Ribbed And Roasted

With a sense of humour to match his hedonistic habits, Hugh Hefner gamely submitted to skewering

- Sascha Cohen

Almost everyone remembers the 2001 Comedy Central Roast of Hugh Hefner, which took place just two and a half weeks after 9/11, when the New York City skyline was still black and smouldering. Gilbert Gottfried made a risky, too soon joke about air travel but then won back the audience with his filthy version of “The Aristocrats,” giving grief-stricken America permission to laugh again. Hefner, in his 70s and with multiple young girlfriends, gamely tolerated a night full of gloves-off jabs about his ageing body and unorthodox sex life.

But it wasn’t Hef’s first time on a dais getting roasted by his celebrity friends.

Decades before the raunchy late night special entertained Comedy Central audiences, The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast was airing on NBC, and in 1973 Hefner was in the hot seat.