so special is not just his delivery or the increasingly disturbing scenarios he comes up with. (Though, to be clear, both are impressive—his insertion of the aside, “This is based on a true story,” and an ad lib about the anal elasticity of rats are positively gut-busting.) But the context is crucial. Gottfried decided to tell the joke, completely unplanned, after bombing spectacularly at the 2001 Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner.

As explained in The Aristocrats, the roast took place mere weeks after 9/11, and comedians were treading lightly as the country was still reeling from the terrorist attacks. Gottfried told a joke about the attacks, saying that he was nervous for an upcoming flight to Los Angeles with a connection at the Empire State Building, and he was met with resounding “boos”—with even one audience member shouting that it was “too soon.” As Gottfried explained in a 2019 Vulture interview, he “lost an audience bigger than anybody has ever lost an audience.”

With nothing left to lose, he launched into the Aristocrats joke, shifting gears with a decisive, “OK, a talent agent is sitting in his office.” He goes on for nine minutes and 50 seconds, garnering huge laughs from the unsuspecting crowd and entirely remaking the joke as his own.

Amazingly, it was his first time doing it on stage, but it would go on to become one of Gottfried’s signature bits.

The only other comic to approach Gottfried’s legendary delivery of the impossibly dirty joke was none other than late comedian and Gottfried’s longtime friend, Bob Saget. The landscape of comedy will be forever altered with the loss of these two filthy-minded greats.

Johnny Depp accuses Amber Heard of revenge pooping in court testimony: ‘I could only laugh’

Johnny Depp recalled discovering “human fecal matter” on his bed following an argument with Amber Heard during his defamation trial against the actress on Wednesday.

The actor took the stand for a second day at court in Fairfax County, Va., recounting the “grotesque” moment his security guard, Sean Bett, sent him a photograph of feces on his side of the bed. Back in April 2016, Depp said he and Heard had an argument during her birthday party. He wanted out of the marriage and later went to retrieve his belongings at their shared residence while Heard was at Coachella, he testified, but said that Bett advised him that it wasn’t a good time.

“I had received some news,” Depp said. “I was shown a picture of what the problem was. I had gone to Mr. Bett and said, ‘She’s at Coachella. I think it’s a good time to go downtown so that I can get some of my things and get them out of there,’ especially things that were precious to me… and he said, ‘I don’t think now’s a good time to go.’ And I thought, ‘It’s the perfect time. She’s not going to be home for two days.’ Then he showed me a photograph on his telephone of… it was a photograph of our bed, and on my side of the bed, was human fecal matter.”

He continued, “I understood why it wasn’t a good time to go down there. My initial response to that was, I mean… I laughed. It was so outside. It was so bizarre and so grotesque that I could only laugh. So I did not go down there that day.” Depp said he approached Heard about a divorce not too long after, telling her that he wouldn’t cite irreconcilable differences or the violence, just that “we simply don’t want to feel we have a collar around each other’s necks” and “want to end this with love and take the idea of ownership of one another out of the picture.”

“I figure she understood as well as I did there was no way back,” Depp continued. “I also felt she would understand it was the best thing for the both of us.” Heard then brought up the feces and “tried to blame it on the dogs,” according to Depp. “They’re teacup Yorkies. They weigh about 4 pounds each. The photograph that I saw — I lived with those dogs for many years. It was not the dogs… I didn’t feel like I deserved that kind of treatment.”

Depp recounted the same incident during his libel lawsuit against The Sun in 2020, where he fought back against the British newspaper’s characterization of him as a “wife beater.” He said at the time, “I thought that was an oddly fitting end to the relationship.” The actor ultimately lost that lawsuit.

In Virginia, Depp is suing Heard for $50 million over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed that chronicled her experiences as a domestic violence survivor. Though Heard never mentioned Depp by name, his lawyers maintained the reference to Depp was clear and that the op-ed damaged his career and reputation. The two met on the set of 2011’s The Rum Diary and wed in 2015. Heard filed for divorce from Depp in 2016, filing a domestic violence restraining order against him and accusing him of physically and verbally abusing her during “violent and volatile” episodes. Depp has denied the allegations.