George Carlin, RIP

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning stand-up comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”

Mr. Carlin began his stand-up comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.

By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.

That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.

“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”

The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessors, Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color stand-up humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004. By MEL WATKINS - June 24, 2008

Original Routine:

The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Tv
by George Carlin

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.
I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.
They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.
Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.
then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for
that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same
words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.
There are some people that are not into all the words.
There are some that would have you not use certain words.
There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7
of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.
399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous
to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here,you 7,
Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?
"That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions,
and words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"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.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly
sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here,
man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a
snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist
snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits,
Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just
One." That's true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does
not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list,
but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not
completely insensitive to people's feelings. I can understand why
some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and
MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on
there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.
I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend
with. And those Ks, those are aggressive sounds. They just jump out at
you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."
It's like an assault on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and 2 of the
other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go
together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that
Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were
certain ladies that said "Those are the 2 I am not going to say. I
don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such
stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."
And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more
accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think
it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very
important word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to
hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay,
Sheriff, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."
So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.
I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any
circumstanses. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even
clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed,
and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget tHose 7. They're out.
But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words.
Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock
CROWED 3 times" "Hey, that cock CROWED 3 times. ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in the bible. ha ha ha ha. There are some 2-way words, like it is okay for Kirk Youdi to say "Roberto Clemente has 2 balls on him.", but he can't say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other 2-way word that goes with that one is Prik. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You can prik your finger but don't finger your prik. No,no.