Five favorite George Carlin HBO routines
When I posted about George Carlin’s death early Monday morning, I made a couple of mistakes, mainly due to a combination of shock and tiredness:
1) I said that Carlin “passed away.” Anyone who’s listened to Carlin’s comedy knows that he hated euphemisms like “he passed away.” So, let me correct things right now: George didn’t pass away or leave this earth. He died.
2) I really didn’t convey how ingenious his comedy was. His observations of even the smallest of human foibles and his examinations of how we use the English language were always among the funniest routines he would do, even funnier than the ones about politics or religion or anything else that happened to chap his ass that year.
I knew about Carlin mostly through his albums, because I didn’t have HBO (Occupation: Foole was the first Carlin album I ever heard, and I still think it’s the best). But, thanks to HBO and YouTube, I can give you — in no particular order — my five favorite Carlin routines … well, at least the ones that aired on TV:
Baseball and Football: This is probably Carlin’s best known bit, aside from “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV.” It certainly is the one the die-hard fans like the best. Why? Because it’s Carlin in a nutshell: his observations of human behavior paired with precise use of language provides the audience a routine they laugh and applaud at because they not only find it funny, but find it painfully and utterly true as well. It’s also a favorite because it’s the routine that Carlin tinkered with the most over the years. He did an early form of the routine on the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, and I heard him do it again at a concert in 1999. But this version, which in this video is from the 1990 special Doin’ It Again, is the one I like the best, mainly because of how polished and considered his use of language and voice inflection is, which heightens the comedy.
Stuff: After listening to Occupation: Foole, I sought out other Carlin albums. The first one I bought on my own was A Place for My Stuff, which was a 1981 album that combined live bits (like one about being a “Picky Eater”) with studio bits recorded with the help of Denny Dillon (my favorite: the game show called “Asshole, Jackoff, Scumbag!”). A few years later, he did a similar special called Carlin on Campus, featuring some animation and a couple of different routines (including an 1980s version of “Baseball and Football”). In both cases, his ruminations of “Stuff” and how people are so devoted to it was my favorite bit. It’s one of his more acute and detailed observations about the human condition, especially when he explains how people take a “smaller version” of their stuff so they’re comfortable on vacation.
This version is from a Comic Relief episode, but it’s pretty much the same as the one from Carlin on Campus (love the list of essential items at the end):
Have a Nice Day: Until Carlin on Campus, Carlin’s albums and HBO specials didn’t coincide. So, even though this routine is from Carlin at Carnegie, I first heard it on the album A Place for My Stuff. Yet another exploration of the things people say to each other that are utterly ridiculous. “If I’m in a particularly jaunty mood, I’ll tell them ’I’m not unwell, thank you,’ which pisses them off because they have to figure it out for themselves.”
Sports: Carlin loved sports, as his constant tinkering with “Baseball and Football” showed. But this routine, from 1986’s Playin’ With Your Head, is just as considered and detailed. It goes over Carlin’s rules as to what should be a sport and what shouldn’t (”Remember, it’s my rules; I make ’em up.”). One of my favorite parts is how he breaks down the game of volleyball: “Racketless team ping-pong played with an inflated ball and a raised net while standing on the table.”
Things You Never See: This one is also from Doin’ It Again, and I list it for one sentence and one sentence only. I won’t repeat it here, but it has to do with a hot poker and chopping something off. I first heard that line when Carlin performed at William Paterson College in 1989, and I almost choked on my own spit, I was laughing so hard. Carlin’s ability to put words together in unique and funny ways always were my favorite parts of his routines.
If you notice, there aren’t any recent Carlin routines on this list. During most of the ’90s and ’00s, Carlin was in his angry “the human race is doomed” phase, which just wasn’t as funny as the more observational stuff. Not that he didn’t have any good recent routines — his observations on death and how people deal with it were funny as hell — but I think the earlier ones were less angry and a bit more precise. And I didn’t put any of his “Seven Words” routines because, well … they’re funny, but much broader than the ones than are my favorites. Of all the “Seven Words” routines he’s done, the best one is “Filthy Words” off Occupation: Foole, which you can hear here (staring around the four-minute mark) and here.
What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments.
NBC airing first episode of SNL as a Carlin tribute - VIDEO
Of the many achievements George Carlin had in his long career, one that gets underplayed a bit is that he was the guest host on the first-ever episode of Saturday Night Live — then called NBC’s Saturday Night, thanks to Howard Cosell — in 1975. Not a bad choice, I’d have to say; since the “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” were only a part of that first episode (there was a lot of music and odd Muppets about … the show took some time to find itself), they needed Carlin to carry a lot of the comedic load. And that he did, giving the audience a number of his best routines from that time period.
As a tribute to the recently-deceased comedy legend, NBC will air the entire premiere episode of SNL this Saturday night. For those who have never seen the premiere before (it’s on a DVD set of the complete first season), it’ll be interesting to see how different the first episode is from the SNL format they know and hate-love today. I’ll be DVRing it; will you?
To give you a taste, the opening monologue — an early version of Carlin’s classic “Baseball and Football” routine — is after the jump.
Bleepworthy Comedy King George Carlin Dead at 71
George Carlin loved wordsthe good, the “bad,” the “filthy.”
The iconic stand-up comic, whose routine about the seven words “you can’t say on television” was heard from college campuses to the Supreme Court, died today of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital, his publicist announced. He was 71.
Carlin, who suffered his first heart attack at age 41, was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica earlier today after complaining of heart trouble, the statement said. He died at 5:55 p.m.
Note: The following clip features language some readers may find offensive?and that nearly all George Carlin fans will find appropriate:
Much more than a “footnote in legal history,” as Carlin often referred to himself for his role in the seven “filthy” words case, the comic was the first-ever host of Saturday Night Live, a four-time Grammy winner and a touchstone for generations of writers and performers.
Carlin was due to receive the 11th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in November. The honor was announced just last week, around the time of his final performances, at the Orleans in Las Vegas. According to his website, he had dozens of shows booked through the end of the year.
If there was one thing Carlin wasn’t, it was the retiring type.
“Yes, I’ve accomplished all the things I’ve wanted to and way more, I couldn’t have really predicted some of the paths,” Carlin told Salon in February. “But I know that there’s a restlessness, you know, artists are never finished.”
Born May 12, 1937, in New York, Carlin celebrated his 50th anniversary in show business last year.
“I loved to watch Danny Kaye in the movies,” he told Variety for a piece marking the anniversary. “I thought I’d be an actor. I’d start by being a deejay, then a comedian, then I’d get into the movies.”
Aside from failing to become a noted song-and-dance performer, à la Kaye, Carlin pretty much kept to the plan.
He worked in radio, segued to nightclubsat first, with partner Jack Burnsmade it to TV and, eventually, found work as an actor.
For a figure who would become revered by the counterculture, Carlin’s early TV and film work was downright conventional. He guest starred on That Girl. He had a part in a Doris Day family comedy, With Six You Get Eggroll. Of his work in the latter, Carlin wrote on his website, “Acting sucks a little less, but only a little.”
Comedy clubs and comedy albums were where Carlin, who saw himself as a writer above all, flourished. A clean-cut solo act starting in 1962, by the end of the turbulent decade, he was getting fired in Las Vegas for uttering the word “ass” on stage. By 1970, he was bearded, and ready to take offhis look, conventional wisdom-questioning routines and unflinching devotion to all words, no matter how many letters, a perfect match for the times. By 1972, he was playing Carnegie Hall and getting busted for “disturbing the peace” with his mouth at a concert in Milwaukee. In 1973, he won his first Grammy, for his album FM and AM.
It was a cut off another album, Occupation Foole, however, that gave Carlin his most noteworthy achievement.
A listener hearing New York’s WBAI-FM play Carlin’s “Filthy Words” routine on Oct. 30, 1973, in its unaltered entirety lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, in turn, threatened to pull WBAI’s license. WBAI appealed the FCC’s bark all the way to the Supreme Court, where in 1978, the justices ruled in favor of the FCC, agreeing that the seven words “you can’t say on television,” shouldn’t be said on the radio, eithernot during hours that children might hear them. The battle lines for future Howard Stern wars had been drawn.
“It’s a perverse badge of honor to be the only comedian whose routines were the subject of a case in the United States Supreme Court,” Carlin told the A.V. Club in 2005.
Officially indecent, though not obscene, Carlin loomed larger than ever. His appearance on the first SNL in 1975he performed stand-up only, and didn’t participate in the sketchesserved as the show’s stamp of underground approval.
Through a 1970s cocaine habit, and a second heart attack in the 1980s, Carlin kept working, in showrooms, on late-night TV shows and in HBO specials, the final and 14th of which, George CarlinIt’s Bad for Ya!, aired this year.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin returned to Hollywood as a revered elder statesmana revered elder statesman with an always-young mind. He appeared in the Bill & Ted movies, earned two Daytime Emmy nominations for the children’s show Shining Time Station and starred in a short-lived sitcom, The George Carlin Show. He found a kindred spirit in Kevin Smith, and vice versa, and appeared in three of the filmmaker’s dialogue-driven comedies: Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl.
In 2006, he was deigned suitably family friendly for Disney/Pixar’s Cars and was asked to voice the Volkswagen burnout, Fillmore.
Offstage, Carlin’s life, drug escapades excepted, was, in a word, square. He was married to his first wife, Brenda, from 1961 until her death in 1997. He was married to his second wife, Sally Wade, until his death.
His commitment to words was more than square, it was whole. To Salon some months ago, he talked about a comic novel, and a nonfiction book of reminiscences he hoped to write.
“If I get the shot to do that, that’d be great. You’ve always got to have something next,” Carlin said. “You’ve always got to have something out there that’s worth going for.”
Bleepworthy Comedy King George Carlin Dead at 71
George Carlin loved wordsthe good, the “bad,” the “filthy.”
The iconic stand-up comic, whose routine about the seven words “you can’t say on television” was heard from college campuses to the Supreme Court, died today of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital, his publicist announced. He was 71.
Carlin, who suffered his first heart attack at age 41, was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica earlier today after complaining of heart trouble, the statement said. He died at 5:55 p.m.
Note: The following clip features language some readers may find offensive?and that nearly all George Carlin fans will find appropriate:
Much more than a “footnote in legal history,” as Carlin often referred to himself for his role in the seven “filthy” words case, the comic was the first-ever host of Saturday Night Live, a four-time Grammy winner and a touchstone for generations of writers and performers.
Carlin was due to receive the 11th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in November. The honor was announced just last week, around the time of his final performances, at the Orleans in Las Vegas. According to his website, he had dozens of shows booked through the end of the year.
If there was one thing Carlin wasn’t, it was the retiring type.
“Yes, I’ve accomplished all the things I’ve wanted to and way more, I couldn’t have really predicted some of the paths,” Carlin told Salon in February. “But I know that there’s a restlessness, you know, artists are never finished.”
Born May 12, 1937, in New York, Carlin celebrated his 50th anniversary in show business last year.
“I loved to watch Danny Kaye in the movies,” he told Variety for a piece marking the anniversary. “I thought I’d be an actor. I’d start by being a deejay, then a comedian, then I’d get into the movies.”
Aside from failing to become a noted song-and-dance performer, à la Kaye, Carlin pretty much kept to the plan.
He worked in radio, segued to nightclubsat first, with partner Jack Burnsmade it to TV and, eventually, found work as an actor.
For a figure who would become revered by the counterculture, Carlin’s early TV and film work was downright conventional. He guest starred on That Girl. He had a part in a Doris Day family comedy, With Six You Get Eggroll. Of his work in the latter, Carlin wrote on his website, “Acting sucks a little less, but only a little.”
Comedy clubs and comedy albums were where Carlin, who saw himself as a writer above all, flourished. A clean-cut solo act starting in 1962, by the end of the turbulent decade, he was getting fired in Las Vegas for uttering the word “ass” on stage. By 1970, he was bearded, and ready to take offhis look, conventional wisdom-questioning routines and unflinching devotion to all words, no matter how many letters, a perfect match for the times. By 1972, he was playing Carnegie Hall and getting busted for “disturbing the peace” with his mouth at a concert in Milwaukee. In 1973, he won his first Grammy, for his album FM and AM.
It was a cut off another album, Occupation Foole, however, that gave Carlin his most noteworthy achievement.
A listener hearing New York’s WBAI-FM play Carlin’s “Filthy Words” routine on Oct. 30, 1973, in its unaltered entirety lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, in turn, threatened to pull WBAI’s license. WBAI appealed the FCC’s bark all the way to the Supreme Court, where in 1978, the justices ruled in favor of the FCC, agreeing that the seven words “you can’t say on television,” shouldn’t be said on the radio, eithernot during hours that children might hear them. The battle lines for future Howard Stern wars had been drawn.
“It’s a perverse badge of honor to be the only comedian whose routines were the subject of a case in the United States Supreme Court,” Carlin told the A.V. Club in 2005.
Officially indecent, though not obscene, Carlin loomed larger than ever. His appearance on the first SNL in 1975he performed stand-up only, and didn’t participate in the sketchesserved as the show’s stamp of underground approval.
Through a 1970s cocaine habit, and a second heart attack in the 1980s, Carlin kept working, in showrooms, on late-night TV shows and in HBO specials, the final and 14th of which, George CarlinIt’s Bad for Ya!, aired this year.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin returned to Hollywood as a revered elder statesmana revered elder statesman with an always-young mind. He appeared in the Bill & Ted movies, earned two Daytime Emmy nominations for the children’s show Shining Time Station and starred in a short-lived sitcom, The George Carlin Show. He found a kindred spirit in Kevin Smith, and vice versa, and appeared in three of the filmmaker’s dialogue-driven comedies: Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl.
In 2006, he was deigned suitably family friendly for Disney/Pixar’s Cars and was asked to voice the Volkswagen burnout, Fillmore.
Offstage, Carlin’s life, drug escapades excepted, was, in a word, square. He was married to his first wife, Brenda, from 1961 until her death in 1997. He was married to his second wife, Sally Wade, until his death.
His commitment to words was more than square, it was whole. To Salon some months ago, he talked about a comic novel, and a nonfiction book of reminiscences he hoped to write.
“If I get the shot to do that, that’d be great. You’ve always got to have something next,” Carlin said. “You’ve always got to have something out there that’s worth going for.”