Gilbert Gottfried has made a career out of his unique voice and comedic time, creating some of memorable—and amusing—characters in film over the years. He’s probably best known for voicing Iago in Aladdin, but more recently, he decided to do redo a famous speech from another nineties hit, Independence Day. The result turns the rousing speech into a comedy goldmine, and is definitely worth a watch.
In the short, 2-minute video, the footage from Independence Day is exactly what you will remember, with Bill Pullman standing in front of a ragtag band of civilians willing to get into janky planes and give up their lives in order to potentially save humanity from the threat of an alien invasion. Pullman’s speech ties freedom and Independence Day together in ways that are not the least bit cornball and actually, understandably, gets a group of random assholes to want to put their lives on the line. Pullman’s treatment of the speech is definitely serviceable, but trust me when I say Gottfried adds a little more ’Merica to the mix.
It’s Gottfried’s screechy, fervent, strangely-accented speech that really sells the video and makes me wonder what the man has been up to since he became famous for his voicework in the nineties (let's just forget about his appearance in A Million Ways to Die in the West). Apparently, he's interested in podcasts. In fact, the video was first put together for Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast, and eventually made it into the video format you now see, above.
If you are having a little trouble remembering how the Independence Day speech sounds when it is done the way Roland Emmerich wants it done, the fine folks over at Fox Home Entertainment also have made Pullman’s actual version available to revisit, time and time again.
I’m not sure if Gottfried plans to make this segment a regular thing on his podcast, but I for one can think of a whole list of inspirational speeches he could improve. I’m thinking Shawshank Redemption’s "Get Busy Living" speech or possibly Al Pacino’s "Game Of Inches" pep talk. Seriously. Don’t you want to hear Gilbert scream about making every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make? I certainly do, as long as it is done more than six inches from my face.
