CHELSEA — It helps to have friends like these.
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, known as the grating voice of the Aflac duck and the parrot Iago in Disney's "Aladdin," is organizing a celebrity comedy fundraising gala for his daughter's new school, P.S. 11.
The star-studded Comedy for a Cause will kick off at the Gotham Comedy Club on Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. Along with Gottfried, the show will have performances from comedians Dave Attell, W. Kamau Bell, Ray Ellin, Susie Essman, Judy Gold and Artie Lange.
The Gottfrieds' daughter, Lily, started kindergarten at P.S. 11 in September.
"We're new at the school and Gilbert is well-known, so the PTA asked me to put a comedy night out together," said the funny man's wife Dara Gottfried.
"I just reached out to friends of Gilbert and everybody just said yes."
The school lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of Department of Education funding this year after losing its Title One status, leaving the PTA to raise roughly a half million dollars by the end of the year — nearly twice as much as it raised in 2011.
In addition to organizing the comedy show, the couple also managed to get donations from high-powered celebs like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Josh Groban for an auction that's likely to raise thousands of dollars for the public school's PTA.
"Doing something like this, I feel like it's a responsibility because of Gilbert," Dara Gottfried said.
Tickets for the laugh-fest are available online for $125 and include two drinks. For $200, you can pick up a VIP ticket, which includes a pre-show cocktail party with food and an open bar, along with preferred seating.
But it's the big-ticket auction items that are likely to bring in the major bucks: a tour of Jay Leno's garage, tickets to a dress rehearsal of Saturday Night Live, tickets to a private Josh Groban concert, and a behind-the-scenes tour of NBC's "Today Show."
Online bidding on some of the items starts on Jan. 29 and ends Feb. 19, although several items will only be available during a live auction at the event itself.
While several celebs living in Chelsea send their kids to pricey private schools with tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, the Gottfrieds decided to send their daughter to a public school because that's how they grew up. The pair plan to send their young son Max, 3, to P.S. 11 when he's ready for school.
"We think P.S. 11 is an excellent school, so why spend the money when you have a good school in the neighborhood?" Dara Gottfried said.
