George Carlin 1937-2008

Posted by on June 23rd, 2008   Filed under: Comedy, Industry News
Source: Yahoo!

georgecarlinrip.jpg

Well once again, it seems that celebrity deaths come in threes for some strange reason. In this case, comedian George Carlin completes an obituary that started last month with Sydney Pollack, and continued with Stan Winston last week. I was never a huge fan of George Carlin’s stand up comedy, but I’m probably too young to appreciate the real groundbreaking stuff that he did in the 70’s. He was known in particular for his freedom of speech bit about the “Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV”, which actually got him arrested in 1972 if you can believe it.

Carlin died of heart failure on Sunday, having just performed in Vegas the weekend prior. He was 71 years old. In terms of movies, he will likely be remembered as Rufus from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and also for his roles in a number of Kevin Smith flicks. What will you remember most about George Carlin?



  • Bogus. This is non, non… non heinous.

  • I was always hesitant to listen to Carlin but once I got into his vision and style, I absolutely loved his material. Great comedian, a great loss but leaves a great heritage to the Stand Up Comedy world

  • joe

    No way

  • Bob the Slob

    sucks. and sean, if you ask me, the celebrity deaths started with Harvey Korman.

  • This stinks.

    And excuse me, in honor of Mr. Carlin’s passing I have a bit of a minor rant of my own. The whole death comes in threes thing drives me crazy. There’s no time limit for the third death and who even counts? Most people don’t know who Stan Winston was since he wasn’t really a “celebrity”.

    http://www.cockeyed.com/science/threes/threes.html

  • R.I.P.

  • Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits

  • Matt

    What the hell? Is the somebody going around and killing celebrities? Pollock, Russert, Diddley, Winston, and now Carlin. This is just weird. If you’re famous you better start writing your will.

  • Ian

    Carlin was one of the best comedians around in terms of the way he would use words and to craft a cadence that was the sort of thing that took time, talent, and skill to develop.

  • My heart dropped when i heard this. I’ll always remember him from dogma.

  • The thing I’ll remember most about George Carlin is having to listen to my father trying to tell his jokes. Carlin was a bit before my time, though I know that he continued producing material right up until his death. I never cared much about him, but I know he’s a legend and a trailblazer in his field, and for that I’ll mourn his loss.

  • He was WAYYYYY before my time but i’m still a big fan

  • In terms of people I didn’t know personally, he would probably rank as the biggest influence on my life, or at least be in the top five. He (along with late comedian Bill Hicks)really started me on a path to questioning authority and conventional wisdom. For me, he was a sort of anti-evangelist and made it much easier to admit to myself that I just couldn’t accept the organized religious orthodoxy within which I was raised. He was a hero, not too mention hilarious.

  • Greg

    ‘Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?’

    Dude could do whole bits about one word.

    Stuff.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

    Hippy Dippy Weatherman.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uaw3WIOlc&feature=related

    The aforementioned ‘Seven Words’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTyzTJTNhNk&feature=related

  • dirrrtyfrank

    Beets … beets … BEETS! … weird