Australian comedian who joked about gas chambers loses ‘lucrative’ Netflix deal

Netflix has dropped an Australian comedian who made jokes about the Holocaust and insulted a Jewish audience member who later complained in an email.

Last month, Isaac Butterfield asked his audience at the Melbourne Comedy Festival to “imagine the joy of people when they heard the Jews were sent to the gas chambers,” the city’s Herald Sun newspaper reported. The email sent to Butterfield from a Jewish woman said the joke was “not remotely funny.”

He responded: “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the oven.”

Butterfield had what the London-based Daily Mail described as “a lucrative comedy special deal” with Netflix to air his comedy stand-up special “The Butterfield Effect.” But the video-streaming company canceled the deal following the offensive riposte.

Butterfield has nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube.

— JTA