George Carlin has died.

Illinoisguy1 · 23 Jun 08 :: 14:59

George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero
By KEITH ST. CLAIR – 1 hour ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Acerbic standup comedian and satirist George Carlin, whose staunch defense of free speech in his most famous routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.
"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.
Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day.
When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).
"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.
Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.
"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."
That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."
Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him, and they broke up by 1962.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Eventually Carlin lost the buttoned-up look, favoring the beard, ponytail and all-black attire for which he came to be known.
But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ina7 … gD91FORCO3

I liked him. He was very funny.

My brother has the 45 record of his "Hippy Dippy Weatherman" which is still funny today.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 23 Jun 08 :: 15:23

FUCK!!!! (which is the only proper, Carlinesque response to this news) :angry: :angry: :angry:

I don't wanna live in a world without Carlin.

Editsound · 23 Jun 08 :: 20:20

The first album I ever bought (of any kind) was a george Carlin album. I owned all of his records from the 70s. He was really something special. I saw an incredible interview with him about 10 years ago. it was on the bob costas middle of the night show (i think it was called Later) Carlin was talking about when he decided to change his comedy from the conventional standup of the time, where he was having success, to the hip sixties inspired comedy he became famous for. It was an amazing insight into the man.

Don't know if it can be seen anywhere, but if so, watch it.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 28 Jun 08 :: 06:47

Well, now I know what I'm doing tomorrow. It's been a tragic year for losing wonderful people. Rick, my first Carlin experience was sitting on the floor of my friend Gary's room when I was like 12 in '76 listening to his records. Class Clown was Gary's favorite. He has been one of my heroes for as long as I've been sentient. My friend Dave always used to buy me the annual Carlin daily desk calendars with quotes from his books and shows. I hope they keep doing them. I've saved so many pages...

Editsound · 28 Jun 08 :: 07:37

I nearly wore out my Class Clown album, It was an amzing album, I laughed everytime I heard it.

Then years later in the early 90s, when my son was a little boy, he was crazy for Thomas the Tank Engine, so we had alot of the videos, and needless to say, I saw those videos dozens of times. They really weren't too bad, and it was especially nice to hear George Carlin's voice again, I realized how much I had missed listening to that voice. Strangely, I have never enjoyed watching his standup as much as I enjoyed listening to him.

Last edited by Editsound (28 Jun 08 :: 07:45)

Editsound · 28 Jun 08 :: 07:48

Apparently SNL tomorrow night is going to show the very first episode (which Carlin hosted). The fact that George Carlin was hosting was the reason I saw the first episode of SNL, and I am definately going to watch it again tomorrow.

Last edited by Editsound (28 Jun 08 :: 07:49)

TheCentralScrutinizer · 28 Jun 08 :: 07:53

Oh, cool! Thanks for posting that. I'll be there. I always loved his stand-up. I loved the goofy faces he'd pull sometimes. Only Carlin could be erudite one second and toss out a fart joke the next. He was such a wonderful wit and so whip smart. My kinda guy.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 01 Jul 08 :: 17:02

Damn, yeah, that'd be cool. I don't think I ever saw that one.

Chris Marquette Message Board

#1 23 Jun 08 :: 14:59

George Carlin has died.

#2 23 Jun 08 :: 15:23

Re: George Carlin has died.

#3 23 Jun 08 :: 20:20

Re: George Carlin has died.

#4 28 Jun 08 :: 06:47

Re: George Carlin has died.

#5 28 Jun 08 :: 07:37

Re: George Carlin has died.

#6 28 Jun 08 :: 07:48

Re: George Carlin has died.

#7 28 Jun 08 :: 07:53

Re: George Carlin has died.

#8 01 Jul 08 :: 17:02

Re: George Carlin has died.

Board footer