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George Carlin

 
AnswerNote: George Carlin
George Carlin
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Counterculture comedian George Carlin was born May 12, 1937, in the Bronx, New York. A disciple of Lenny Bruce, Carlin was arrested for violating obscenity laws in 1972 after a radio broadcast of an uncensored version of his routine "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Radio or Television." The broadcast became the center of a debate over censorship, and FCC legislation over profanity. A self-professed atheist and avid cocaine user, Carlin's adversaries deemed him anti-religious and disrespectful of society. Raised in a Roman Catholic home, and having been educated in parochial school, Carlin is said to have developed his negative attitude towards religion during his tenure as an altar boy.

A high school dropout, Carlin enlisted in the army, got his high school equivalency, and moonlighted as a disc jockey at a Louisiana radio station, where he was stationed. In 1959, Carlin teamed up with Texas newscaster, Jack Burns, collaborating on a morning radio show in Fort Worth before relocating to Hollywood, where they attracted Bruce's attention. He helped Burns and Carlin secure appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. After Burns and Carlin split up, Carlin continued to make numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, as well as, The Merv Griffin Show. In the early 1960s, Carlin got his start as a stand-up comic performing on the Las Vegas circuit and entertaining TV audiences. Carlin enjoyed moderate success until the mid-70s when he re-invented his image and adopted his less conventional, somewhat vulgar comedy routine.

On October 11, 1975, Carlin became the first host of NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live. Carlin recorded 23 comedy albums and received four Grammy Awards. He starred in 14 HBO specials, and published three best-selling books. In addition to his acting, writing and recording, Carlin performed about 150 dates a year on the road. Carlin was widowed in May 1997, when his wife Brenda died of complications from liver cancer. The two were married for 34 years and had a daughter Kelly. Carlin received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in January of 1987, and was inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame in November of 1994. In June 2008, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, announced that Carlin would be the year's recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which is given out in November. Just four days later, on June 22, 2008, Carlin died of heart failure.

Last updated: June 24, 2008.

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Who2 Biography: George Carlin, Comedian
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  • Born: 12 May 1937
  • Birthplace: New York, New York
  • Died: 22 June 2008 (heart failure)
  • Best Known As: The profane comedian known for his "7 Dirty Words" routine

George Carlin was the cranky stand-up comedian most famous for his 1970s routine known as "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." After being discharged from the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s, Carlin began his comedy career on the radio and in nightclubs in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Throughout the '60s he did standup while appearing on television sit-coms and talk shows, doing hip-but-clean routines like his famous "hippy-dippy weatherman." He emerged in the 1970s as a Grammy-winning comic known for mixing off-color wordplay, goofy absurdity and angry social commentary on albums such as FM & AM and Class Clown (both 1972). Later he had his own TV specials, wrote books and guest-starred in feature films, most notably as Rufus in 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (starring Keanu Reeves). As cable TV blossomed in the 1990s, Carlin found that not only could he now say his famous seven words on television, but that he had become a mainstream comedy icon. His records include A Place for My Stuff (1981) and Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990); his books include Brain Droppings (1997) and Napalm and Silly Putty (2001); and his movies include Outrageous Fortune (1987, with Bette Midler) and several Kevin Smith comedies, including Dogma (1999) and Jersey Girl (2004, with Ben Affleck).

Carlin hosted the first episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live in October of 1975... He was "Mr. Conductor" in the '90s on the children's TV shows Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and Shining Time Station... Carlin entered the U.S. Air Force in 1954. His official site says he received "three court-martial and numerous Article Fifteens (form of punishment just below court-martial)" during the next three years and was given a "general discharge under honorable conditions" -- one notch below an honorable discharge -- in 1957.

Biography: George Carlin
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Despite a lull in his career, George Carlin (1937-2008) has secured his reputation as one of America's greatest comedians. He has performed regularly on television with the likes of Ed Sullivan, Tom Jones, Steve Allen, Jackie Gleason, and Carol Burnett, worked the major nightclub circuit, and starred in a Fox television sitcom, "The George Carlin Show".

In the late-1960s, Carlin drifted into his thirties, dissatisfied and uninspired with comedy. Even Carlin's promotional literature admits: "[B]ecause of the influence television was having on his career, Carlin's material grew bland and safe. The rebellious, anti-establishment tone of some of his earlier routines had disappeared."

Anyone who has seen a Carlin performance knows his comedy turns on biting brilliance. As Richard Zoglin of Time noted about the funnyman's early days, "Carlin's unctuous radio deejays, TV newscasters and commercial pitchmen were not simple parodies: he used them to satirize a whole society that had its priorities out of whack." Fortunately, for Carlin and his fans, his early-thirty something career crisis was short-lived. By the age of 35, he had released a Grammy-winning album, FM & AM, appeared countless times on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, hosted the first Saturday Night Live, and captured a corner of the cable market with his taped performances on HBO. Carlin has pushed his career at full-tilt ever since, and the payoff, as the comedian himself might say, has been "tangible recognition": a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, two Grammy awards, a popular book of his comedy, and movie roles. "He's at the top of his game now and the only comedian with his degree of fame who's doing standup exclusively 150 nights a year," the New York Daily News observed as Carlin approached 60. "He tapes an hour-long HBO special every two years and wishes he could do two hours every year. 'I've got a lot of things to say,' he insists."

Carlin realized the pleasures of humor as a kid growing up in New York City. "I remember being pretty young and just saying something funny to my mother, and I remember I got a genuine laugh from her, you know how you can tell the difference?" he told the New Jersey Herald. "That's when I knew I could be funny." Armed with that homebred confidence, Carlin took his talent public, performing standup on his neighborhood streets, at high school, and in the Air Force. At the age of 19, while still in the Armed Services, he landed his first professional entertainment job working as a radio station disc jockey. Several years and radio stations later, Carlin joined up with newsman Jack Burns and developed a successful nightclub act that toured top stages around the country and earned a spot on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Two years later, Carlin struck out on his own.

For two years, Carlin honed his humor at a Greenwich Village cafe in New York City before breaking into television. Carlin's standup acts were a hit on shows hosted by the biggest names in the business: Merv Griffen, Mike Douglas, and Johnny Carson. Indeed, the performers Carlin joined on the stage reads like a "Who's Who of Post World War II Comics," including Steve Allen, Jackie Gleason, and Carol Burnett.

Eyes The Big Screen

Yet, despite his comic success on television, Carlin yearned for an acting career on the big screen, much like the comedians-turned-actors Bob Hope and Danny Kaye. Although he landed a role in the Doris Day film With Six You Get Egg-Roll, and a guest part on That Girl, Carlin was discouraged by his lack of success. Years later, he dabbled in the profession again - appearing in such flicks as Car Wash, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Prince of Tides, with Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte - but the experiences, coupled with a failed Fox network sitcom, only deepened his conviction that comedy was his calling. "I care a lot about my ideas," Carlin told the Toldeo Blade in 1995. "My mind is active, and I think hard and think a lot. I don't think a lot of stand-up people stay with it long enough to discover themselves. They see it as a stepping stone. Circumstances forced me to stay with it longer, and I discovered that I had something more to offer, and something else to do with myself. All of these guys that came out of Saturday Night Live and Second City on television - those two shows were always considered subversive, you know? They were the enemies of The Establishment. But the first thing they do when they come out here to Hollywood is start doing these crappy formula studio movies."

Though the material for Carlin's humor has changed during his long career, his fierce criticism of mainstream culture has not. He possesses a sensibility that has been described by writers as "caustic," "acerbic," "angry," and "irreverent." Carlin, during an interview with the Denver Post, admitted: "Anyone who's intelligent who isn't somewhat angry is probably missing the point somewhere along the way. The way I put it is this: This species is a failure that has organized itself incorrectly, and it's stuck and will never get out of it because the forces that keep it this way are much too powerful to change. So I gave up on this species, and I kind of try to look at it from a distance, but I can't completely give up because I'm a part of it. So there's this tension, and that creates a kind of anger that is easy to theatricalize." Such razor-sharp pessimism prompted at least one reporter from the Bellingham Herald to ask Carlin: "Is this all meant tongue-in-cheek?" To which the humorist replied, "No, it's not. I'm only being partly facetious. If you scratch any cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist."

Challenges Audience

Carlin sharpened his comic focus in the early '70s. He emerged from his brief period of professional unrest with a new appetite for scathing commentary, for "testing the limits," as Zoglin of Time wrote, "challenging his audience, shouting from the depths of his social-activist soul." Carlin's most direct challenge appeared on the album Class Clown with a performance titled "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." After its release, community leaders tried to ban Carlin's concerts in their cities. "He was arrested several times for obscenity (all of which were dismissed), and fought the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] in a protracted legal battle," noted the St. Petersburg Times. Carlin's fight with the FCC ultimately was settled in a landmark Supreme Court ruling, which, according to Time, "upheld an FCC ban on 'offensive' material during hours when children are in the audience." Carlin, however, scored with his fans - Class Clown sold more than 100,000 copies. Moreover, Carlin continued to "keep a foot in the mainstream as well as the counterculture," as Zoglin of Time put it, by hosting the first edition of Saturday Night Live and subbing for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

Thanks to cable television, Carlin also kept himself firmly entrenched in mass media. His first HBO show, a taped performance of On Location: George Carlin at USC, was so popular the cable company ran seven more Carlin shows, including a 1982 performance at Carnegie Hall and 1993 broadcast from the Paramount Theater at New York's Madison Square Garden called Jammin' in New York. Of that last performance, Zoglin of Time wrote, it "may not be his best, but it is almost certainly his angriest. Carlin's attack on America's war culture (complete with phallic interpretation of the gulf war) is too strident; his ridicule of golf ('an arrogant, elitist game that takes up entirely too much room in this country') too meanspirited. But he is, as usual, a whiz on the subject of language, this time our tendency to add unnecessary words to connote importance - 'shower activity' or 'emergency situation.' ('We know it's a situation. Everything is a situation.')"

Carlin is proud of his ability to offend - in fact, he considers it central to his success. "I don't care what happens to this planet, this race, the country," he told Jeff Rusnak of the Florida Sun Sentinel. "And being emotionally detached … gives the artist complete freedom to attack, to observe from a distance and not have this sort of echo in the background that 'this could be a lot better, folks."' That "distance," he explained, has always existed in his life. "What really freed me was I began to realize that I don't identify with the human experience, with the national experience, and in fact, most of my life, didn't identify with the local group, no matter what it was, my school, the Air Force, my family, religion, commerce. Therefore I have no stake in the outcome."

Carlin's career has always been a high-wire act. He's a master of balancing his outrageous observations with enough humor to keep his fans laughing, and coming back for more. That his distinctive brand of comedy has weathered more than three decades, as well as his own personal struggles with "heavy drug use," according to Time, suggests Carlin delivers far more than a good joke. "I never understand why people ask whether I get tired of what I do. No, I don't get tired, I chose to do this," he once told the New Jersey Herald. "This is my art, to interpret the world."

Further Reading

Bellingham Herald, November 30, 1995, p. C1.

Denver Post, January 24, 1996.

New Jersey Herald, August, 11, 1995, p. 13.

New York Daily News, March 28, 1996, p. 61.

New York Post, March 28, 1996, p. 12.

St. Petersburg Times, January 18, 1996.

Sun Sentinel, TK, 1996.

Time, May 18, 1992, p. 73.

Toledo Blade, September 22, 1995, p. 23.

Quotes By: George Carlin
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Quotes:

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.-"

"There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past."

Artist: George Carlin
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  • Born: May 12, 1937, NY
  • Died: June 22, 2008, Santa Monica, CA
  • Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Spoken Word
  • Instrument: Producer
  • Representative Albums: "FM & AM", "The Little David Years: 1971-1977", "Class Clown
  • Representative Songs: "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", "Occupation: Foole", "Wonderful Wino (Top-40 Disc Jockey)

Biography

Famed for his landmark "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine, George Carlin filled the void created by the death of Lenny Bruce, honing a provocative, scathing comic style that bravely explored the limits of free speech and good taste. George Dennis Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, in the Bronx, NY. While serving a stint in the military, he was stationed in Shreveport, LA, where he began working as a disc jockey; after working with fellow radio personality Jack Burns on a Shreveport morning show, in 1955 the duo began performing in clubs as a comedy team. Burns & Carlin made their recorded debut in 1960 with a live show consisting of their rendition of Lenny Bruce's "Dijinni in the Candy Store" routine (Bruce was an early supporter of the duo as well as a major influence), along with a spot-on impersonation of Mort Sahl and the sketch "Captain Jack and Jolly George," a spoof of children's shows inviting young girls to "send for your Lolita kit."

By and large, the Burns & Carlin team found little success, and eventually broke up; their album was released on the tiny Era Records label under the name Burns & Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight (despite having been recorded at Hollywood's Cosmo Alley), but failed to generate much attention. Meanwhile, Burns split to begin working with Avery Schreiber. Striking out on his own, Carlin initially worked in roles that cast him as a clean-cut, straight-laced performer; his proper solo debut, 1967's Take Offs and Put Ons (recorded at The Roostertail in Detroit, MI) offered clever if mild-mannered routines like "Wonderful WINO," about a mindless disc jockey. That year he was also tapped to co-star in Away We Go, a summer replacement series for The Jackie Gleason Show; still, despite his success, Carlin found his suit-and-tie image stifling, and began gravitating toward the image and ideals of the counterculture.

Re-emerging as a long-haired, bearded, denim-clad hippie, he lost many of his high-paying gigs, but his riffs on sex, drugs, and politics quickly gained an avid following among the fringe culture. While 1972's FM & AM offered an even split between the safer material of his past work and the more incendiary routines of the "new" Carlin, 1972's Class Clown and the following year's Occupation Foole marked his full evolution into a counterculture icon. Most notably, Class Clown featured the recorded debut of the "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" bit, the subject of a Supreme Court ruling after the FCC nearly stripped Pacifica Radio of its FM license for playing the routine on the air. At the same time, Carlin himself was arrested after a Milwaukee concert appearance for violating local obscenity laws.

The controversy only made him a bigger star, and in 1975 he was tapped to host the debut episode of the NBC sketch comedy showcase Saturday Night Live. The same year also saw the release of the LP An Evening with Wally Londo Featuring Bill Slaszo, highlighted by an early performance of what soon evolved into his popular "Baseball -- Football" routine. In 1976 Carlin appeared in the film Car Wash, and in 1977 he issued On the Road. However, as a new breed of way-out comedians like Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Andy Kaufman began to emerge, Carlin's brand of incisive sociopolitical commentary began to fall from favor; plagued by substance abuse problems, he did not record again until 1981's A Place for My Stuff, and gained a reputation for unpredictable, often abusive on-stage behavior.

By the middle of the decade, he resurfaced clean and sober for 1985's Carlin on Campus and 1986's Playin' with Your Head, which reprised material from recent cable TV and home video performances. After 1988's What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, he found a new following among teens thanks to his appearances in the popular Bill and Ted screen comedies; in the early '90s, he courted an even younger audience by assuming the lead role on the PBS children's series Shining Time Station. Still, Carlin did not neglect his core audience; 1990's Parental Advisory, Explicit Lyrics and 1992's Jammin' in New York found him as feisty as ever, and in 1994 he starred as an abrasive cabdriver in the short-lived Fox television sitcom The George Carlin Show. Additionally, he continued to tour constantly, and in 1997 issued the album Back in Town. Like many of his '90s recordings, 1999's You Are All Diseased was issued as a complement to an hourlong HBO special.

Carlin continued to perform throughout the country on an intensive basis, and issued his politically fueled Complaints and Grievances shortly after the September 11th tragedy. It was followed by 2006's Life Is Worth Losing and 2008's It's Bad for Ya. Both featured some of his bleakest material to date, the latter being driven by the subject of death. It was announced that Carlin would be the recipient of the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, to be awarded in November 2008 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Only days later, on June 22, 2008, Carlin died of heart failure in Santa Monica, CA. The Kennedy Center announced that Carlin would receive the prize posthumously and that the November event would be dedicated to him. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
Actor: George Carlin
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  • Born: May 12, 1937 in New York, New York
  • Died: Jun 22, 2008
  • Occupation: Actor, Writer
  • Active: '70s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Children's/Family
  • Career Highlights: Dogma, George Carlin: What am I Doing in New Jersey?, George Carlin: Jammin' in New York
  • First Major Screen Credit: With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)

Biography



The titles of his popular record albums "Weird Behavior" and "Class Clown" sum up the childhood deportment of American comedian George Carlin. He tried to fit into the mainstream, but school was too confining. Carlin dropped out of high school to join the Air Force as a radar mechanic, and while stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana, the 17-year-old Carlin was given a shift as a deejay on a local radio station. At 18, Carlin teamed with the station's newsman Jack Burns and hit the nightclub circuit with a comedy act. Things didn't congeal, and soon both performers went their separate ways (Burns would later team more successfully with Avery Schreiber, then go on to become an influential comedy writer and producer). In the mid 1960s, Carlin began building a following with appearances on variety programs, delivering soon-to-be classic routines about Indian war parties ("You wit' the beads...get outta line"), crack-brained deejays ("Wonderful WINO....") and Al Sleet, the Hippie-Dippie weather man. This fresh burst of celebrity led to Carlin's being hired as a regular on Away We Go, the 1967 summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show. Carlin remained popular, but grew tired of pulling out the same routines in show after show; he also rebelled against the conservatism of his physical appearance. Before the 1960s had become the 1970s, Carlin had lost several TV jobs by dressing hippie-style, replete with beard and earrings. But changing public tastes made such eccentricity salable again, and soon Carlin was hot again. One of his more popular routines was one that he couldn't deliver on the air: "The Seven Words You Can't Use On Television." This more than any other piece of material would both deify Carlin with his fans and vilify him with the conservative element: an FM radio station nearly lost its license for playing the "Seven Words" routine, while Carlin himself was arrested during a Milwaukee appearance for violating obscenity laws. This served to solidify Carlin's link with the down-with-everything youth culture of the era, which may be why the comedian was the first guest on the doggedly anti-establishment Saturday Night Live. Carlin's performances became renowned for their unpredictability in the 1970s and early 1980s; sometimes he'd stalk off in the middle of the act if the laughs weren't there, other times he'd verbally abuse the audience, and still other times he wouldn't show up at all. By the mid 1980s, he had cleaned up his personal act (if not his public one); he landed and sustained

the surprising assignment of narrating a children's series (the British animated program Thomas and Friends); appeared in a supporting capacity in the 1987 Arthur Hiller female buddy comedy Outrageous Fortune!; and in 1989 became something of a teen idol thanks to his appearances as mentor-from-the-future Rufus in the lowbrow but profitable Bill and Ted movies. He also catered to audiences of a much different demographic, with a fine supporting role in Barbra Streisand's The Prince of Tides (1991). With nearly three decades of lofty career heights and equally precipitous lows behind him, Carlin then signed to star in a weekly sitcom for the Fox Network in 1993, in which he played a cab driver named George - and within a few weeks was up to his old tricks by weaving a heavily bleeped variation of those "Seven Words" into one of the plotlines.

The George Carlin Show debuted in January of 1994, but failed to connect with audiences and folded after a single season. This only marked the beginning of a career resurgence for Carlin, however - one that witnessed him maintaining a busier schedule than ever before over the decade and a half that followed. He cropped up in numerous additional features - including the gag-a-minute farce Scary Movie 3 (2003) and the Pixar/Disney CG-animated family film Cars (2006) (in which he voiced one of the titular automobiles); he also headlined numerous stand-up specials for HBO and continued to tour up through the time of his death. Carlin died of heart failure in June 2008 at the age of 71, about a year after issuing three new stand-up recordings back-to-back: Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty, and More Napalm and Silly Putty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Filmography: George Carlin
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Wikipedia: George Carlin
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George Carlin
Jesus is coming.. Look Busy (George Carlin).jpg
George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008
Birth name George Denis Patrick Carlin
Born May 12, 1937(1937-05-12)
Manhattan, New York
Died June 22, 2008 (aged 71)
Santa Monica, California
Medium Stand-up, television, film, books, radio
Nationality American
Years active 1956 – 2008
Genres Character comedy, Observational comedy, Wit/Word play, Satire/Political satire, Black comedy
Subject(s) American culture, American English, everyday life, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, religion, profanity
Influences Danny Kaye,[1][2] Jonathan Winters,[2] Lenny Bruce,[3][4] Richard Pryor,[5] Jerry Lewis,[2][5] Marx Brothers,[2][5] Mort Sahl,[4] Spike Jones,[5] Ernie Kovacs,[5] Ritz Brothers[2]
Influenced Chris Rock,[6] Jerry Seinfeld,[7], Bill Hicks, Dane Cook, Louis C.K.,[8] Bill Cosby,[9] Lewis Black,[10] Jon Stewart,[11] Stephen Colbert,[12] Bill Maher,[13] Patrice O'Neal,[14] Adam Carolla,[15] Colin Quinn,[16] Steven Wright,[17] Russell Peters,[18] Jay Leno,[19] Ben Stiller,[19] Kevin Smith[20]
Spouse Brenda Hosbrook
(August 5, 1961 — May 11, 1997) 1 child
Sally Wade
(married June 24, 1998 — June 22, 2008)[21]
Notable works and roles Class Clown
"Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television"
Mr. Conductor
in Shining Time Station
Narrator
in Thomas and Friends
HBO television specials
Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Signature George Carlin Signature.svg
Website www.georgecarlin.com
Grammy Awards
Best Comedy Recording
1972 FM & AM
2009 It's Bad For Ya[posthumous]
Best Spoken Comedy Album
1993 Jammin' in New York
2001 Brain Droppings
2002 Napalm & Silly Putty
American Comedy Awards
Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special
1997 George Carlin: Back in Town
1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy
Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian and social critic, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.[22] He was also an actor and author.

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his 14 stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on the flaws in modern-day America. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central cable television network list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.[23] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live.

Contents

Early life

Carlin was born in New York City,[24] the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.[25] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.[26][27][28]

Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.[29] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.[30] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana.

During this time he began working as a disc jockey on KJOE, a radio station based in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957.

Career

In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.[31] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits.

1960s

Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.[32] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios.[33] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.[32]

In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were:

  • The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line")
  • Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...") — "The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'"
  • Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman" — "Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning."
  • Jon Carson - the "world never known, and never to be known"

Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.[34]

During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast on Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show. His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional", particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.[35]

Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.[36]

1970s

Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece," and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style.

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.

—George Carlin, Class Clown, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television"

In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972 at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.[37] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as, "The Milwaukee Seven", was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC, which sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations which prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action, by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene", and the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)[38]

The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version, and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season), and a set of 49 web pages[39] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words".

Carlin was the first-ever host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975.[40] He also hosted SNL on November 10, 1984, where he appeared in sketches. The first time he hosted, he only appeared to perform stand-up and introduced the guest acts. The following season, 1976-77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series.

Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely appeared to perform stand-up, although it was at this time he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. It was later revealed that Carlin had suffered the first of three non-fatal heart attacks during this layoff period.[5]

1980s and 1990s

In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade-and-a-half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are the HBO specials.

In concert at Harrisburg, PA

Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s psychedelic counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the childrens' show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS childrens' show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand.

Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver "George O'Grady". He quickly included a variation of the "Seven Words" in the plot. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.[41]

In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a fucking horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."[42]

In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published, and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001.[citation needed] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy hosted by Jon Stewart.

In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl, as the blue collar father of Ben Affleck's character.

2000s

In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards.

In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's seven "dirty words," including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.[43]

The following year, Carlin was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back East "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating

"People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects."

An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us", at which point Carlin responded "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.[44]

For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas. He began a tour through the first half of 2006, which culminated in his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005 entitled Life is Worth Losing,[45] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on that "it's been 341 days since I got out of rehab", that being the same rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to animals.

On February 1, 2006, Carlin mentioned to the crowd, during his Life is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia," citing the appearance as his "first show back."

Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job, whose front license plate reads "51237", Carlin's birthday.

Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.[46] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country.

On June 18, 2008, four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. announced that Carlin would be the 2008 honoree of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor,[47] which was awarded on November 10, 2008. Carlin thus became the award's first posthumous recipient, a decision the Kennedy Center made after consulting with both Carlin's family and PBS (which aired the ceremony).[48] The comedians who honored him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a former Twain Humor Prize winner herself), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho.

Personal life

In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple had a daughter, Kelly, in 1963.[49] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's sixtieth birthday, in 1997.

Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.[50]

In December 2004, Carlin announced that he would be voluntarily entering a drug rehabilitation facility to receive treatment for his addiction to alcohol and Vicodin.[51]

Carlin did not vote and often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.[52] He said he last voted for George McGovern, who ran for President in 1972[53] against Richard Nixon.

Religion

Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith (which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown), Carlin became an atheist and often denounced the idea of a God in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased.

Carlin also joked in his first book Brain Droppings that he worshiped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it. This was later mentioned in You Are All Diseased, along with the statement that he prayed to Joe Pesci (a good friend of his) because "He's a good actor," and "looks like a guy who can get things done!"[54]

In his HBO special Complaints and Grievances, Carlin introduced the "Two Commandments," a revised "pocket-sized" list of the Ten Commandments ending with the additional commandment of "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself."[55]

Themes

Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon); all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit", which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger, social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show:

I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.
George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008

Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that in his view seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded "Reading about language". When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the amount his books have sold, close to a million copies.

Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,[56] among many others.

Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show". He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!"

In a late-1990s interview with radio talk show host Art Bell, he remarked about his view of human life: "I think we're already 'circling the drain' as a species, and I'd love to see the circles get a little faster and a little shorter."[citation needed]

In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early-1970s as: "An amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting." Later he summarized: "I really think there's great human drama in destruction and nature unleashed and I don't get enough of it."[citation needed]

A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one."

Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material but by the mid-1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey? broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey.

Death and tribute

On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California after experiencing chest pains. He died later that day at 5:55 p.m. of heart failure. Carlin was 71 years old. His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and he had further shows on his itinerary.[21][57][58] According to his wishes, Carlin was cremated, with his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.[59][60] Two of the networks he performed on changed their schedule in tribute to Carlin. HBO devoted several hours to broadcast eleven of Carlin's fourteen HBO specials from June 25 to June 28, 2008, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. Meanwhile, NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live which Carlin hosted.[61][62][63]

Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Another tribute was the "Doonesbury" comic strip on Sunday, July 27, 2008.[64]

Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin.

Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to Carlin.

An episode of Larry King Live paid tribute to Carlin, featuring comics Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black. Carlin's daughter and brother were also interviewed by King. The next day, The New York Times published a tribute to Carlin written by Jerry Seinfeld.[65]

An oral history, edited by Carlin's daughter, Kelly, is scheduled to be published in 2009. The book will contain stories from Carlin's friends and family, and cover the considered high points of his career, as well as the considered low, including his drug and alcohol addiction.[66]

For a number of years prior to his death Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, planning to release it in conjunction with a second long worked on project, a one man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy covering essentially the same topics. After his death his collaborator on the projects, Tony Hendra, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1439172951). The book covers Carlin's life up to around Life is Worth Losing, with the final chapter detailing would-be future plans, including the planned one man show. The book was released one year and four months after Carlin's death.

Collection of works

Discography

See George Carlin discography

Filmography

Year Movie
1968 With Six You Get Eggroll
1976 Car Wash
1979 Americathon
1987 Outrageous Fortune
1989 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
1990 Working Trash
1991 Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
The Prince of Tides
1999 Dogma
2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
2003 Scary Movie 3
2004 Jersey Girl
2005 Tarzan II
The Aristocrats
2006 Cars
2007 Happily N'Ever After

Television

HBO Specials

Special Year
George Carlin at USC 1977
George Carlin: Again! 1978
Carlin at Carnegie 1982
Carlin on Campus 1984
Playin' with Your Head 1986
What Am I Doing in New Jersey? 1988
Doin' It Again 1990
Jammin' in New York 1992
Back in Town 1996
George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy 1997
You Are All Diseased 1999
Complaints and Grievances 2001
Life Is Worth Losing 2005
It's Bad for Ya 2008
  • "All My Stuff", a boxset of Carlin's first 12 stand-up specials (excluding George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy) with bonus material was released in September 2007
  • In 1998, Carlin had a cameo playing one of the funeral-attending comedians in Jerry Seinfeld's HBO special I'm Telling You For The Last Time. In the funeral intro (the only thing being buried is Jerry Seinfeld's material) Carlin learns that neither friend Robert Klein nor Ed McMahon ever saw Jerry's act. Carlin did, and enjoyed it, but admits "I was full of drugs."

Bibliography

Book Year Notes
Sometimes a Little Brain Damage Can Help 1984 ISBN 0-89471-271-3[67]
Brain Droppings 1997 ISBN 0-7868-8321-9[68]
Napalm and Silly Putty 2001 ISBN 0-7868-8758-3[69]
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004 ISBN 1-4013-0134-7[70]
Three Times Carlin: An Orgy of George 2006 ISBN 978-1-4013-0243-6[71] A collection of the 3 previous titles.
Watch My Language 2009 Posthumous release
Last Words 2009 Posthumous release

For several years before his death, Carlin had been working on a memoir, Last Words, in collaboration with writer Tony Hendra. Hendra secured permission from Carlin's family to go ahead with the book. It was published by Simon & Schuster's Free Press imprint on November 17, 2009.[72]

Audiobooks

Internet hoaxes

Since the birth of spam email on the internet, many chain-forwards, usually rant-like and with blunt statements of belief on political and social issues and attributed to being written (or stated) by George Carlin himself, have made continuous rounds in the junk email circuit. The website Snopes, an online resource that debunks historic and present urban legends and myths, has extensively covered these forgeries. Many of the falsely-attributed email attachments have contained material that runs directly opposite of Carlin's viewpoints — with some being especially volatile toward racial groups, gays, women, the homeless, etc. Carlin himself, when he was made aware of each of these bogus emails, would debunk them on his own website, writing to his readers that "Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website", and "it bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff."[73][74][75][76][77][78]

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From Today's Highlights
January 13, 2006

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
- George Carlin

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