Supremely Silly Superlatives

Gilbert Gottfried. (Getty Images)

This week Gilbert Gottfried was honored with the title of "Unsexiest Man in the World." You may remember Gottfried from a variety of places -- his stand-up routine, "Mad" magazine, recurring bit parts on "The Cosby Show" and "Wings," from the recent film "The Aristocrats," or as the voice of the AFLAC duck.

In his long career, I don't think it can be said that Gottfried has ever attempted to trade on his looks and I can't say his facial features or general appearance are the first things I'd mention when ticking off his talents, but still, give the man a break.

We're daily surrounded by the ridiculous here at Celebritology (Tom Cruise eating placenta and Britney birthing sculpture), but this is too much. Gottfried is a master of comic timing, not a box office lothario, for goodness sake. His resume is longer than, well, something really long and the work keeps on coming. Why are we wasting print space and Internet bandwidth judging his looks?

This honor, though, is only the latest in an ever-expanding galaxy of bandwidth-wasting superlatives given to the bold-name set. Last week, I wrote here about Bob Geldof being named Best Celebrity Dad. Sharon Osbourne was recently named Best Celebrity Mum. Pete Doherty took top honors as Worst Celebrity Dad and Best Canadian Celebrity Hair was awarded to actress Jill Hennessy -- and they just keep getting sillier. At this rate, we'll soon be touting the Best Celebrity Breather.

The "Unsexiest" list, by the way, also included Dr. Phil, Michael Moore, Michael Jackson, Jerry Seinfeld, Ron Howard, Clay Aiken, Kevin Federline and Osama bin Laden. Brad Pitt was came in as 100th least sexiest -- apparently for hygiene-related reasons.