Belated Happy Birthday, George Carlin

[filkertom]

Dude turned seventy on Saturday. Maybe it was just because I didn't hear Pryor until later, but there was no stand-up philosopher more influential on my thinking.

What are your favorite Carlin bits, lines, roles? I could invoke all of the classics, but I've also got a special fondness for the gentler stuff he did on Take-Offs and Put-Ons, such as his commercial parodies:

"All right, Mrs. Wilson, can you tell me if one of these piles of laundry is whiter than the other?"
"Oh, no. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Definitely no-yeah. One of the piles is definitely whiter than the other one."
"... Brilliant deduction, Mrs. Wilson. Now, can you tell me which pile is the whiter of the two?"
"The blue pile."
[sotto voce] "No, dummy, it's not the blue pile."
"Oh, well, then it's definitely the white pile. When is this commercial gonna be on television?"
"... Not for a long time, Mrs. Wilson."

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

What's not to love about Al Sleet? "The radar is pickin' up a line of thundershowers extending from Natches to Mobile.

[sings] From Memphis to St. Joe.... I've been in some big towns, I've seen me some bad cats....

Y'know, man.

But seriously, folks, the radar is pickin' up a line of thundershowers extending along a line and five-and-a-half miles either side of a line from Kansas City to Fond-Du-Lac. O' course, the radar is also pickin' up a squadron of Russian ICBMs, so I wouldn't sweat the thundershowers...."

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[wayward-va.livejournal.com]

I have so many favorites, but especially his long bit on death and dying from the _On the Road_ album. I listened to that so much in college.

There's a little known, and less understood, portion of death called The Two Minute Warning.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Loved that. "Two minutes, get your shit together."

[annathepiper]

HAH, we were just talking about that last night at the Murkworks. That's my favorite bit too, hands down. :)

My second favorite bit is off the same album:

"I figured out how to commit the perfect murder. You pick one guy up by his ankles--and you kill another guy WITH HIM! That way they both die, and you have no murder weapon!

'Eh, what happened here, Sarge?'

'I dunno, looks like a pedestrian accident to me. Musta been moving at quite a clip!'"

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That is one of my favorite bits of his EVAR. For a few years I quoted that joke again and again and again.

[annathepiper]

Hee! That entire album is full of goodness, really. "I don't want a funeral. And I don't wanna be cremated either! I wanna be BLOWN UP!"

Hrmm. I'm going to have to see if it's available for purchase on iTunes, I have a VERY old tape of it, but it'd be nice to have a digital version!

[tonyakendle.livejournal.com]

Here’s another one, Sarge. ” “What charge, Trooper. ” “Unlicensed brothel inside Sappho. ” “Hey.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

The "How to Do an Ed Sullivan Impersonation" bit from one of his early albums.

(quoted from memory, forgive me)

"The important thing to remember is, that it isn't the voice, it's the acts you're introducing. The wierder, the better." (starts doing various acts, from the The World's Largest Nun to the Entire Female Population of Guadalahara Yelling Out Their Brasseire Sizes.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

"Next week: The Bronze Age!"

Sorry if I keep throwing in lines. But I really really love Carlin. :) And this is just prompting so many memories.

[sdelmonte]

The leftover sketch, and the baseball vs. football routine.

Quick Carlin story

[vid848.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the Dayton, OH area and grew up loving Carlin. As soon as I was old enough, I would go and see him whenever he came into town to perform. Turned out, Dayton is very special to him. George met his wife
in Dayton and his daughter was born here.

One year, he was playing Memorial Hall in downtown Dayton. I somehow managed to get a 3rd row floor seat. After Dennis Blair performed and before George took the stage, I was just relaxing when someone came out of
the exit at Stage Left and said "George Carlin is out here in the hall meeting people!"

A few people and myself went out to see. Yes, he was out there, meeting with some friends of his wife's family before the show. He did take a couple of moments to greet and shake hands with those who came out there.
I got to shake hands with George Carlin.

The friends of his wife's family has some gift for him, like the weekend entertainment section from the Dayton Daily News that had him on the cover, but it was the stuffed animal that George really loved.

This was during a run where George would talk about the different pets he has owned. He had a dog with one gonad and George said that he would get up in the morning and find his dog and his neighbor's male cat mating on the front lawn. "Not only was it homosexual, but it was inter-species!" What they had SOMEHOW found was a stuffed dog mounting a stuffed cat. The dolls were connected. George was over the moon with this, so much so that during
the show he had to pull it out and show the entire audience.

[danruk.livejournal.com]

"Would anyone like a bit of fault-ridden chocolate pudding?..... I'm only going to THROW it AWAY!"

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

"Better eat it now, or I'm going to give it to an animal.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, wonderful snuggable George...so many nice bits:

The Airplane Sketch -- "Get on the plane, get on the plane...fuck you, I'm getting in the plane! Let Evel Knievel get on the plane!"

The Why Something is Not a Sport Sketch -- "Gymnastics can't be a sport because Romanians are good at it. Took me a while to come up with that one, but dammit, I found it."

The Picky Eater Sketch -- "I don't like eggs...you know that weird thing on the end of an egg yolk? That's the start of a baby chicken!"

The Not-In-My-Backyard Sketch -- "Everyone says build more prisons...but not here. And I'm thinking, why, that would make it a pretty crime-free area, don't you think? You think a bunch of thieves and drug addicts and pimps would be hanging around outside a fuckin' prison? They ain't coming anywhere near the place! Why wouldn't you want a prison in your neighborhood? All of the criminals are behind the walls and if a couple of them do get out, what do you think they're gonna do? Hang around? Check real estate trends? Bullshit, they're fuckin' gone! That's the point of breaking out of prison...to get the fuck as far away as you possible can!"

God, I love George. :-)

[hms42]

One of the bits I liked to play on my college radio station - America the Beautiful.

Also, the fun thing with the 7 words... It does NOT say a word about radio. (Last show I ever did, I played those back to back and actually got the first phone call I ever had. (Person after me saying they will NOT be in.))

Harold

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's weird - I was listening to the CD of "Napalm & Silly Putty" on the way into work this morning.

My favorite thing 'o' his is probably still Wonderful WINO radio, the first thing I ever heard by him, with the high point of that being:
"Tonight's weather, dark. Continuing mostly dark tonight, leading to widely scattered areas of light in the morning."

-=ShoEboX=-

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

Gotta go along with Tom on T-Os&P-Os - it's some of his finest work. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Indian sergeant. I also loved a similar bit which I recall him doing on the Carson show, as a CPO on the Santa Maria with Columbus.

"OK, tall guys over by the trees; fat guys over behind the rocks; you with the beads! Out of line! There's one in every village . . . "

[mouser.livejournal.com]

My favorite is that everything is "A Place For My Stuff"

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Have you seen his website? Best intro movie for a website I've seen yet.

http://www.georgecarlin.com/

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Carlin was brilliant up to the 90s. However, now he isn't clever or witty. Now he is just a bitter old man and not funny at all.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

De gustibus non disputandum. Personally, I agree he's gotten a tad bitter in his old age (Exhibit A: the titles of the last three Carlin CDs, You Are All Diseased, Complaints & Grievances and Life Is Worth Losing), but I don't agree that it's completely cost him his ability to be funny. Having read his last couple of books prior to the latest one (I'm still waiting to latch onto a used copy of Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?, I found a lot to laugh at. Maybe it's easier to laugh at his writing than when you see him in person, I dunno.

And as for my favorite Carlin routine, I gotta go with the classics: "Icebox Man" ("Close the goddamn fridge door! You're letting out all the coldness I saved overnight!"), "Baseball Vs. Football" ("In football, in the stands, you can be certain that at least three times during the game you will be fully capable of taking the life of another human being.") and "A Place for My Stuff" ("Ever notice how your shit is 'stuff' and someone else's stuff is 'shit'? 'Get your shit off this table! I can't find room for my stuff!'"), in that order. StumbleUpon.com led me to this page listing 101 of Carlin's greatest lines.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

My favorite Carlin story is one he never tells. But we avionics types know it; the old folks, first hand.

Carlin was in the Air Force during Vietnam. B52 BombNav, to be precise. And anyone who has served can tell you, a by-the-book and don't-backtalk group like the military is NO PLACE for someone like Carlin. Well, he was dressed down once by his First Sergeant who screamed at him, "50000 comedians out of work, and YOU'RE trying to be funny!!!"

Time passed and George left the fun experience that is a SAC flightline. He joined the comedy circuit then put out an album which immediately went gold. And he mailed a well-padded copy of the record to his former First Sergeant, wrapped in a red ribbon and holding a card that read "Now there are only 49999 comedians out of work."

Bitter

[nezmaster.livejournal.com]

Actually, I like his newer stuff very much, and he was always bitter. He's doing the stuff now that he always wanted to be doing but couldn't get away with. I lvoe that he's truly followed his bliss. Carlin always wanted to do primarily 'political/social' humor, and now that's almost all he does. I applaud him for it.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I utterly refuse to pick just one standup routine. It's like choosing between oxygen and water.

But to mention something that nobody else has, that epitomizes his coolth, I loved him as Rufus in the Bill and Ted flicks (the first two, at least; the third was forgettable). (And, of course, the fact that he was the narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine and appeared on Shining Time Station is big props; anything that gets kids to learn without being hurtful is a Good Thing in my world.)

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

His turn as Cardinal Glick in Dogma was priceless.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid my dad had a portable 8-track player. I kept it for the longest time for a single tape: Take-Offs and Put-Ons. I spent a lot of time listening to Wonderful Wino Radio and Indian Sergeant.

I really need to pick that up on CD.

[ericcoleman]

The entirety of Jamming In New York. You get all of Carlin there, great political stuff, great language abuse. His best record IMNSHO
I think I'll listen to it today actually.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

IIRC,
...and now the news: The sun did not come up this morning, Russia and China are at war and huge cracks are appearing on the Earth's surface. These and other stories coming up at the top of the hour....

-Ryan

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

"Did you ever notice that, when you loose something, you keep going back to where it's supposed to be?

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

"Could be meat, could be cake. Could be meatcake."

leading to . . .

"It has no smell whatsoever."
"It's good."

elsewhere . . .

"New Nabisco Tits! Cheese Tits! Tater Tits!"

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah.

"'Tits' doesn't even belong on the list, man! It's such a friendly word...could be a nickname. Hey Toots, meet Tits!"

[kshandra]

While I eventually upgraded to a CD copy of What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, I will always treasure my cassette copy, simply because the two sides are labeled "This Side" and "That Side."

[ladyotterfae.livejournal.com]

I have to admit rather more than a few of my more obnoxious driving tendencies are right out of my early exposure to Carlin. I drive snarky, in other words.
"Step on all the pedals, will you? Maybe one of them means go!"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

My favorite Carlinism is one I love to repeat whenever the discussion turns to the environment;

"The planet isn't going anywhere... WE are!"

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television, for so many reasons. "There are no bad words...bad thoughts, bad ideas, but words...." I got to quote it directly in my Mass Communications class, much to the stunned surprise of the head of my department, who taught the class. (Hey, he asked if anyone knew...) But mostly, because he brought up so many good points about our culture, our stupid taboos, and prudish censors in general.

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned his Ten Commandments skit yet. Maybe that one's overdone?

[lukeski.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes, I go like this..."
[George wildy gesticualtes while making funny faces and bizarre noises, then stops]
"...and then I stop. This has been one of those times."

Also,

"Joan Rivers has become one of the people she used to make fun of."

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Oh god, there are so many good routines:
* the weather forecast from the hippy dippy weather man
* I'm the icebox man
* fussy eater
* the reduction of the 10 commandants to 2 better ones
* 7 words you can't say on radio (even the special bleeped version played on Dr. Demento)
I have not heard his latest CD, but I have everything else.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

When I was about seven, I found Class Clown among my mom's albums...she's never gotten it back. I listened to it over and over (and she was fine with that, which speaks to how awesome she's always been) and it definitely had an affect on my worldview.

I've tried to catch damn near everything he's done, and when I look at it all, A Place For My Stuff is still my very, very favorite bit.

[billroper]

Football vs. baseball is probably my favorite.

"In football, you want to take their land away. In baseball, you want to go home."