George Carlin

George Carlin, the quintessential satirist of American culture, fits in somewhere between Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks chronologically and stylistically. He was also Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of Bill & Ted in their Excellent Adventure.

Mainstream to the fringe

George Carlin was not really a counter-culture figure in the beginning, his material was fairly tame in message and content when he was appearing on The Ed Sullivan show and The Tonight Show with Carson during the 60's. He would wear suits and cut his hair short for these appearances. It was during this era that he worked on many of his best known bits such as "Al Sleet" and "The indian Sergeant". And while it's also hard to imagine Bill Hicks advertising for 1-800 Collect or Richard Pryor playing a character named "Mr Conductor" on TV, it would seem to me that's a question of what one thinks about the idea of authenticity and whether (or how much) someone can "sell out".

It was during the seventies that Carlin's image and act began to resemble the more confrontational and critical style which he is most remembered for, including the famous "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" bit, for which he was arrested at Milwaukee's Summerfest in 1972 for on charges of violating obscenity laws. The bit played on the arbitrary nature of censorship and was an extension of Carlin's constant obsession with language and its use in America. This case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was ultimately dismissed; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance, and Carlin was among the last comedians in America to be prosecuted for obscenity.

Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity as well. 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.

"Humanity's Bullshit"

George Carlin's body of work includes a metric fuckton of seinfeldien observational humor and a lot of routine that involved social criticism and misgivings about institutions in human civilization. Things like religion, language as used by government/corporate entities and anything else Carlin felt was used to control people. He was famously critical of the value of voting calling it "the illusion of choice".

Euphemisms were the focal point of his fascination with language, specifically the kind which he felt were used to distort the truth or change how people thought about something by changing the words used to describe it. Frustration with the use of words in this manner is a thread that runs through Carlin's career from book to HBO special.