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                <p>NEW YORK (Reuters) – Disability insurer Aflac Inc fired comedian Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of its iconic duck on Monday after a series of Twitter jokes about the earthquake in Japan, the company's most important market.</p>
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Since 2000, Gottfried has voiced the duck in the insurer's TV ad campaign in the United States, quacking "Af-LAC!" in the comedian's famously abrasive voice.</p>
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Gottfried fired off a dozen jokes on the social media service over the weekend, all riffing in one way or another on the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami.</p>
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But the company said his comments "were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac."</p>
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Aflac said it would start a nationwide casting call to find a new voice -- and noted that it was already using a different voice in the Japanese market, where it is the No. 1 foreign insurer.</p>
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The company made its name selling cancer expense policies in Japan in the 1970s, and still derives about three-quarters of its revenue in the country.</p>
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(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Richard Chang)</p>
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