Comedy Icon George Carlin Dies At 71

Long-Time Counterculture Funnyman Succumbs To Heart Failure In California

(CBS/AP)  George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose 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.

He was a comic's comic, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker, influencing performers from Richard Pryor to Andrew Dice Clay.

"Carlin is one of the great comics of all time," Clay told CBS News Sunday night in Los Angeles. "I mean every bit he ever did was, like, thought out. He was like a teacher for other comics."

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.

He wasn't subtle. A 9th-grade dropout fascinated by language, he was a master provocateur, testing where the lines are - by crossing them, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.

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Visit George Carlin's Web site.
Watch George Carlin's "Seven Words" at YouTube (1979 performance).
Watch George Carlin on language at YouTube. (Warning: Videos contain profanity)

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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?"

Carlin's talent wasn't limited to observational comedy. He also invented beloved characters like Al Sleet, the "hippy dippy" weatherman.

"Hey baby, what's happenin'? Que pasa? Que what you call your pasa? Here's your hippy dippy weatherman with all your hippy dippy weather, man," he'd say, before beginning a spaced out forecast. "Tonight's low 35, tomorrow's high: whenever I get up."

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 a 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 company.

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 emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade Carlin grew up in - the 1950s - with a clever but gentle humor reflective of the times.

It didn't work for him, and the pair 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.

[rushman71]

rushman: how are you this fine day? i am preparing my ganja sacrament as we speak. peace be to you
Posted by honestabe8

Yo dude, sorry I missed your post, man. I was busy blowing bubbles through my bong, bud. LOL
Got any thing to munch on, dude?

[ofbyfor1]

HAVE A HEART--

My nephew, Brian, underwent his first heart transplant at the age of 6 months in 1992. Good news is that he is now 16 years old and like most boys his age, he is a HUGE baseball fan (Yankees). Bad news is that he recently (6-19-08) had to undergo a second transplant surgery. So far, everything seems to be going well.

CAN YOU DO A GOOD DEED FOR BRIAN?

We''ve been asking if there is anything we can do for Brian. It seems like there''s so little we CAN do, either for Brian or his family. The one thing we were told by his mom was that he has been hoping that John Damon is selected for the MLB All-Star Team (American League - NY Yankees - Outfield). Let''s help him out!

Put a smile on this kid''s face! Go to www.mlb.com and hit ''All-Star Game ''08 coverage-VOTE NOW'' in the upper right corner. In the window that appears, fill in your name, email, etc. and hit ''VOTE NOW''. You will see a roster of names listed by position for American League players.

''J. Damon'' is in the Outfield section, 3rd down in the left column. Leave all other positions and National League blank if you choose. Make sure you hit ''Submit Vote'' on the National Link page. You can vote up to 25 times, but all votes must be received by midnight 7-2-08.

Pass this on to your friends and THANK YOU!!!

[melv1n-2009]

Wow, this is one of those passings that made me really take pause. I don''t know how we have come from a time when greats like Carlin and Pryor ruled to now where mere incorrect racial or political innuendo will get you crucified. God Bless and thank you George-You will always live in my heart and mind..

[handsom11]

It is a such a sad day, when a great genius talent leaves us. He once said "My job is to sit around all day and think up all this s**t, and then bring it to you this evening." How true and what a great "job"
he did. (continued)

If imitation is, indeed, the finest form of flattery,
then I confess to be a flatterer. With my long, hair and beard, and memorizing some of his routines, I would entertain friends with an imitation of our friend.

[ubrew12]

rdp842003 said: "this world doesnt make any sense man"

''Don''t sweat the petty things,
and don''t pet the sweaty thing.''
G. Carlin

[scully152]

Thomas the Tank Engine will not be the same without his Mr. Conductor and the world will miss a great comedic talent. Rest in Peace Mr. Carlin.

[kennedy7955]

The world just became a lot less funnier.

[loneeagle57]

I can''t say that George Carlin was my favorite. However He had a gift. He could make people laugh. He might have offended some. He made others think. Last night a star went out. But his memory will live on. Although some may not believe in a life after death I am laughing at the thought that George is standing at the gates of heaven telling Peter the 7 words you can''t say there as well.
Rest in peace George. Rest in Peace.

[garr7-2009]

Good riddens to a slime ball, negative drug addict hack!

[rebelscout]

To sidvicious99, how can you breathe with your head shoved so far up your butt? Carlin was the best.

[element51]

starleo14672....Thank you for your kind words. So many times I wish that I could have reasonable and sane discussions with others on these boards. There are times when I post and then have to endure the name calling and rudeness from those who disagree with me. I am not here to change anyone''s mind. But there are times when some can be so rude that I try to avoid them.(Rowdy,mudrose, sidvicious99/Donnie) just to name a few. But I guess if you''re gonna play here you have to be able to play rough. Anyway, thanks again for what you said.

[slim1h2o]

sidvicious99 at 09:13 PM : Jun 23, 2008

Shut up Donnie,,,I don''t care if you didn''t like him,,I don''t want to hear it though.

[slim1h2o]

"Prone as we are to a predilection for predicting possible precipitation" the weather channel is the most used channel we have

Posted by ToolMangler at 08:40 PM : Jun 23, 2008

Well,, to dwell on the well of this rain event(we have tickets for this),,,the hippy dippy weatherman don''t do the weather channel..I do,, however,,,channel the weather.

Espeacialy if it''s rainy weather. Its easier to channel. What? Have you ever tried to channel snow?
You can shovel it,,but you can''t channel it.

[dscott407]

It is a very sad day when a light this bright goes out...

George Carlin was my #1 favorite comedian. I was fortunate to meet him in person back in 1986 and he was very gracious. His social commentary was spot on, and it will be tough going forward without him.

We''ll miss you George...

[toolmangler-2009]

Either way,,,we will have weather today.
Posted by slim1h2o at 08:30 PM : Jun 23, 2008



"Prone as we are to a predilection for predicting possible precipitation" the weather channel is the most used channel we have

[slim1h2o]

You chirped it right that time ''''Birdy''''

Posted by ToolMangler at 08:22 PM : Jun 23, 2008

And on a further note,,the Hippy Dippy weatherman,,forecasts a cold front that will move from the west to the east,,or from the left to the right. Whatever makes you feel better. Either way,,,we will have weather today.

[toolmangler-2009]

Of course that is according to the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman, though,,Right?
Posted by slim1h2o at 08:17 PM : Jun 23, 2008


You chirped it right that time ''Birdy''

[slim1h2o]

ToolMangler at 08:07 PM : Jun 23, 2008
starleo14672 at 08:08 PM : Jun 23, 2008

Of course that is according to the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman, though,,Right?

[starleo146]

Tomorrow there will be a 100% chance of weather dropping to 20% by evening followed by a night of mostly weather.

Posted by ToolMangler at 08:07 PM : Jun 23, 2008

Love it

[toolmangler-2009]

Don''''t forget, the weather tonight will be DARK, and following in the morning PARTIAL DAYLIGHT
Posted by starleo14672 at 07:22 PM : Jun 23, 2008


Tomorrow there will be a 100% chance of weather dropping to 20% by evening followed by a night of mostly weather.