Andy Kindler renews his attack on Ricky Gervais

American comic Andy Kindler has renewed his attacks on Ricky Gervais.

The US stand-up used his annual state of the industry address at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival to attack Gervais over his last special, Humanity.

He singled out jokes The Office creator  made mocking Caitlyn Jenner for being transgender, saying: ‘Ricky Gervais isn’t afraid to go after the persecuted.’

And he sideswiped sarcastically: ‘All my favorite comics wear a headset and talk endlessly about hosting the Golden Globes.

Kindler got on to Gervais after referencing a backlash to the acclaim heaped on Hannah Gadsby's Nanette special on certain quarters.'

'Is it because there isn’t enough comedy in the special?' he asked. 'That didn’t stop Netflix from giving Ricky Gervais $40 million to come up with horrible "Caitlyn Jenner is a bad woman driver" jokes.'

Kindler has been attacking Gervais for more than four years, using the same speech in 2014 to say: 'He is a despicable person.  There's not one person in England who likes him… I’m glad I got the anger out.’

And last year, Kindler tweeted: ‘He’s a terrible standup whose biggest crime is thinking he's good at it.’

Kindler dedicated much of his 23rd state of the industry address to pointing out how he had called out Louis CK for being an awful person when he was still being feted by the rest of the comedy world.

He joked that CK got away with his sexual misconduct by using the ‘carrot and stick’ method with those in the industry.

‘The carrot is "maybe if I hang around a bit he’ll give me something",’ Kindler said. ‘And the stick is his penis.’

And he targetted the biggest player in comedy, saying: 'Netflix keeps making comedy specials shorter and shorter. I’m waiting for "90 people who each make a funny noise" special.'

Published: 28 Jul 2018