All language subtitles for George.Carlins.American.Dream.S01E01.720p.WEB.h264-OPUS

-DIRECTOR: And speeding.
-(FILM CREW CHATTERING)

GEORGE CARLIN: Hmm.

Okay. I know how to start--
I want to start this.

-DIRECTOR: We're rolling.
-GEORGE: Uh-- Oh, rolling.

DIRECTOR: Yes.

Let's get in.

-DIRECTOR: Okay.
-GEORGE: You're good?

DIRECTOR: Yep.

One more time. And action.

Here's another
civic superstition

I have a problem with. "Rights."

Boy, everybody in this country
is always running around

yammering about their rights.

"I have a right."
"You have no right."

"We have a right."
"They don't have a right."

"The government has a right."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. fine.

Listen, folks,
I hate to spoil your fun,

but there's no such thing
as rights, okay?

We made them up.

They're imaginary, like
the boogeyman,

the three little pigs,
Pinocchio, stuff like that.

It's fictional.
Fictional idea, rights.

People say,
"Well, they come from God.

They're God-given rights."
Oh, fuck, here we go again.

The God excuse,

the last refuge of a man
with no answers and no argument.

"It came from God."

But let's say it's true.

Let's say it's true
that God gave us these rights.

Fine, why would he give us
a certain number of rights?

The Bill of Rights
in this country

has ten stipulations,
ten rights. And by the way,

God must have been doing
sloppy work

'cause we've had to amend
the Bill of Rights

an additional 17 times.

God left out
a few things, like...

slavery. Just fucking
overlooked it that day.

♪ (INTENSE HIP-HOP BEAT
PLAYING) ♪

GEORGE: Doesn't sound like
divine planning to me.

Sounds more like one group
trying to control another group.

In other words,
business as usual in the USA.

ANNOUNCER 1:
Here's George Carlin.

ANNOUNCER 2: Legendary comedian
George Carlin.

-George Carlin.
-Hey, baby, what's happening?

By far, you're easily

one of the greatest comedians
ever.

All I could think of was shit,
piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,

-motherfucker, and tits, man.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

W. KAMAU BELL:
Carlin changed comedy

three or four times
in his career.

And he still seems
to be talking to us.

Pro-life conservatives
are obsessed with a fetus

from conception to nine months,

but once you're born,
you're on your own.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

KAMAU:
Because George Carlin bits

are still being shared
on social media

"to go, "You don't understand
how rights work?

Look at this bit."

"You don't understand
how privilege works?
Look at this bit."

GEORGE: This country's
only 200 years old

and already
we've had ten major wars.

-So we're good at it!
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
And it's a good thing we are.

We're not very good
at anything else anymore.

Got no steel industry left,
can't educate our young people,

can't get health care
to our old people,

but we can bomb the shit
out of your country, all right.

Comedy, traditionally,
has picked on people in power,

people who abuse their power.

I don't like orthodoxy
of the left

any more than I like orthodoxy
of the right.

I don't like anyone trying
to control

the language and behavior
of people.

These moral commandos
who want us

to think their way

and want to change
what we can hear and see

and think in this country
are dangerous.

It's called freedom of choice,

and it's one of the principles
this country was founded upon.

Look it up in the library,
Reverend,

if you have any of them left

when you finish burning
all the books.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

It's a big club,
and you ain't in it.

People will say to me sometimes,

"Well,
what are you so angry about?"

Has everybody lost
their fucking mind

-in this country?
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

GEORGE:
What they think is anger

is a real contempt
for the choices

that my fellow humans have made.

I just feel betrayed

by the bullshit in America
that's all around us.

I call it the freak show.

When you're born
into this world, you're given

a ticket to the freak show.

When you are born in America,
you're given a front-row seat.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

HOST:
So, fasten your seat belts,

ladies and gentlemen,
get ready for Mr. George Carlin.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

There are thousands of comedians
in this country,

but basically,
only two types of humor.

There's the old school
and the new school.

I think we recognize them both.

The old school
is largely made up

of the fast-paced
stand-up comedians,

the one-liner comics

who came from vaudeville
and burlesque,

and they comprise
the insult school of humor.

Jack E. Leonard
is a good example of this.

(DEEP VOICE) "Thank you
very much, ladies and gentlemen."

I'd just like to say it's good

to be back
in New York this weekend.

It's a wonderful town.
Thank you very much.

You got some lovely girls here

compared to the last place
I worked.

Some of the broads there
were so ugly

that if you wanted
to pay 'em a compliment

you had to say, "How do you do?
I see your face cleared up."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: I began
with this very mainstream dream.

Fifth grade, 11 years old,

the autobiography,
the last page,

"What do you want to be," said,

"disc jockey, comedian, actor,
big success."

I didn't know
what this would lead to.

I only knew that I loved
standing up in front of people

and having their attention.

I grew up in New York.
Whenever I'm back in town

I like to visit nostalgic places
from my childhood.

I was from a neighborhood,
we called it White Harlem.

It was right next to Harlem
and Columbia University.

We called it White Harlem

because that sounded bad,
you know?

The real name
was Morningside Heights.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

We had Columbia University
and Juilliard and two seminaries

-right near us.
-INTERVIEWER: Wow!

GEORGE: I grew up
with a great respect

for knowledge and love of it,
you know, just thirst for it.

The neighborhood is very mixed.

Right next to the Spanish
and the Black ghetto,

Harlem,
and the lower-middle-class

Irish neighborhood
where I grew up.

(NEW YORK ACCENT)
This was the way the guys
in my neighborhood talked.

This here is your
third-generation Irish voice.

All the cops in New York
have this voice, right?

You heard the voice. "Come on,
Johnny, move along here.

Come on, let's go.
Where you going, Johnny?"

They call everyone Johnny.
Notice that?

Even your mother, right?
"I'm his mother."

"Never mind, Johnny,
get off the corner there."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: My father,
whom I didn't know,

was gifted verbally.

He was a natural comedian

with a line of shit
that wouldn't quit.

He was an after-dinner speaker.

He won the Dale Carnegie
speakers contest,

over 600 and something
other entrants.

My mother could tell stories.
They both did character voices

when they would tell you
an anecdote,

so it was in the genes
and it was around the house.

And neither of them took
any shit from the world.

But he was a drinker
and he was a bully.

She called him a street angel
and a house devil.

And she didn't want
to have happen to me

what happened to my brother.

He was beaten.

My mom says
that the sex was wonderful.

And the other part was horrible.

And he would lay in there, man.

And I would just grit my teeth
and think, you know,

"I hate you. I hate you."

So, one night
when she had fled from him

temporarily
to her father's house,

my grandfather
on 112th Street...

And we had to get out
of that house.

My father was trying
to batter the fucking door down.

She took me in her arms,
two months,

that's what she says,

he was five years old,
my brother.

She went out the window
onto the fire escape.

And my old man
was trying to tear

the fucking door off the hinges
and we jump into my uncle's car,

and he drives us up here
to the Catskills

where we hid out.

And we were vagabonds
for about two or three years

until she found an apartment

and we established a little--
she called it our little home.

After their separation...

Catholics didn't get divorced.

They could,
but only the rich ones.

He died
when I was eight years old.

His first symptom
of heart disease

was a trip to the cemetery.

(EXPLOSION)

ANNOUNCER:
George Carlin reporting

the news at six o'clock.

Looks like we're about
to win the war after all.

A new bomb is quote-unquote
the XYZ Bomb.

It's a wonderful bomb and it can
blow up the whole world.

GEORGE:
I was growing up in World War II

and post-war New York City,
being raised by a single mother

who had a great gift
and love of language,

and who imparted that to me.

But I was alone in the house.
My mother had to work.

Did you grow up feeling
deprived, lonely?

I didn't feel that. I was alone
a lot, but I enjoyed that.

Something in my makeup
accepted that and thrived on it.

("THE LONE RANGER OPENING THEME"
PLAYING)

GEORGE: So I would sometimes
fix my own spaghetti,

listen to The Lone Ranger.

That was my family,
the people on radio.

LONE RANGER:
Hi-yo, Silver! Away!

GEORGE: I was attracted
to the comedians on radio,

and when I was able
to get to the movies,

Danny Kaye
and Bob Hope and Red Skelton,

I just wanted
to be someone like that.

(SPEAKING FRENCH)

GEORGE: So I began the dream
of being Danny Kaye.

♪ When Paul Haakon
Starts in fakin' ♪

♪ When he's makin'
With the shakin' ♪

♪ And Paul Draper starts a vapor
On the floors ♪

GEORGE: He was musically funny,
he could make funny faces.

He was incredibly adept,
verbally.

♪ My friends and my family
Looked at me clammily ♪

♪ Thought there was
Something amiss ♪

GEORGE: And I thought to myself,

"I could do that.
That would be good to do."

-(SCREAMS)
-(CROWD LAUGHING)

GEORGE: George Carlin
in the Waldorf-Astoria lobby.

There's a lot of celebrities
here tonight.

We're having a banquet
for William Randolph Hearst Jr.

Stay tuned for
Brooklyn Dodger baseball.

(MIMICKING RADIO STATIC)
It's a homerun, folks.

Roy Campanella wins the ballgame
for the Dodgers.

That was his sickest game
on record.

We ran in a gang.

There was about ten,
11, 12 of us.

When I was a little boy
in New York City in the 1940s,

-we swam in the Hudson River.
-RANDY JURGENSEN: And we
would swim in the Hudson River.

GEORGE: And it was filled
with raw sewage, okay?

We swam in raw sewage,

-you know, to cool off.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

RANDY: Police would patrol
the neighborhoods

for kids that got into trouble,

and you'd get what they called
a juvenile delinquent card.

Thousands of kids died
from polio every year,

but you know something?
In my neighborhood,

no one ever got polio.
No one. Ever. You know why?

-'Cause we swam in raw sewage.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

We got caught,
and they stood us up on line.

It strengthened
our immune systems.

The polio never had a prayer,
we were tempered in raw shit.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I gave a name. I can't remember
what name I gave.

And then alongside of me,
there were two others,

and they gave false names.

Now,
George is fourth down the line,

and they say to George,
"What is your name?"

And he says, "Randy Jurgensen."
(CHUCKLES)

He gave-- He gave them--
He gave them my real name.

(YOUNG GEORGE
MIMICKING RADIO CHATTER)

Be on the lookout
for three juvenile delinquents.

One named George Carlin.

I started out
with little sounds,
any kind of sound.

(GARBLED NOISES)

-Anything I could...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-(MIMICS PIGEON COOS)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

We called that doing a pigeon.
"Hey, can you do pigeon?"

(MIMICS PIGEON COOS)

I'm sure when the pigeon
first came to New York,

it had a real nice song.
(MIMICS BIRD TRILLING)

A few years in the city?

-(EXHALES, MIMICS PIGEON COOS)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Class clown
is really the first time

you get it together,
being a comedian,

and you'd set about disrupting
the class by...

(GRANDIOSE VOICE) ...attracting
attention to yourself!

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-GEORGE: (NORMAL VOICE)
That is the name of this job.

It's called, dig me.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Stoops like this
were my first real stage.

I wasn't very good at fighting.

My three talents were stealing,
lying, and entertaining.

I grew up with that
at the end of my street,

a 28-story Gothic phallic symbol
with bells in the head.

I used to be an Irish Catholic.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-GEORGE: Uh... It's true.

I'm still Irish,
but I haven't really been back

as an active Catholic
for a long time.

But I grew up in a parish
with all the things that go

with being an Irish kid
in New York

in an Irish parish.
It was Corpus Christi.

This is where I went to school,
Corpus Christi.

(DOOR RATTLING)

I think I saw religion
as the first big betrayal.

PRIEST:
An act of spiritual communion...

GEORGE:
I remember at First Communion,

when I was seven years old,

they said,
"You're gonna feel different."

PRIEST:
...and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GEORGE: "And you will be
in the state of grace,"

and you will feel
God's presence," and all this.

And I thought,
"None of that happened."

And I began to see
that they were lying to me.

PRIEST:
...attempted to lead me astray.

GEORGE: From then on, I really
never believed much

in authority.
And I think I'm right.

PRIEST: Amen.

GEORGE: (OVER RECORDING)
Testing, testing, testing.

Testing, testing,
testing, testing. Testing.

My own experience of authority

is one of opposition to,
not just questioning authority,

but actively opposing it,

and trying to undo
what it had in mind.

Everything that had rules
and regulations,

I managed to either get kicked
out of or leave early on my own,

the choir, the altar boys,
the Boy Scouts,

summer camp, and schools.

I quit high school
in ninth grade,

and I was a pot smoker
when I was 13.

These were things
where I was saying,

"Your values suck."

I don't buy that authority
comes on a direct line from God

through my parents,
through my church people,

or the policemen or any of that.
All authority comes from within.

"All my power comes from within."

PATRICK CARLIN:
He was cool, and he was himself,

but my mother
was clamping down on him.

And it was much tougher
for him

to break away from her
than me

because of her
wanting to hold on.

She said to him one time,

and I thought
it was so fucking sad,

but it's how people are,
she said,

"You made up for every bad thing
you ever did

when you became a star."

And I thought to myself,
"Well, I'm glad,

but goddamn it,
that's pretty fucking pathetic."

GEORGE: I had a mother
who tried to control my life,

who had a plan for me.

"I'm going to make something
out of that boy."

And that's what repelled me
from her. It was this feeling,

"You are a reflection on me."

She was a drama queen
and a narcissist.

-"You'll pay someday, mister..."
-(BANGING ON TABLE)

"You'll pay for
what you have done to me."

You have let me down,
and I am through with you.

"You are out of my life."

PATRICK:
I loved her for her toughness,

but George had to get away
because she would stifle him.

She would have sucked the blood
right out of him.

So he said the minute
he was 17, he was going.

And he sent me
a little manila folder.

Just a small one,

a little bigger
than a Christmas card.

And he wrote on it in a marker,

"For those days when everything
has got you down."

And when you open it up,

there was a photo
of my father's gravestone.

(LAUGHS)

Ain't that beautiful?

(JET ENGINES ROARING)

GEORGE:
So, I got in the Air Force,

and I made a plan
very early in life.

I thought, "Well,
if I can become a disc jockey,

then I can go to nightclubs
in that town,

and I can become a comedian.
And if I get good enough,

they'll have to let me
in the movies."

But you became a disc jockey
while you were in the Air Force?

Yeah, it happened that someone
was looking out for me.

I was just 18,
and I was in the Air Force

serving out my time
in Louisiana.

SINGERS: ♪ George Carlin
Is on the air... ♪

GEORGE: And the number one
radio station in town hired me.

SINGERS:
♪ On the George Carlin show ♪

GEORGE: Eighteen minutes
before five o'clock.

This is music
from Carlin's Corner.

And that ain't half of it.

Thirty dollars
is the lucky license jackpot,

a call going out soon.

Coming up,
Warren Storm with "Trouble."

♪ ("TROUBLES, TROUBLES"
BY WARREN STORM PLAYING) ♪

GEORGE: Once I got the job
in the Air Force, they thought,

"Well, that's pretty good
for the Air Force Base"

to have a guy
who's being productive,

"and not just knocking up
local girls." You know?

But I rebelled.
I happened to wind up

with three court martials.

Falling asleep on guard duty

during a unit-simulated
combat mission.

Failure to obey a lawful order.

Well, what are you gonna do?
(CHUCKLING)

And thirdly, showing
a certain amount of disrespect

to a non-commissioned officer.

GEORGE: (OVER RADIO)
This is Warren Storm

and his brand new one
"Troubles, Troubles,"
the K-JOE...

GEORGE: (ONSTAGE)
I joined for four years,

and I only lasted
for three years

-because it wasn't working out.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
You've had those relationships.

The Air Force and I sat down
and they said,

-"Why don't you go home?"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: The name of the game
in radio

is move to the bigger market,

so I went to Fort Worth.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Fifteen minutes creeping up

toward eight o'clock.
This is KXOL...

GEORGE: So, I'm down there,
and I'm just doing my DJ show,

and Jack Burns,
he became my nighttime newsman.

Jack and I realized
we had a great comic affinity.

We would do
little impromptu skits.

They were great.
We knew we had this thing.

(CAR ENGINE STARTS)

Nineteen sixty.

I took a brand-new Dodge Dart,

and we drove to California
with 300 dollars.

JACK BURNS: Thank you.
My name is Jack Burns.

This is my partner,
Mr. George Carlin.

GEORGE: And we got up
on stage every night.

JACK: So, we'd like
to show you now a meeting

of the Southgate Mothers Club
on a Monday afternoon.

GEORGE: (ROUGH VOICE)
Hi, I'd like to welcome yous all
to the Southgate Mother's Club.

KLIPH NESTEROFF:
When George Carlin
first met Jack Burns,

he was more influenced
politically

by his mother than anybody else,

and his mother
was very conservative.

GEORGE: Now, Jack came along

and I heard
lots of different things.

KLIPH: And here was this sort
of raging liberal artist type

who believed in civil rights,
who believed in equality,

who did not trust
the government.

And this had a huge influence
on George Carlin.

GEORGE:
Those doors opened for me
with Jack, and in that year.

Why didn't you take
your rooster up there?

-He chickened out.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

PAUL PROVENZA: And show business
itself was transitioning.

You had old school entertainers
doing mainstream stuff.

Are there any groups
I haven't offended?
I always like to ask that.

PAUL: You also had Mort Sahl.

You also had Nichols and May
and Second City.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

PAUL: Lenny Bruce had
had a big impact.

Cut to the toy store.

PAUL: They were redefining
the stand-up form.

It was no longer going to be...

Might be your kid
who walked in that day.

...just a guy getting up
telling jokes.

(MIMICS BELL RINGING)

Hello, Mr. Schindler.
Nice store you got here. Uh...

Give me a nickel's worth
of pencils

and a big boy tablet
and some erasers

and 2,000 tubes
of airplane glue.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

It was people speaking
from the heart

and voicing their opinion.

The last time I saw you,
I told you this.

After watching you again
and again...

I really got to know him when I
was shooting The Aristocrats.

The Aristocrats.

PAUL:
It became the kind of friendship

where he wouldn't call me
to pick him up at the airport,

but he would call me to tell me
a joke out of the blue.

When Burns and I,
Burns and Carlin,

were together in Chicago
in those early years...

PAUL: And he told me
that he was influenced

by Lenny Bruce
at an early point.

His love for Lenny
was unbelievable in...

I'm sure somebody's told you

the story about
his arrest. Yeah?

LENNY BRUCE: This is
the first time they made a fuss

straight in the audience...

PAUL: It was the night
when Lenny Bruce

was arrested for obscenity.

LENNY: Oh, shit.
I didn't... (LAUGHS)

PAUL: George happened
to be in the audience,

and according to George,
the police came around

and asked all the patrons
to show ID and what have you.

GEORGE:
I said, "I don't believe in ID."

PAUL: He got arrested as well.

And he got thrown in the back
of a police car with Lenny.

GEORGE:
The police went after him

because the Catholic Church
wanted him silenced.

And George told him,
"I refused to show my ID

you know,
"in solidarity," whatever.

And Lenny turned to him
and said, "Shmuck."

GEORGE: (OVER RADIO) Hey, kids!
Today is absolutely the last day

to send for your Captain Jack
and Jolly George

Junior Junkie Kit!

GEORGE: (NARRATING)
We found a coffeehouse
called Cosmo Alley.

GEORGE: (OVER RADIO)
Why is this the last day?

I'll tell you why, kids.
We were down in Tijuana,

and our dealer
has been busted by the fuzz!

-JACK: Yeah!
-GEORGE: (NARRATING)
Well, Lenny came in,

and he loved us.

(OVER RADIO) I'll tell ya, kids,
Captain Jack and I

shared a half a bag,
shot it up just before the show.

I tell ya, I'm twisted, kids.
Look at my eyes, huh?

-One taste, kids,
and I'm stoned.
-JACK: Yeah!

GEORGE: (NARRATING) Suddenly,
we got a telegram that said...

(READS PROMPT)

JACK: Most of the advertising
today that you see on television

emanates from that gray flannel
leper colony, Madison Avenue.

GEORGE: That's the magic of how
this all happened so quickly.

JACK: And we'd like to show you
first the conversation

as it occurs in real life,
and then that same conversation

as you see it
on your television screen.

This is the real-life
conversation. Oh, hi, George.

-Oh, hey. How you doing?
-How's the gums?

-All right.
-Good, good.

Uh, what is that? You got a new
1961 compact car there, huh?

Yeah, got one of the new Compos.
Mm-hmm.

JACK: That's the way it goes
in real life.

This is the way
that same conversation

comes out
on your television screen.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(GRANDIOSE VOICE) Say, George.

(SCATTERED LAUGHTER)

I see you got
the new 1961 Compo,

America's most wanted
compact car.

That's right, Jack,
and lucky me.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

BRENDA CARLIN: There was a club
called Racquet Club in Dayton.

And I was like a hostess.
That's how I met George.

-He was performing there?
-BRENDA: That's right.

The very first night he came up
to me, his line to me was,

"Where does a guy go
in a town like this

after the club closes?"
And my line back to him was,

"Well, you find some girl
with a stereo

-and an apartment,"
which was me.
-(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)

And I took him home
for two weeks.

INTERVIEWER: Two weeks?

Did you have trouble
with your stereo?

No, I don't know
if we turned it on. (CHUCKLES)

George fascinated me.
He was so different than I was.

-He was from Manhattan.
-INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.

BRENDA: And street gangs,
and West Side Story,

and all of this stuff.

He started calling me,
and I started calling him.

And then the letters
went back and forth.

♪ (SOFT UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

I knew we had a relationship
and something very special.

But I also knew that George
was just starting his career.

And I was trying to be very
adult about the relationship.

All of a sudden,
he walked in the club,

and I mean,
it was just, you know,

the music,
where the violins started,

and we ran into each
other's arms. (CHUCKLES)

And I say five weeks.
George says seven weeks,

maximum that we knew each other,

being together
before we got married.

And I immediately
stopped working

and went on the road
with George.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

JACK: Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen,

and welcome to the second show
of the evening.

GEORGE: Jack Burns and I
broke up

two years after we formed
the act

because he wanted to go
to Second City,

and I wanted to be a single.

ANNOUNCER: Now it's with
great pleasure that
the Gate of Horn presents...

GEORGE: So I continued to work

from the Burns and Carlin
momentum.

ANNOUNCER: Bruce Carlin?
George Carlin.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

GEORGE: When you're beginning
in comedy...

BRENDA: George opened tonight
at the Gate of Horn.

GEORGE:
...recently having begun...

BRENDA: He did two shows.
Both were great.

GEORGE: You'll have to decide
what form of comedy
you want to follow.

BRENDA: (READS PROMPT)

GEORGE: ...the good from all
of them, start with that...

BRENDA:

GEORGE: First the old line
stand-up fast-paced insults...

BRENDA:

GEORGE: Here is another idea.

Ha-ha, he said,
with a beautiful transition.

BRENDA: George opens
in Omaha, Nebraska, tonight.

KELLY CARLIN: My mother
was his biggest champion.

She could see the power
of other people.

She just had a real way
of lifting people up

and believing in them.

And I can only imagine
this young comic

knowing that he had all
the potential in the world,

he really believed in himself,

and then to have a woman
come into his life and say,

"I'm on your team.
We're gonna do this together."

They were comrades in arms.

♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

KELLY: They were really cute
and goofy

and sweet with each other.

He called her Dinky,
and he was Dawdy.

So, I grew up in the backseat
of the Dodge Dart,

and I was going to gigs
when I was a baby.

GEORGE: Thank you for that, uh,
wonderful round of indifference.

KELLY:
And in those early days...

-GEORGE: Is this on?
-(TAPPING ON MICROPHONE)

KELLY:
...they were starving artists.

GEORGE:
Hey, if I ever need an audience

-to keep me humble, you're it.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(CHUCKLING) No, if I get cocky,
I'll call you in, you know?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JOHN F. KENNEDY: Frustration
and discord are burning

in every city,
in demonstrations and protests.

We face, therefore,
a moral crisis

as a country and a people.

It cannot be met by
repressive police action.

It cannot be left to increased
demonstrations in the streets.

It cannot be quieted
by token moves or talk.

NEWS ANCHOR:
Political extremism in America

is not something new.

We took our cameras to a meeting
of the John Birch Society,

the most well-known
of a large number

of organizations
that place themselves

to the extreme far right
of the political spectrum.

(ALL SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

GEORGE: Thank you very much.
The name is Lyle Higley.

I'm the head
of the local chapter

of the John Birch Society.

I invited the head
of the Ku Klux Klan,

the Grand Imperial Almighty
Omnipotent Invincible Stomper.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: (IN SOUTHERN ACCENT)
Thank you very much.

And I'd just like to address
my remarks

in the Northern
Commuliberal Pinko press.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: I have been living
in the South for 27 years,

and I've never seen a cross
burning on anybody's lawn.

I've seen whole neighborhoods
go up.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: In 1961,

John Kennedy brought humor
back to the White House,

along with a lot
of football equipment,

and a bunch of relatives.

(IMITATING KENNEDY)
Thank you very much.

On behalf
of the Attorney General,

the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

the members
of the Supreme Court,

-and the rest of my family...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Stories have recently
been appearing in the press

that Mr. Khrushchev and I
are planning

another series
of summit conferences.

-(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
-♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

GEORGE: When you're not known

and when you're doing something
a little avant-garde,

most run-of-the-mill,
rank-and-file citizens

didn't know, didn't care.
Didn't understand.

I can remember
doing the supper show.

That means there
are still dishes on the table.

Stone silence, practically,
having to do 25 minutes.

And the only reason
you don't lose heart

is because you remember
the good nights.

REPORTER:
From Dallas, Texas.

The flash, apparently official,

President Kennedy died

at 1:00 p.m.
Central Standard Time.

BRENDA: The events
of this past weekend

have left me stunned. I feel
so sorry for Jackie Kennedy.

(READS LETTER)

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

GEORGE: I said, "I've got to
take a stand in New York."

I've got to do television here.
I have to figure this out."

There were no comedy clubs.
There were only coffee houses.

Coffee houses had hootenannies,

and they had an open mic
amateur night.

INTERVIEWER: And you developed
a lot of your own single stuff

at the Cafe Au Go Go, was it?

Down in Greenwich Village.
Yeah, I got tired of going out

to Indianapolis and Detroit
and St. Louis for one week,

and not having anything
to show for it.

You spend all your money
traveling.

So I decided to stay
in New York for a year,

and work at one club

where I could develop
my style and my material.

And it happened
in Greenwich Village

at the Go Go.
This is the theater

where I first did television
for Merv Griffin,

-where it really began.
-INTERVIEWER: Right.

The Indian Sergeant
was the first character.

He used to work with a partner,
and now, he's on his own.

Another of television's
tadpoles,

the kind of talent
always welcome around here.

Would you all meet
young George Carlin. George?

-♪ (BAND MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Uh...
I've been watching the Westerns.

All of us have been watching
Western movies,

an endless stream of them,
for our entire lives,

and I've noticed something
about them.

When the Westerns
involve Indians,

and sometimes they don't,
sometimes it's Brian Donlevy

with a black hat
and a crooked card game.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-But when they involved Indians,

the big scene always seems to be

when the Indians
finally attack the cowboys.

You always see
exactly how the cowboys prepare

for this attack. We never see
how the Indians prepare.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"All right, all the tall guys
over by the trees."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"Fat guys
down behind the rocks."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"You with the beads,
out of the line."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"All right,
knock off the horseplay."

Come on,
knock off the horseplay.

Come on, you guys over there
playing with the horse,

-will you knock it off?"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)

GEORGE: There'll be a rain dance
Friday night.

-Weather permitting.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: I got my Merv Griffin
and they gave me

three more shots.

ANNOUNCER:
Here is George Carlin.

GEORGE: I had been working
for a year-and-a-half

just to get
five minutes together,

and suddenly
there were these three dates

staring at me within a month.

Thank you very much.

I found out
I had to start writing stuff

at a very fast rate.

Right now, we're sending it out

for a little under
three feet tall.

-Happy 35th birthday, Linda.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: I did the disc jockey.

It's a brand new one.
It's called,

"Your face cleared up."

Then I did a newscast,
news, sports, and weather.

Again, demonstrations
and protests dominate
the headlines.

The draft card burners
are at it again.

Not content with burning
their individual draft cards,

several demonstrators today
set fire to the Pentagon.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I saw him early.
With a suit and tie,

and it was just--
he was sparkling.

-HOST: How you feel?
-(EXAGGERATED ACCENT) Wonderful.
I'll tell you one thing.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-What I said was good?
-HOST: Very good, yes.

ROBERT KLEIN:
He was likeable immediately.

HOST:
I could talk like that too.

-GEORGE: Can you?
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

And I think that George Carlin
is one of two autodidacts

in American comedy,
that is to say,

people who are self-taught,
George and Groucho Marx.

I think George proved
in many ways

how intelligent he was,

and how interested he was
in the world around him.

I really haven't been
to the movies

in an awfully long time.

I think the last movie I saw
was West Side Story,

and I was really disappointed
with that

because I'm from the West Side,

and I understood these kids
were supposed to be tough

in the movie. I mean,
two people get killed

in the movie.
They should be tough kids,

but it didn't come off
like that.

It was kind of a...

-(MIMICS UPBEAT MUSIC)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"Come on, let's go get them.
Let's go get those guys.

Let's go get them and kill them,
but first we're going to dance."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

GEORGE: In order for me
to follow this mainstream dream,

I had to play their game,

which was,
you had to get on variety shows.

So I went to Hollywood
in 1966 with Kelly and Brenda,

and I did
the Kraft Summer Music Hall.

Hi, I am John Davidson.

Welcome
to the Kraft Summer Music Hall.

We've got some wonderful guests
tonight,

but of course,
the whole gang is right here.

So, let's meet them, huh?
George Carlin.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)

JOHN DAVIDSON: Jackie and Gayle.

The Lively Set.

And our guest,
Mr. Richard Pryor.

Ladies and gentlemen,
you've met our two comedians,

George Carlin and Richard Pryor.

-That's right.
-Guys,

earlier, when you were doing
your routines,

at first I was watching you,

-like a nice guy.
-Yeah, yeah.

And then I found
that it was much more fun

to watch the audience.

-The audience?
-Watch the audience?

-Yes.
-While we're working?

Should we leave now,
Richie, man? Let's go.

-No.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

What I mean is I found
it was much more fun

to watch the audience,

because you can see
the different ways

that people laugh.

-Have you ever noticed that?
-Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You must notice
that in the nightclubs, right?

Yeah, well, I have always

-noticed 'em and I have...
-Oh yeah, I do. What?

You go ahead
and I'll watch the audience.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Well, uh, first of all,

there's the neat,
precise laugher.

Have you seen him.
It's like... (CHUCKLES)

He's really breaking up,
just the way accountants laugh.

They like to keep it neat.

-(LAUGHS RESTRAINEDLY)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I once worked a whole
convention of accountants.

-(LAUGHS FAINTLY)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Kind of strange.

Richard, what's your
favorite kind of laughter?

Well, I got a laugh.
I don't know

if it's my favorite,
but it's one I hear

above everyone else's,
sort of a witch's laugh

-(CACKLES)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-Kind of scares you... (CACKLES)
-(LAUGHING CONTINUES)

But I've never worked for
a convention of witches.

(LAUGHS EXAGGERATEDLY)
Hey, look at that.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Good evening. Once again,

the big hand is on the five,
the little hand is on the six,

and it's time
for the 11 o'clock report.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-First of all, the headlines.

Russia and the United States
are at war.

Missiles have been fired
by both sides.

Moscow, New York, and London
are in flames.

Details on these
and other stories

in just a moment
after the report.

KLIPH: In the 1960s,
one of the main genres

-of television...
-Hello?

-Kraft Summer Music Hall.
-...was the variety show.

I'm sure in the greenroom

and after work,
they probably had a lot of fun

smoking joints together,

but they could not be subversive
on the show

if they had wanted to be.

...to Al Sleet,
the hippie-dippy weatherman.

-"Hey, baby, what's happening?"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

And, so, we always talk
about fascist politicians

speaking
with a dog whistle sentence.

George Carlin had
these dog whistles for hippies.

Al Sleet here,
your hippie-dippy weatherman

with all
the hippie-dippy weather.

KLIPH: Just that voice
is the voice of a guy

who has taken a huge bong hit.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-One, two, three, four, five.

If your parents were watching
that on Ed Sullivan

or Perry Como,
they don't know that,

but the kids know that.
They're like,

"He is stoned. This character
is stoned. He's high."

Now, if you take a look
at our weather map over...

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-...here,

you'll notice
that this warm front extends

from Virginia to Tennessee...

♪ With all the love
That's in ya ♪

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Okay, the radar's picking up
a line of thundershowers

from Munich to New York
to Middletown.

However, the radar
is also picking up

-a squadron of Russian ICBMs.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

So I wouldn't sweat
the thundershowers.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Tonight's low, 25 degrees.

Tomorrow's high,
whenever I get up. Ha!

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: We're here talking
with young Kelly Carlin.

(KELLY SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

GEORGE:
I didn't even have to wait.

Like a woman, she interrupted.

-KELLY: You want apple?
-BRENDA: Apple?

-GEORGE: Apple?
-KELLY: Apple.

GEORGE: Kelly, what do you think
we can do about

the Vietnam crisis?

Can we get out of this mess?

Would you say
we're inextricably committed

to a land war in Asia?

Do you feel
that a political solution

-is possible?
-(KELLY SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

GEORGE: Do you think
that the Viet Cong

-should be bargained with?
-KELLY: Is that true?

GEORGE: Well, it's known as
the National Liberation Front.

And do you think
we should recognize them

across the conference table?

No comment. All right.

Here's Kelly's
pushy stage mother.

-(BRENDA LAUGHING)
-(GEORGE CHUCKLING)

BRENDA: Kelly, do you remember
when you and Teddy Bear...

Does Teddy Bear like to go...

INTERVIEWER: At what point
does his success happen,

and you know it has changed?

I think
when we came out here in 1966.

INTERVIEWER: And what happened?

It was the John Davidson
the Kraft Summer Music Hall.

What happens to your lifestyle?
How does it change?

I think it...

Well, it affected me very badly
because I felt abandoned.

-INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh.
-He came out to a show,

and even though they would have
parties and get-togethers

to involve the wives,
and you know,

husbands or whatever,
I really felt abandoned.

I didn't really know people
out here,

and this is a big city.

And I think
I was very restless also.

-I wanted to do something.
-INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm.

But I didn't know
what I wanted to do,

and I turned to alcohol.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

KELLY: We moved out to L.A.

And suddenly,
my dad has an agent,

he has a manager,
he has a press agent.

And all the jobs my mom had
were gone.

Suddenly,
her opinion doesn't matter.

And she really wanted to work,
but my dad would not let her.

Because he didn't want me
being a latchkey kid,

so he forbade my mother
from getting a job.

That really screwed
with her self-identity

and her ability to feel useful
in the world.

And he's on the road now,

sometimes three,
four, five weeks at a time.

And that's what a lot
of the arguing was about,

you know, the resentment she had
about that,

of being a stay-at-home mom.

And she's feeling very left out
and left behind,

and very silenced by it all.

So my mom drank,

and she became very loud
and exhibitionist in public.

And then my parents
had knock-down, drag-out fights

over my mom's drinking.

And when you're having
those kind of episodes at home,

I mean, talk to most any...
(CHUCKLES) ...American family,

it's a very secretive thing.

GEORGE: And now,
here's Kelly Carlin

singing "Rock-a-bye Baby."

GEORGE AND KELLY:
♪ Rock-a-bye, baby ♪

♪ On the treetop ♪

♪ When the wind blows
Down the... ♪

GEORGE:
♪ The cradle will rock ♪

GEORGE AND KELLY:
♪ When the bough breaks down
The cradle will fall ♪

♪ And down will come baby ♪

♪ Cradle And all ♪

KELLY: Goodbye.

GEORGE: At that time
in my career I felt

that by being a mainstream comic

and taking the steps
along the mainstream path...

Yes, is a good part.
Is the best part I ever got you.

...that would lead me
to this dream

I had of being a movie actor
like Danny Kaye.

Anyway, I'm not up for the part.
I'm up for the understudy.

After your friend falls out
the window here, sweetheart,

you'll be up for the part.

What I found was
I wasn't an actor.

Well, we're just about to close,
but for you,

tell me what it is you like,
and I'll see to it personally.

I had no technique
to fall back on,

I had no training
to fall back on,

I had only this idea
that this is my birthright.

Well, I hope you know
what you're doing.

But from here on,
it's full price for everything.

♪ (JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ALL:
♪ When we were 17 ♪

♪ It was a very good year... ♪

GEORGE: I hated
doing these variety shows.

You know? "Fuck those people,
fuck that shit."

Look at this stupid shit.

"No, I don't
wanna be in the bunny number."

I was a victim
of my own success,

and here's what I was missing.

I was missing who I was.

♪ When I was 17 ♪

I began to take some acid
and some mescaline,

and I suddenly was able
to see things differently.

What I really was,
was an outlaw and a rebel

who swam against the tide

of what the establishment wants
from us.

That person
was being suppressed.

REPORTER: The long-haired,
almost professional protesters

demanded to know
how many children

the president
had killed that day.

GEORGE: It was a generation war.
I was in the middle of it.

I was entertaining people
in nightclubs who were 40,

and they were at war
with their kids who were 20.

PROTESTER: We got
to knock those motherfuckers

who control this thing
right on their ass.

GEORGE:
So, I had to come to terms

with what I really wanted
to do and who I was.

I'm sure that you're aware
of the fact that teenagers today

are the most powerful group
in the country.

First of all, there are more
of them than ever before,

and teenagers
are so much better organized.

-Many of them are armed.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

BOBBY SEALE:
Racist police agencies

throughout the country
are intensifying the terror,

brutality, murder,
and repression of Black people.

Black people are determined
to gain their freedom

by any means necessary.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR:
We will not be harassed,

we will not be intimidated

-and we will be heard.
-(CROWD CLAMORING)

-♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-W-I-N-O.

-Wonderful Wino Radio.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: ♪ Wonderful Wino... ♪

PROTESTER:
The way of life they're trying
to condition us to

is a way of life
that we don't want.

We're creating
a new way of life.

GEORGE:
It's a folk protest song.

It's sweeping the nation.
"Don't Want No War."

(MIMICS BANJO STRUMMING)

♪ Don't want no war ♪

MUHAMMAD ALI: There's one hell
of a lot of difference

in fighting in the ring
and going to war in Vietnam.

My intention is to box,
to win a clean fight.

But in war, the intention
is to kill, kill, kill, kill,

and continue
killing innocent people.

-That's what...
-(CROWD CHEERING)

Dr. Martin Luther King
has been shot to death

-in Memphis, Tennessee.
-Senator Robert F. Kennedy,

who won the California primary
last night when he was shot.

-(GUNSHOT)
-GEORGE: Tonight's forecast,

dark.

-♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Continued dark tonight.

Oh, good evening, crisis fans.
It's time for the big preview.

Big stories coming out of wars
and conflicts around the world.

Here we go, three civil wars,
two brush fire wars,

nine wars of liberation,
two police actions,

16 revolutions,
eight border clashes,

21 terrorist attacks,
21 retaliatory raids,

400 guerilla operations,
two military confrontations,

six heightenings of tensions,
14 heated exchanges,

12 belligerent moves...

(SINGING TO TUNE OF
"12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS")
♪ Three powder kegs ♪

♪ Two tinderboxes
And an ultimatum ♪

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

The one thing that I always
liked about George's story

is that he was a guy
who was in search

of his comedic voice.

So, like, I remember
hearing the stories

about, like, when he first
starts out, he's like, you know,

comedy team, and then
hippie-dippy weatherman.

And at some point, he's, like,
watching the culture shift,

and he's seeing the people
he's performing for,

and he's in tuxedos, and a suit,
and a tie,

and he's like,
"I wanna be over there

where the culture's shifting,
where things are happening."

The message that I got
from Carlin is, like,

how do you wanna be funny

and who
do you wanna be funny for?

Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen,

I'm Oker Van Sander.

Because of the unusual number
of people

running for the presidency
this year...

PATRICK: He talked me
into going on

the fucking Ed Sullivan Show
with him.

Back in that year

when all the guys were running
for the Democratic thing.

Pat Paulson was running,
the Smothers bro--

I mean, every motherfucker
in the U.S.

was running for pres.

So, we smoke a whole lot
of fucking dope, man.

And he came in
as Carl K. Copout.

PATRICK: Councilman,

do you think we can solve
the problems of the cities?

You and me?

PATRICK: No, Councilman,
the people in the country.

Oh, well,
the people in the country

can't solve the problems
in the cities.

If the people from the country
would stop moving

to the city,
that would solve the problem.

But that's the kind of balls
this guy had.

He'd bring a fucking
Pontiac salesman up

to do The Ed Sullivan Show
with you.

Do you have an opinion
on censorship?

Anyone who's against censorship

should be silenced
once and for all.

-Furthermore, I...
-(CUCKOO CALL WHISTLING)

...the way I feel about it.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-PATRICK: Councilman,

what do you think
are the most important issues

this election year?

Well,
there's no question about it.

The two most important issues

are the war in the streets
and the crime in Vietnam.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-PATRICK: You mean the...

That's what I mean,
the war in the streets

and the crime in Vietnam.

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

I remember
being very constricted.

The fact
that I intellectually knew

there was an anal,
uptight world out there,

and I didn't feel like
I was part of it,

didn't erase the fact

that I was a living,
breathing example of it.

Hi, George Carlin,
for Ozark Airlines.

Let's take a closer look
at Ozark.

One of the tricks
I learned as a child

was to deny my feelings.
It saved my life probably.

To work with my left brain,
think my way through things,

push the feelings down.

But I was a traitor,
and I was living a real lie

because I wanted to say
so many different things.

What happened that changed
everything was acid.

KELLY: One day, he dropped acid.

We go into the bedroom, and he
was taking pictures of himself.

And he had smashed his fist
into them to the point

where he had made
his hands bleed,

and there was blood everywhere,

and he's crying.
And I don't think

I'd ever seen my dad cry
until that moment.

We sat on him for, like,
45 minutes

until he finally fell asleep.
Really, very, very scary.

I think he was having
a real battle within himself.

ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen...

KELLY:
Which George is gonna win?

...the hippie-dippy weatherman,
George Carlin.

BETTE MIDLER:
It was Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,

and it was Squaresville.

I was George's opening act.

And that night, he decided

he was gonna try out
some new material.

I guess he had been
working up to this.

Uh, that he didn't wanna be
that George Carlin anymore.

He wanted
to be a different George Carlin.

GEORGE: I see Mohammed Ali
is fighting again.

That's kind of nice.

They really screwed him
out of his job

for three years, you know?

Well, the people who...

(CHUCKLES)
...were in the audience,

I guess, they didn't think
that was so funny.

GEORGE:
Sure, it was a spiteful move.

All because he didn't wanna go
to Vietnam, right?

They took such offense
that they started walking out.

And they started walking out
in droves.

I'd never seen anything like it.

GEORGE: There's a lot
of sexual connotation, too,

with Vietnam.
Do you notice that?

Always talking
about pulling out.

They were yelling things like,
"You've never been shot at.

How do you know anything
about Vietnam?"

And then they were asking
for my room number.

The hotel had to send me
a telegram

saying, "We cannot guarantee
your safety."

"We suggest you leave."

BETTE: It felt like
a leap into the unknown.

For the whole experience
of being with him.

Seeing someone do that.

Seeing someone decide,
and go for it.

It was life-altering for me.

FLIGHT DIRECTOR: Ten, nine,

-ignition sequence start...
-ANNOUNCER: Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen.

Frank Simmons presents
The Supremes.

-FLIGHT DIRECTOR: Three...
-ANNOUNCER: Featuring the humor

-of George Carlin.
-...two, one.

-(SPACE SHUTTLE ENGINES ROARING)
-(GEORGE SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

Frontier Hotel.

Had a contract there,
a three-year contract.

And it was 12,500 dollars
a week.

Sure, it's nice
and it never hurt you,

-but that other shit... Man!
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
And I used the word "shit."

I don't usually say shit.

I smoke it,
but I don't usually say it.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-GEORGE: They fired me for that.

I don't mind saying it.
Shit, shit.

You know, it's not a bad word.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: And I thought,
"This is it, man."

And I was free.

That's the way to be free, man.

-Let it flow...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Okay, I'm
going to step off the LEM now.

My wife and I had a home
in escrow,

and we wanted to have
our own home.

And I went to her, you know?
And I said,

"We got a problem, Brenda.

I got fired, and this, and that,
and everything."

I said,
"I got to go to the colleges."

I said, "I belong
at the college concerts.

I belong with people
who are open

and will let me be myself
and experiment."

And she said,

"I'll make your press kit
for you."

I, um, got to check what time...

I got fired in Las Vegas
for saying "shit."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: In a town
where the big game

is called crap.

It's not fair, you know?

"There were guys in the casinos
saying, "Oh, shit.

I crapped again.
Look at that. Oh, goddamn."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Give those guys
free drinks, man.

Fired me.

-Shit.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: See, the direction
I'm kind of going

in letting both my personal
and... (BLOWING RASPBERRY)

...professional... my work, man.
Be both my life and my work

are going in a direction of just
being more natural, you know?

PATTON OSWALT:
Carlin's transformation

wasn't a transformation.

HOST: Mystery challenger,
will you enter

and sign in, please.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

PATTON: If anything,
the Carlin that was on stage

in the tux and the clean-shaven

was a persona that he had put on

because that is what you did
in showbiz at the time.

It's like he de-transformed
into who he actually was.

And that's that great moment

that every comedian
wants to get to.

You know, it took me a long time
to get to it, where the person

that you are offstage
is who you are onstage.

I understand you've got
a new image now, George,

besides a new beard.

Well, it comes out
as a new image.

Actually, I just have kind
of relaxed a little bit.

I found myself kind of caught up
in the suit and tie

establishment comedian thing,

and I really didn't enjoy it
as much as I thought I would.

So I wanted to get back
to the earth,

as it were, you know,
I'm just going to coffee houses

and colleges now.
And trying to be myself,

and instead of doing
little bits, and hunks,

and characters,
I'm just doing a monologue,

and talking about me
and the world, and what I see.

And it's more fun for me.
I feel a lot looser.

HOST:
What's with the beard?

GEORGE: I don't know.
I just felt like having one.

I wanted to look
a little different

from the people that voted
for Nixon, you know? And I--

(GUEST LAUGHING)

GEORGE: You can't mistake me
for a Nixon voter now,

-I'll tell you that, right?
-HOST: Mm-mm.

I like to get in on the subjects
that are really happening,

I mean,
things that are determining

whether we're gonna live
or die, those are important.

I used to be this guy.
I liked him, you know?

He was really good,
he was funny,

I had a lot of fun with him,
he did some nice things for me.

But there was nothing
behind him, you know?

He was just kind
of just superficial.

I was always doing ladies
on quiz shows,

or newsmen, or disc jockeys,

and I was hiding
behind these things.

I didn't know it consciously,
but television rewarded that.

See, that's one facet
of my comedy is I am a mimic.

Was there a lot of pressure,

I mean,
just to become yourself, and...

Oh. Well, I was ready for that.
That was one thing,

is I wasn't in my act anymore.

That was not--

The reason I went into this,
as anyone knows,

you go into this
as a self-expression.

-Of course.
-And once you're not doing that,

forget it.
So, I discovered that.

I was free then,
I was free to change.

"How long ago
did you get started on drugs?"

-"I forgot, man."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

That's why even though
marijuana's going to make it,

it's having trouble
being decriminalized

because a lot of guys
can't remember

where they left the petitions,
you know? It's a...

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-Hey, man.

When he got fired in Las Vegas,
he was making 250,000 a year.

First year with me,
he made 12,000 dollars.

We played the Hungry Eye,
we played the Troubadour,

all the small little
hippie clubs.

Mary Jane,
nobody ever says Mary Jane.

It's in all the dictionaries
for pot.

No one ever says it.
"Hey, got any Mary Jane?"

(INHALES) "I don't know.
Does it get you high?"

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JEFF WALD:
You know, he liked money,
he liked spending it,

but the money was not
the be everything to him.

His work was, you know?

His writing, his ability
to put his ideas out there.

GEORGE: Hey, thank you, all.
Remember, it takes two fingers

to make the peace sign
just like it takes

two people to make love.
When you go like this,

you're jerking off. Goodnight.

See you later, gang.
Thank you so much.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)

And you're not asking me
this question,

but I'm gonna jump to it
right now,

is that he's the Beatles
of comedy.

At a certain point
in his career,

there's this huge shift.
You know, he's doing

the comedic version
of "Love Me Do"

for the first part
of his career,

and then suddenly,

he fucking puts out
the comedic White Album.

Like, you know,
he does this huge turn.

He has this almost
spiritual transformation.

Being a class clown,
I was a good imitator.

I had a good ear,
and I could imitate. And, uh,

I imitated Father Byrne...

STEPHEN COLBERT:
And I'm a Catholic.

...because he was the celebrant

-of the nine o'clock mass.
-STEPHEN: And I'm still
a Catholic.

And to have Carlin
making jokes about prayer,

it was almost like
the first time

I ever went snorkeling. I went,

"Wait, there's a whole
other world down here

that I didn't know about?"
That was like,

Carlin gave me
the comedy snorkel.

And I went, "Oh, I can look
at my own faith this way, too?"

And that's something
I didn't have

before listening to him.

'Cause that's what they
taught us,

that it was what was
in your mind that counted,

what you made up,
your intentions,

that's what He
will judge you by.

A mortal sin
had to be a grievous offense,

sufficient reflection,
and full consent of the will.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-You had to wanna.

In fact, "wanna" was a sin
all by itself, man.

"Thou shalt not wanna."

If you woke up in the morning,
and you said,

"I'm going downtown
and commit me a mortal sin."

Save your carfare,
you did it already, man.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

It's like the Justice Department
gets Black Panthers

and people on the Left, man,
for conspiracy.

"Did they do it?"
"No, but they wanted to.

-Get them in here." Yeah.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Conspiracy. "I wanted to."

Birth control pills are still
on prescription, right?

You still need a note
to get laid. (EXHALES)

Ladies must feel silly going in,
"Here's my note."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: "Oh, that's what
you're doing at home, eh?"

Well, we're keeping a record
of it here in the store."

Well, someday
birth control pills

will come off prescription.

They'll have those catchy names
that patent medicines have.

-"Preg-not."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
Doctors prefer "Embry-no."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Something earthy
and crude, "Mom Bomb."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Here's a real
man's product. "Inconceivable."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

FAN 1: Dear George,
I'm really excited that

a freak is finally overcoming
the peculiar hassles...

FAN 2: Dear George Carlin...

FAN 3: When you were straight...

FAN 4: In my opinion,
what you do and...

FAN 5: Dear Mister Carlin...

FAN 6: Truly tell it like it is.

We're very self-centered.
If we put the statue of Jesus

on the dashboard,
we got him facing us

instead of looking
for traffic where he should be.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JON STEWART: What I always
found amazing about Carlin

was he would treat farting

with the same level of scrutiny,
and language, and deconstruction

as he would the pope,

the Catholic Church hierarchy,
the war machine.

He's a good guy. We always say,
"He's like you and me."

We always say-- A lot of
religions have taught us that.

Love God, love your neighbor,
love yourself,

'cause you're all
the same person.

And if God is like us,
big trouble, gang.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JON: And for a kid...

-GEORGE: Farting is, uh...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JON: ...I didn't understand
that in any way.

GEORGE: Kids like it
'cause it's kinda like

shit without the mess, you know?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

But side-cheek-lift-up-fart?
(BLOW KISS) Man!

GEORGE: Nixon is a perfect
symbol for this country.

He looks like he hasn't taken
a shit in a month.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Hey, they're letting Ali fight.
He happened to lose,

but at least they're letting him
work again, right?

For three years, the cat
couldn't work, Muhammad Ali.

And, of course,
he had an unusual job,

-beating people up, you know?
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
But the government wanted him
to change jobs.

The government
wanted him to kill people.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

And he said, "No,
that's where I draw the line."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"I'll beat them up, but I don't
want to kill them, you know?"

(APPLAUSE)

And the government got spiteful.
They said,

"Look, if you won't kill them,
we won't let you beat them up."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Everyone remembers the reason
we're in Southeast Asia

is to free these people,
to bring them industry.

Isn't that roughly
our job everywhere?

We kind of free people
and whip industry on them

so that they can have all
the benefits of industry that...

(COUGHING)
...we have come to love.

(SINGING TO TUNE OF
"AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL")
♪ O beautiful for smoggy skies ♪

♪ Insecticided grain ♪

♪ For strip-mined
Mountains' majesty ♪

♪ Above the asphalt plain ♪

♪ America, America
Man sheds his waste on thee ♪

♪ And hides the pines
With billboard signs ♪

♪ From sea to oily sea ♪

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Most people now know
that we're in kind of trouble.

We're in a kind of an emergency,
the planet, and the species

and the country
is in a kind of emergency,

and people are responding to it
a little bit better, I think.

But we have to-- You have
to keep screaming, I think.

Are you optimistic?

I'm optimistic, but I wouldn't
take any comfort from that.

You know,
I like to be an optimist,

but I'd have to be pessimistic

by looking at the book,
you know?

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

GEORGE: (OVER RECORD PLAYER)
Shit's a nice word.

The middle class has never
really been into "shit,"

you know, as a word.

You'll hear it
around the kitchen

if someone drops a casserole,
you know, "Oh, shit!"

-(GROANING)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
-KLIPH: Before 1969,

the United States had
what they called obscenity laws.

It was literally illegal
to "be obscene"

in any public forum,

and comedians
routinely got arrested.

GEORGE:
Sometimes they say "shoot."

KLIPH:
But obscenity laws were changing

all throughout the late '60s
and early '70s.

GEORGE:
"Shoot" is "shit" with two Os.

KLIPH: Little David Records
was founded

right at that same time

by another comedian
named Flip Wilson.

Yes. Here's George's new album
FM & AM.

And Flip Wilson's whole purpose
with this new label

was to hire comedians
to do their act, no censorship.

This was an opportunity
for George to feel freer

as an artist.
And for me to be a part of...

maybe in some way helping a guy
that I admire.

And this is all the material
that you at home suspected

that this guy with long hair
probably had in his heart,

but was not able to do
on network television.

Here it is on vinyl
with all those words.

GEORGE: (OVER RECORD PLAYER)
My job essentially is

-thinking up goofy shit.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
It comes right down to that.

I mean, you don't have time
all week.

So I think up the goofy shit,

and come on the weekend
to report it to you.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-There was Class Clown,

and Occupation: Foole,
and AM & FM, and...

Those were huge. And I
recorded them onto cassette,

and I took it everywhere.

We went on vacation.
I took the tape.

And I started
memorizing the album.

So it was just embedded.

Well, first of all,
who doesn't want to hear

bad words when you're a kid?
That's the greatest.

You're already
on perfectly solid ground

if you're saying "fuck" in front
of a ten-year-old.

GEORGE: Class clown used to save
his best stuff for lunchtime

when you were drinking
your milk...

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

ALEX WINTER: Class Clown
was an indoctrination,

you know, to get that album...

GEORGE: ...trying to make
the milk come out your nose.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

ALEX: He was cool, and funny,
and hip, but he kind of spoke

to issues in a way
that didn't feel

like eating your vegetables.

And that was what first
struck me about Carlin

when I was young, was that
he was funny, he was smart,

he was human, he was open,
he was opinionated,

he was curious,

he was political,
he was sexual, he was human.

And he was just so cool,

you know? He was way cooler
than everybody else.

He was just...
You felt connected to him.

You liked him.

JERRY SEINFELD: He personified
that thing that you see

"when you're young
and you go, "That's it.

That's the thing.
That's the thing to be."

And I wanted
to be just like him,

getting every word
in the right spot.

Because when he did it,
it thrilled me, you know?

And I wanted to do that.
I wanted that skill.

And I've spent my life
pursuing it.

Listen, last time
you were on the show,

we got on a subject,
and we ran out of time.

You were talking about words.

GEORGE: Those are my babies.

Just take a simple thing
like the word "alter."

Alter and change

are supposed to mean
the same thing.

You can alter your plans,
you can change your plans,

and you've done the same thing.
But if you alter your pants

-and you change your pants...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Just want to share
a few words with you

that amuse me,

and combinations of words
like "occasional irregularity."

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-What other kind can there be?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

If it were frequent,
it would be regularity.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

We got things like jumbo shrimp.

I stare at that a long time
on the menu.

-Jumbo... shrimp.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"Jumbo shrimp." And he'd
get that really... (GRUNTS)

And he did all the way up
to the highs and the low.

And even
in that little punchline,

the ride that he took you on.

Is it a large shrimp
or is it a little jumbo?

BILL BURR: How interesting
just sonically...

Those words don't even
go together.

BILL: ...he was as a comedian.

It's like military intelligence.

How did they ever get
those two together?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Been looking at that one
a long time. They got more.

BILL: The mastery that he had
of dynamics

in volume,
and where he had the mic,

and bringing his voice up,
and bringing it down,

he had an incredible
like broadcaster...

-We've met on the radio dial.
-...voice.

First of all, in the center
of the dial around...

BILL: When he would imitate
the sound of turning the dial.

(MIMICS FAST RADIO TUNING)

(MIMICS TUNING)
Do all of that stuff.

Eight hundred.

BILL:
Whatever he turned his focus to,

you were going at it
at light speed.

You have
in the center of that...
(MIMICS TUNING) ...dial.

And he just eviscerated it.

And then we get down lower
and lower,

-down to the hopelessness of 55.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Nowhere to go but up.

(MIMICKING RADIO TUNING)
Up... station... voices...

(MIMICS OVERLAPPING
RADIO CHATTER)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)

INTERVIEWER: What kind of home
did you come from?

-GEORGE: Family?
-INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
Like your background.

GEORGE: No father in the home.

My mother raised
my brother and me

who was six years older than I.

PAUL REISER: So,
when I was in high school,

my older sister was in college

and had a radio show,

and somehow
had gotten to George,

and he agreed to be interviewed
for the radio show.

GEORGE: And so
I learned to be independent

in order to amuse myself.
And all those qualities

that have stuck
through all my life

were probably formed
by that necessity.

I remember opening the door
to that apartment

on the Lower East Side
of Manhattan.

And I remember hearing
the toilet flush. I went,

"George Carlin just peed
at my house.

I'm a-- What a lucky guy."

INTERVIEWER: There's nothing
that you'd rather be doing now?

GEORGE: Absolutely nothing.

My job is to think up amusing,
ironic, and absurd things,

which I have fun thinking up.

And then because
I'm a word freak and love that,

I get a chance to transform them
into the best possible words.

And then because I'm a hambone,
I get to stand up

and try to present them.

And what more could you ask for

than to share fun and funniness
with people, you know?

But it's growth, you know?
It's always growth.

And all I ever wanna know
is that I'm getting better,

that I'm doing things better,
thinking of more lines,

cutting and editing better.

Move upward, man,
you move onward.

REISER:
Now, he's ready to leave.

My father says,
"Where are you going?"

He says, "I got to go Midtown."
"Why?"

He says,
"I got to buy a camera."

My father says,
"Don't go up there.

I got a place downtown.
I'll take you to these guys.

Murray and Saul,
you'll get the best..."

Takes him in the car.
Now, we're in my family's car.

We're all in the car.

George is in the seat
next to my father.

My father is driving.
A year later,

my sister does
a follow-up interview.

Poor guy, he does a follow-up.

It's almost like
that classic joke.

"I don't know
if you remember us."

And he says,
"Oh, I absolutely..."

That was
the strangest interview.

All I know is
I was on my way uptown

to score some coke...

"and next thing,
I'm buying a camera."

GEORGE: It's true that along
with all the other shit

that came from drugs, some
of these brilliant motherfuckers

said some things
that weren't so cool.

For instance,
Napoleon is known to have said,

"Let's take everything
out of our pockets

and look at it."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

America's public enemy
number one

is drug abuse. In order
to fight and defeat this enemy,

it is necessary
to wage a new all-out offensive.

REPORTER: The drug problem
goes through our society

from one continuum to the other.
There is no one that escapes it.

GEORGE: The drug problem.

The drug problem is...
(CLEARS THROAT)

...if Eddy has four ounces
of number two Colombian tops...

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

...and Danny has a half-ounce
of bad street grass,

how many joints
will they have to smoke

-before Danny talks to Eddy...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: The drug problem
seems to be

that nobody will really define
what the drug problem is.

To a lot of people,
the drug problem is,

-"I can't get any."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: You know, nobody knows
that we're all part of it,

that everybody in the country is
swimming in a sea of drugs, man.

I mean, we really got used
to that, didn't we?

We were told a long time ago,
weren't we?

"Say, is something wrong?

Why don't you take something
for it?"

They even make it easier
to get started,

a little orange flavoring
in those little tablets

-for you when you're young.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Little orange.
"Don't like your head?"

(CLICKS TONGUE)
"Two orange in the mouth.

"Yes, there'll be other colors
later on." (CLICKS TONGUE)

REPORTER: The adult world
have accepted and are living

the industrial slogan

of better living
through chemistry.

GEORGE: The drug companies
finally got us hooked.

We've been searching for it
all our lives as humans

ever since
before the loincloth...

People say, "We have
a drug problem in this country."

"Where do you hear that?"
"At the drugstore."

Every three or four blocks,
big sign, "Drugs."

Of course,
you have a drug problem

if they have stores for it.
Someone's got to abuse it.

And then there are drugs
we don't even talk about.

Forgetting alcohol and tobacco,
which is the greatest part

of the hypocrisy
because they're used and abused

more than anything,
and they're legal,

and the government
lives on them.

Forgetting that part
of the hypocrisy,

there's a lot of other
little middle-class drug trips.

Mom found those diet pills

did a little more than help
her diet, yessiree.

It made her grind her teeth
and feel good, too. "Hi."

It keeps her on the phone a lot.
"Hi, Marge..."

-(MIMICS GARBLED SPEECH)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

"Where are you going, Mom?
Shopping at midnight?"

"Well, they're open.
Never mind. See you later. Bye."

(MIMICS GARBLED SPEECH)
There she goes.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)

HOST 1: Would you welcome,
please, George Carlin

and his wife, Brenda.

Is it true you've given up
drinking and smoking, George?

Yeah. Brenda has all the vices
in the family now.

-I've doubled up for his sake.
-(HOST 1 GROANING)

No, I think
all I need is fruit juice,

and a little marijuana,
at an occasional party,

-and you're okay.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

When the flute player shows up
or something, you know?

HOST 2: Yeah. You're
putting us on now, right?

Well, I don't know.
That's probably the safest

of any of the things
you can put in yourself,

including booze and tobacco.

Do you speak as an authority
on marijuana?

-I grew up in a neighborhood--
-HOST 2: You don't want to

-get him arrested on the show.
-You can only be arrested--

I don't have any or anything
like that. But, you know,
it's really quite safe.

With fruit juice?

-Fruit juice especially.
-(HOST 1 CHUCKLING)

You have a daughter.
As she gets older,

what are you going to tell her?

BRENDA: I would hope,
if she gets involved

in any kind of drugs,
that marijuana

would be the thing that would
happen to her, you know?

I think we could explain that
to her

and possibly talk her out of it,
but I'm...

Oh, my God.
My mom and that fucking hair.

Amazing.
And my mom is loaded there.

Totally. That's a loaded mom.

-GEORGE:
The big thing is if she sees...
-I don't... You know?

...a truthful attitude
around the home about marijuana,

'cause she's gonna know
from her school chums.

And if she sees that
we're being truthful about one,

perhaps she'll trust us then.

KELLY: The fact
that they talked about that,

America did not talk about that.

Because it's going to be part
of her life.

It's gonna be part of the future
of this country,

just as all drugs are.
The drug industry

has us taking things
to get awake,

things to go to sleep,
things to pep up,

things to forget about the grief
you had from something.

It's part of our culture.
We are a drug-oriented society.

We should be used to it.
And I want her to know

-which things are dangerous
and which aren't.
-HOST 2: Hmm.

KELLY: When my dad
made the change

from straight guy
to counterculture guy,

it was kind of exciting for Mom
because they were starting over

as if it was 1961, '62 again.

And she's like,
"I believe in you.

We're gonna do this together."

But then what happened,
of course, within two years

was skyrocketing gold records,
superstardom now,

and big agents, and big things.

And my mom
was enjoying the lifestyle,

but once again,

she's not pertinent
to the conversation.

She's not in on the ride.
And now, the drugs are there.

And cocaine
really changed everything.

There's one thing to have
one person drunk in the house

and the other one smoking weed
and a couple of beers,

very different when both people
are doing a drug

that makes that part
of your brain become aggressive

and greedy.

And it really did escalate
and undermine

everything in our family

when cocaine
came into the picture.

GEORGE: Parents are supposed
to pass along their authority.

As you grow up,

other parts of the world assume
some of that authority,

the police, the state,
the wife that you choose,

they get that authority
that your parents had.

But none of them
ever wield that authority

with the flair
that your parents did,
you know?

Can you picture a guy
at a tollbooth saying,

-"Did you eat your peas?"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: The thing
about being hot,

and being the hot new guy,
and the fastest new gun in town,

it was just incredibly exciting.

That's what it is, you know?
You all come from different...

And the first time
you get caught

in your own traffic jam,

the first time
you're driving to the theater

and you're stuck
in theater traffic,

it's just a fabulous feeling.
"I have created this."

These people have come here just
to hear me,

"to hear this stuff
that I'm doing, you know?"

I think about those things,
don't you?

On the way to the theater,

"What kind of a member
of the audience"

am I going to be tonight?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
Will I be a credit to my row?"

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: If there's a fire drill,
will my table

"stomp the shit
out of each other?"

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: I had
a jet plane at the time.
I bought my own jet plane.

-INTERVIEWER: What?
-GEORGE: The Jet Commander.

-(CHUCKLING)
-(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)

GEORGE: And I sat
in my own plane

with two six-packs
and an ounce of pot

and a lot of cocaine

alone on the ramp at LaGuardia.

And I just had a party,
a one-man party.

(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)

GEORGE: Anyway, it was a symbol.
It's a wonderful symbol

-of excess.
-INTERVIEWER: Sure. Sure.

GEORGE: And it was a symbol,
too, of my complete lack

of appreciation for the need

to have sound attention
to my finances.

Brenda was on the home front

and had
to be the disciplinarian,

and I didn't see
her need for her identity.

I just... I hide a lot of stuff
from myself.

I deny a lot of stuff.

Leave it alone
unless it explodes.

And when it's not exploding...

it doesn't attract my attention.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)

GEORGE: I just got to be honest
with you,

I'm not one of them
bullshit showbusiness people,

man, who makes believe
everything is going okay

because everything
is not going okay, man.

HOST: What did they do
to you in Milwaukee?

GEORGE: You know?

Well,
they tried to, they wanted to--

HOST: Do you want
to talk about a little bit?

-Sure enough.
-Sure enough, man.

♪ I'm from Milwaukee
and I oughta know ♪

In this country,
there's no morality in business.

It's strictly a ledger game.
Keep the ledger in the black.

It was a Summerfest
and it was a large gathering,

around 70,000.
Fuck everything else.

Don't worry about your soul.
Don't worry about the other guy.

Keep it in the black.

I had, or have,
a part of my presentation

called "The Seven Words
You Cannot Say on Television."

Four hundred thousand words
in the English language

and there are only seven of them

that you can't say
on television.

And the routine worked
everywhere, really, very well.

Three ninety-nine,
nine ninety-three to seven.

-Except in Milwaukee.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE: Now,
they must really be bad words.

One policeman took exception.
"He can't say that!"

(BABBLES) Apparently,
he hadn't been listening

in the locker room
to the other guys talking.

Those are the words
that will infect your mind,

curve your spine, and lose
the war for the allies, man.

KELLY: During the summertime,

Mom and I
would go on the road with him.

So, I'm backstage,

and the promoter comes up
to my mom and says to her,

"The cops are here.

They're not liking the language
that's coming from the stage,

and they're going
to arrest George."

And my mom knows that my dad

is carrying weed and coke
in his pockets.

She grabbed a glass of water
and walked out onto the stage,

whispering in his ear,
"Cops are here."

GEORGE: Okay, cool.
Thank you, baby.

KELLY: "Exit stage left."

GEORGE: Oh, that's not
what she told me.

She told me I had to split soon.

KELLY: He leaves the stage,
emptying his pockets.

The door opens. Cops are there.

And they arrested me
for disorderly conduct,

profanity,

as opposed to disorderly conduct
drunk, I guess...

REPORTER: ...that he did
on July 21st, 1972...

(READS POLICE REPORT)

In 1972, I happened to go
to my very first Summerfest

in Milwaukee.
Huge crowds and performance.

And I was there
when George Carlin

performed his routine.

The next morning, got up
for my Saturday rotation of duty

and in walked the police
with George Carlin in handcuffs.

GEORGE: The next day,
the district attorney

asked the policeman,
he was questioning me.

He says, "Was there disorder?
Was he saying this to people?

Was he mad? Was he disorderly?
Were the people disorderly?"

He said, "I dunno," he said...
(BABBLES)

So he turned to his assistant
district attorney, and he said,

"You were there.
What did the audience do?"

He said, "Well, they gave him
a standing ovation."

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

I do recall that at some point
during the trial,

the judge sort
of covered his face.

He did not want people to see
that he was laughing

at the routine
that was being performed.

There was no dispute
that he said the words.

The issue was,
did it tend to cause

or provoke a disturbance?
And, of course,

not only did it not, I was there
and saw that it did not.

So, George Carlin
was not guilty.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

GEORGE: I thought I might
bring you up to date on the list

of words you can't say
all the time.

-That's the only thing.
-(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)

That's the only thing
you can really call them

and includes them.

"The words you can't say
all the time."

Some of the time,
not all the time.

When you're a kid,
you can't say any of them.

(SCOFFS, GROANS) None at all.

Then pretty soon you're growing.
They can't stop that, can they?

But pretty soon, "hell"
and "damn" break through.

Dad tells you a joke
with "shit" in it. (EXHALES)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)

"Don't tell your mom
I told you that."

"Why not?" "It's a word
you can't say all the time."

Not all the time. Mixed company,
there's ladies here.

"Hey, I got a joke for you,
Floyd, but this lady's here."

"Go ahead. She's filthy.
Tell me."

It's all it is.
It's your filth threshold.

The thing that bothers me
is that there's no list

of these words anywhere, man.
I mean, it would make sense

to have a list of them,
wouldn't it?

They never give you a list
when you're a kid.

You've got to say them
to find out what they are.

-Shit. (MIMICS THUD)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-Fuck. (MIMICS THUD)
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Wouldn't it be smart
to give you a list?

"You're six years old now.
Here's the list of the words

your daddy and I don't ever
want to hear you say."

"Hey, thanks, Ma.
Boy, that'll come in handy.

Save me an ass-kicking."

-(MIMICS THUD)
-(GROANS)

The whole idea of the original
seven words routine

was that he wanted to know

what are the words that I might
get fined for saying on stage.

And he said, "You know,

ironically,
the FCC won't tell me.

So how do I know

if I'm gonna be in trouble
or not?"

GEORGE: I kept finding more ways
to describe dirty words

than there were dirty words.

They call them dirty, bad,
filthy, foul, vile, vulgar,

-off-color...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

...blue...

naughty, bawdy, saucy, raunchy,

street language, gutter talk,
locker room talk,

barracks language, indecent...

-in poor taste, suggestive...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

...cursing, cussing, swearing,
profanity, obscenity.

All I could think of was shit,
piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,

motherfucker, and tits.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, CHEERING)

Seven words.

He says the seven dirty words,
shit, piss, fuck, cunt,

cocksucker,
motherfucker, and tits.

Shit, piss, cunt.

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt,
cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.

And the crowd goes crazy.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, CHEERING)

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt,

cocksucker,
motherfucker, and tits.

That was my original list.
I knew it wasn't complete.

-PATTON: Then he goes...
-But it was a starter set.

PATTON: ...and breaks apart
why are these dirty words?

GEORGE:
And usually, on television,

some of the words
aren't always dirty, like ass.

The word ass is okay.

Part of the time, you can say
ass on TV. You can say,

"Well, you've made a perfect ass
of yourself tonight."

But you can't say,
"Hey, let's go get some ass."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, CHEERING)

GEORGE: You can use ass
in the religious sense.

If you happen to be the Redeemer

riding into town on one,
perfectly all right.

But don't get off and say,
"The donkey hurt my ass."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
Same thing with the word ball.

It's okay for Joe Garagiola
at Saturday afternoon

to say, "Johnny Bench
has two balls on him."

But if he gets hit there,

they don't mention
he got hit in the balls.

They say it's a groin injury.

Words like prick,
prick is okay on television,

you can prick your finger.

-But don't finger your prick.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

However,
you can refer to fucking.

You can talk about fucking.
They do that all the time.

Some of the times,
the show you're watching,

two people are probably fucking
in the other room.

Fucking is all right.
Fucking is part of the plot.

A lot of plots
are based on fucking.

Will they fuck?
Should they fuck?

Have they fucked? Did they fuck?
Will they fuck again?

Will they get sick from fucking?
Are they fucking too much?

Will they fuck
each other's friends?

Will they have a baby
from fucking?

Will they be sorry they fucked?
Will they be glad they fucked?

All fuck stories.

Every honeymoon joke
is a fuck joke.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, CHEERING)

How did it get
such a bad reputation?

-We fucked it up.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Yeah.

I mean, shit, piss, fuck, cunt,
cocksucker,

motherfucker, and tits,
in a way,

he's talking about it's bullshit

that there are 400,000 words
in the English language,

and these seven "bad words."

Like the fact you can isolate.
They must be outrageous...

for them to be isolated
from a group that large.

And it made you think about,

"Oh, why do we accept
some things as acceptable

and not... and other things
not as acceptable?"

And the whole point was

"What's going to happen?
You heard the word.

Did you go out
and murder someone?

Did you go shoot up heroin?
No, you heard a word."

It's not about the word,
it's about the context.

Words, he always said,
Carlin always said,

"It's not the word.
It's the context

in which you use that word."

And when you eliminate context,
you eliminate nuance,

you eliminate intent,

there's no comedy,
there's no satire,

there's no free speech.

One-thirty on
an autumn afternoon
back in 1973,

a man named John Douglas,
the head of an electronics firm

and father of six children,

was driving
with his 15-year-old son

up in Connecticut.

The car radio was turned on
to a station in New York, WBAI.

Well, suddenly, they heard

comedian George Carlin's record
called Filthy Words.

It's an assault on my senses.
I don't seek it.

I don't desire it.

It might be his freedom
of expression,

but perhaps he should give up

that particular freedom
of expression

for the good of the community.

REPORTER: Well, the FCC,
acting on Douglas's complaint,

imposed a ban on words like
the ones used

in the Carlin record.
Not necessarily obscene,

but words that, to many people,
might be offensive.

It was played in the context
of language

and how we consider language.

But it set off a chain reaction
of events

where the case
went through the courts

and the FCC was trying to use it
as a test case like,

"Where are we gonna draw
the line?"

INTERVIEWER: How can you defend
the use of words

like this
on broadcasting stations?

Well, you don't have
to defend them, I don't think.

They are protected
by the First Amendment,

by free speech. Just as
in newspapers, in books...

(CLEARS THROAT) ...and in films,

the broadcast media
should be no different.

My defense would be that there
are two knobs on these sets.

A person can choose
not to listen.

A person can change the station
if they like. The question is,

can the Federal Communications
Commission

abridge freedom of speech?

How did they get the power
to do that?

And that's what the case
is about.

I think
Mr. Carlin's a very funny man,

probably the funniest comedian
around today.

In a nightclub situation,
it would be perfectly in order

because for one thing,
I probably couldn't bring

anybody in under 18.

Well, there was just the point
of the fact

that there's no prior restraint.
Even though that's true,

the fact that you can
be punished for something

is a form of subtle
unspoken prior restraint.

There is a de facto censorship
here

whereby stations
will be afraid to make

a decision
because of the possibility.

Philosophically,
I do not buy the assumption

that these words
are somehow immoral

or indecent
in and of themselves.

Words are only symbols, and they
do not possess those qualities.

People can be immoral
or indecent.

The words themselves
cannot harm us.

The United States Supreme Court
says that

the public airwaves,
television, radio,

and other forms of broadcasting

are not the place
for what it calls "dirty words."

GEORGE: They had found
a new category of bad language.

NEWS ANCHOR:
...may restrict the broadcast

of indecent language. But...

GEORGE: Indecent.
And that was my contribution.

So I have this perverse pride
that I'm an important footnote

along the way somewhere

in the legal history
of our country.

HASAN MINHAJ:
Things like the seven words

or Lenny Bruce getting arrested,

it's no different
than that journalist in Belarus,

them landing the plane, and then
ripping him off the plane.

You know, there was
a great satirist in Colombia

that was killed
in the early '90s.

They are really
telling reminders

of what could go wrong.

If people in power

say, "Hey,
this is where the line is,

and you've crossed this line."

GEORGE:
♪ Everything is okay anyway ♪

♪ Everything is okay anyway ♪

♪ Well, if the sun comes out
Each day ♪

♪ Everything must be okay
Yes, everything is okay anyway ♪

♪ If all we ever had
Was total war ♪

♪ And peace and love
And giving were a bore ♪

♪ What if we cried and died
All day ♪

♪ You could still hear
Someone say ♪

♪ That everything is okay
Anyway ♪

NEWS ANCHOR 1: Good evening.
In a landmark ruling,

the Supreme Court today
legalized abortions.

GEORGE: ♪ Volcanoes, earthquakes
Floods and tidal waves ♪

NEWS ANCHOR 2:
Washington has been inundated

by another massive set
of Watergate transcripts.

GEORGE:
♪ And man is forced
To live again in caves... ♪

PRESIDENT NIXON: Therefore,

I shall resign the Presidency
effective at noon tomorrow.

GEORGE:
♪ But if all we had was fire ♪

♪ You'd still hear
The caveman choir ♪

REPORTER:
With communist forces

only a few miles
from the center of Saigon.

GEORGE:
♪ Singing everything
Is okay anyway ♪

Cocaine, there's one thing
to tell you about it,

it is extremely pleasurable.

A few blows of coke
make you feel like a new man.

Unfortunately, the new man
wants a couple of blows.

That's the danger.
Catch you later.

-Thank you, man. So long.
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

I couldn't help...

You just, kind of what might
have been called

a slight warning at the end,

-your last line about cocaine.
-Yeah.

-And you know people who have...
-Yeah.

...come to grief over cocaine?
I do.

Oh, sure.

-Yeah, I know a couple of them.
-The biggest problem is

if you can afford it

and if you don't have
a tight schedule,

like if you don't have anything
to do until March,

-you'll stay up.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

GEORGE:
♪ Yeah, everything is okay ♪

♪ Anyway
Everything is okay anyway ♪

♪ Well, if you
Do not miss your pay ♪

♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

KELLY:
Dad would be on the road,

and I'd be calling down
to the liquor store

and ordering a case of wine

because that's what my mom
wanted.

There was this guy, Fred,

who was driving me
to school and back

because my dad does not trust
my mother in a car anymore.

I mean, I have this one memory

"where he comes to me
and he says, "Look,

I think the only way
we're gonna get Mom to get sober

is to really, really scare her.

So I'm going to tell her
that I'm leaving you.

Now, I'm not going to leave you,

but we're gonna pretend
that I am

because we need Mom
to be scared enough

"to do something
about her drinking."

I became his emotional ally.

I was like the only other adult

that he could talk to
about this.

GEORGE: The pain I felt
from watching Brenda,

it was just devastating,
that kind of pain.

And I wouldn't for a minute say,
"Well,

Brenda's alcoholism
caused my cocaine use,"

because that's absurd.

But it certainly had something
to do with it.

And Kelly suffered trauma
experiencing that in the home.

Mr. Carlin,
why do you wear your hair long

like a hippie freak?

-(CHUCKLES)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-HOST 1:
Who was that pretty girl?
-HOST 2: That sweet thing.

Kel, I guess I'm a hippie freak.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-HOST 2: That's
George Carlin's daughter, Kelly.
-GEORGE: Yeah.

Look at her face.

♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

KELLY: I remember
the pressure of going to school

and having to pretend
like everything was fine

when it really, really wasn't.
There was violence in the house.

Mom was a very aggressive,
horribly angry drunk,

and my dad also had

his father's anger
and rage in him.

So I had
the therapist's phone number

and would call him at 2:00 a.m.,

"They're ready to kill
each other. What do I do?"

♪ (UNEASY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

There was this one time
we had gone to Hawaii

for vacation. And at some point,

my mom picks up a knife

and is, like,
wielding a knife at my dad.

I throw myself in the middle
of it, and I was like,

"I cannot take this anymore.
This cannot go on like this.

I cannot handle
any more of this."

And I wrote out this document,
and it was like

this peace treaty,
like this UN-style peace treaty.

And it was like,
"I, George Carlin,"

will not snort cocaine
for the rest of the vacation.

I, Brenda Carlin,
will not drink alcohol

"for the rest of the vacation."
Made them sign it.

GEORGE: Oh, yeah,
this is when everything

was really unraveling.

My cocaine and drug use,
her drinking separately,

and our mutual dance of death.

I, one time, had a conversation
with about six people in my room

who weren't there.
Fucking hallucinating,

which would come
from not just the drug alone,

but staying up six days.

I would stay up
as much as six days

and not eat.

There are times
when I think I shall go crazy,

and then there are times
when I feel quite all right.

♪ So send in the clown ♪

♪ Don't fuck around ♪

♪ Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes
The pipes are calling ♪

(SINGING INDISTINCTLY)

I would miss dates,

and then they'd have
to reschedule them,

and I would go
to the cocaine doctor,

and he would make notes
that excused me

from the concert,
so we wouldn't get sued,

that I had laryngitis.

And I would have laryngitis
because I would sing

for six days
at the top of my voice

to the music I was playing.

♪ It's so easy to love... ♪

I would talk, talk,
talk, talk, talk

because the cocaine
made me talk.

And then I would try to do
a two-and-a-half-hour concert,

which is what I was doing then
and I would lose my voice.

Nobody gives a fuck
if you're stuck!

You're just stuck, you fuck.

Fuck you, you stuck fuck.

♪ (FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Hold it, guys.
The band is going crazy.

Can't talk much anymore.

Worked out pretty good. We got
our week pretty well done.

George had a very,
very bad throat.

He couldn't talk
for about two weeks

-before he got here.
-Part of it's disuse

and part of it's putting
it into action again.

-It's a little rugged.
-MIKE DOUGLAS: Yeah.

It'll come back.

MIKE: Why don't you bring
your mom out?

GEORGE: Mary Carlin, my mom.

-(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
-♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

I hope you're excited
about being here.

-Yes.
-Because I'm very excited

-about having you here.
-Well...

MIKE: He's a good kid, isn't he?

And I've watched you for years,

-and I love you.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-MIKE: Oh. Thank you. Thank you.
-Love you.

Boy,
are we going to get along well?

(CHUCKLES)

-He's a good boy, isn't he?
-Yeah, he's a good boy. Now.

-MIKE: Now.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

MIKE: He wasn't always
a good boy?

No, no, no, no.

MIKE: What is your reaction
to George's present image?

Well, couple of years ago,

I hadn't seen him
with the beard,

nor the long hair.

No, not a word that I know.

And he suddenly appeared
in my home.

And there he stood.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-MARY CARLIN: I went silent.
-(MIKE CHUCKLING)

And when I'm silent,
there's trouble.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

So he realized
something was happening.

And he said, "Mother,

don't you remember
what you wrote in my autograph

when I finished Corpus Christi?"

I said, "George...

insist on being yourself always
in all ways."

He said,
"Mother, eat your words."

(MIKE AND AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

KELLY: My dad had invited
his mom to come out

for two weeks to stay with us,
and she never left.

This was at the rock bottom
of my mother's alcoholism.

My mother was barely functioning
at this point.

And Mary was pouring drinks
for my mother at noon.

Mary would have one,
and my mother would have two.

And then in my mother's ear,
telling every horrible thing

about my father,
what a bad son he is

and just, all of this darkness.

My mom is down to 87 pounds,

crawling to the bathroom,
and she was dying.

I was ordering booze by the case
and having my drugs delivered,

and I was a vegetable.

How was George
during this period?
What did he try to do with you?

He was frantic.
He really wanted to help me.

I didn't know
what was wrong with me.

I honestly thought I was insane.

I thought I was going blind
in one eye.

I thought I had a brain tumor.

Well, I knew I was going to die,

and I would stay awake
all night,

and I really hit a bottom.

INTERVIEWER:
What form was your bottom?

Well, I guess,
my ultimate was backing

through a lobby of an inn

-in the Pacific Palisades.
-INTERVIEWER: That's a bottom.

-Yes, it really was.
-INTERVIEWER: Yes.

It was my last cry for help.

KELLY:
My dad and I and a few doctors

finally convinced her
that she had to go

into the hospital.

There was no Betty Ford
back then.

There was no, really, rehab,
but it was a 21-day program.

And about halfway through,

once my mother
had stopped shaking,

and she could sit in a chair,
and she'd gotten

kind of some her mind back
and everything,

she just said,
"I'm not coming home

if she's in the house."

And my dad
within like 30 seconds

was like, you know,
"Be right back."

-(CAR ENGINE REVVING)
-(TIRES SCREECHING)

GEORGE: I had to kick
my mother out of my house.

Old woman. And I said,
"We're going to the airport."

-♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-I was never happier in my life.

I never had a greater feeling
of relief in my life

than to know that I'd never
have to take the car keys

out of her hand again,

that I would never
have to go through any of this

horrible fucking tension

and shit that went
with her drinking.

And, uh, life changed.

INTERVIEWER: When you came
out of the facility,

you knew that
you had to change your life...

-Absolutely. All the way.
-...or you would die again.

That's right. And I made
that statement to George.

I either find who I am...
And, I mean, I felt

like I had really been given
a second chance.

♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

KELLY: After my mom got sober,
my mother flourished.

Not only was she
super involved in AA,

but she became a counselor
for people,

she volunteered at the VA.

And she immediately got involved
in my dad's production stuff.

So she became a producer.

She ended up working
for HBO for years.

She was a talent coordinator.
She became the Brenda Carlin

that she was always meant
to become.

GEORGE: I want to do one thing

before I go any further
because I am going to split.

There's somebody

that's very important
to this project and to me.

Brenda,
would you please come here?

I want to introduce you
to my wife of 17 years.

-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-She is the associate producer,

and she is my honey.

And if she don't come out
here now.

Come here, honey,
I want you to give me a kiss.

My wife, Brenda Carlin.
Come here, honey.

Thank you, lover. See you later.

Thank you all.
And good night. I love you!

(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)

Live from New York,
it's Saturday Night.

♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ANNOUNCER: NBC's Saturday Night.

Ladies and gentlemen,
George Carlin.

Talk about a live show. Wow.

Nice to see you, welcome,
and thanks for joining us live.

I'm kind of glad
that we're on at night,

so that we're not competing
with all the football

-and baseball games.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

So many, man. All the time.

And this is the time of year
when there's both, you know?

Football's kind of nice.
They changed it a little bit.

They moved the hash marks in.

Guys found them
and smoked them anyway.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JAMES SULLIVAN: Famously,
he was the first guest host

on Saturday Night Live.

But besides that feather
in his cap

of forever being able to say,

"I was the first guest host
for Saturday Night Live..."

GEORGE: ...the words
surrounding football

and baseball...

JAMES: ...he was not getting
the same kind of attention

that he had been getting
in the early '70s.

Football is technological.
Baseball is pastoral.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Football is played in a stadium.
Baseball is played in a park.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-In football, you wear a helmet.

-In baseball, you wear a cap.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

JAMES: At that point, I think
there were people saying,

"Carlin's kind
of yesterday's news

in terms of comedy." Like

he's not as big
as Cheech and Chong,

for instance, is right now.

Led Zeppelin. (MIMICS WHIRRING)

Hey, be careful with that shit,
man.

PAUL: In comedy, the art form...

-Here I come to save the day.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

...and the business of comedy
were changing radically.

-Oh, my God.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

PAUL: You know, that's the time
where Steve Martin

-was coming through.
-Okay, good. Now,

let's repeat
the non-conformist oath.

"I promise to be different."

AUDIENCE:
I promise to be different.

"I promise to be unique."

AUDIENCE:
I promise to be unique.

"I promise not to repeat things
other people say."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Steve Martin's work
was a response

to the counter-cultural comedy
of the '70s.

Steve said,
"That's now become the trope."

Excuse me, folks,
but you're not thinking

of going back
to the mainland, are you,

without seeing
this historical site?

JAMES: Suddenly the gigs
were kind of drying up.

So he was getting offered
goofy stuff

like Perry Como's Christmas
in Hawaii Special.

You guys with the peg legs,
stand up straight.

Guys with the eye patches,
look this way.

But he knew that to continue
to sell out

the venues that he was playing,

he had to be a known figure
from TV.

Oh, Mr. Wow, this is certainly
a great opportunity.

-Thank you.
-GEORGE: You can't be
the hot new guy in town forever.

I really mean it!

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-GEORGE:
You can't be the fastest gun

because a faster gun is coming
to town in a few years.

My record career began to kind
of wane in the '70s...

-(SHRIEKS)
-...as did the counterculture.

Are you finished?

Disco came into play,

and the people
who are the true radicals,

they retreated to the hills,

and the other ones went
and got MBAs

-and stuff like that.
-(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)

GEORGE: And there I was,

sort of not knowing who I was
and who I should become

to be true to myself.

Tragedy at the parade today.
An open manhole-- yes, yes--

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Funny where tragedy crops up.
At the parade today...

(CLEARS THROAT)
...an open manhole cover

claimed-- not the cover,
the manhole--

-(CHUCKLES)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

It's about shot now,
but I'll finish it anyway.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, CHEERING)

TONY ORLANDO:
George was a very warm,

almost shy personality,

contrary to what you saw
on stage.

There was a humble side
to George that I didn't expect,

but I don't know how many people
hung out with George

because I never saw George

hanging with other performers
that much.

You know, I don't even know
who his friends were.

It's so weird.

You didn't sense
that he was lonely,

but he liked being alone.

But he comes to my office at CBS
and asked me for a job.

Now, I was blown away

because I would think
I would be the last guy

that George--
Tony Orlando and Dawn show?

That I would be the last--

So, I probably
was the last guy on his list.

-(CHUCKLES)
-♪ (DISCO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ALL:
♪ Climb the highest mountain ♪

♪ And we'll sail
The seven seas... ♪

TONY: Now, remember,
this time period,

there was only three networks.
So, 40 million people

was with us
every Wednesday night.

That was a 36th share.

Today, that probably
would be the Super Bowl.

Now it's time for George.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

How you doing? Thank you.
Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I bet you've had words
you'd like to change

or things you'd like to add
to the language.

Things that could be easier.

Arthritis should be
arth-wrong-us.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

I think we should have
cheese fon-don't

for people who don't like
cheese fondue.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-Migraine should be your-grain.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

-Sure.
-(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)

-Hernia ought to be his-nia.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

And hysterectomy
ought to be her-terectomy.

(LAUGHING CONTINUES)

INTERVIEWER:
Why did you take that job

on Tony Orlando and Dawn?

GEORGE:
Because it was a chance to work

within the system
outside of the system.

Once a week in your own spot,
which is great exposure, right?

INTERVIEWER: It's hard
for a lot of young people,

I think, to justify going on
Dinah Shore and Mike Douglas,

who are not the greatest
flaming radicals...

-GEORGE: Yes.
-...why do you do that?

GEORGE: I don't go on things

because of flaming radicals
to start with.

At the time
when I appeared more radical,

I used to make
the observation that,

"Wow, there are people out there
fighting in streets,"

getting whacked out
on picket lines and stuff.

If these few jokes I make
qualify me as a radical,

"then the movement
is in big trouble."

INTERVIEWER:
Well, you've mellowed them.

-Is that right?
-GEORGE: That's right. Sure.

I've passed
some of my rebelliousness

out of my system by now,

and it was never meant
to be my mode, I guess.

INTERVIEWER:
You don't have any formal...

-You don't go to church?
-GEORGE: No.

We didn't raise our daughter
in a church either.

In times of stress,

I still go back
and say the Hail Mary,

but I know that I'm using it
as more as a mantra

than as an appeal
to some person.

I think that sense
of superior being

that we look to
when we look to that, is us.

We're calling
on a higher potential

in ourselves when we say,

"Please help me, God."
We're saying,

"Please, God, help me find
in me what it is like you

that'll make me do this
the way I'd love it."

See what I mean? Good ideas.
No book learning.

-(CHUCKLING)
-(INTERVIEWER CHUCKLING)

It's nice to be able to sit down
and talk to a genius.

GEORGE: Oh, yeah? Well,

we're going to have
to redefine that term.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

♪ (GEORGE SCATTING GOOFILY) ♪

♪ All I have to keep me
Is my memories of you ♪

♪ I sit alone at night
And wonder what did do ♪

♪ I lost you, it's true ♪

♪ But I still have my memories
Of you ♪

♪ Memories of you ♪

(VOCALIZES)

CREW MEMBER: Okay, George,
give me some head movement.

Then let's start again.

PAUL: He had been the guy
changing the form,

and suddenly, he wasn't anymore.

What is a handicap?

A handicap is a hat
that's there when you need it.

What is a cap pistol?

A gun for shooting hats off.
Get it? (MIMICS GUNSHOT)

PAUL: So, Carlin felt
out of step creatively.

He wasn't filling theaters
the way he had been.

That's why I think
a lot of the work he did

around that time,
it's kind of exploratory.

It's kind of... I don't know.

It's hard to describe,

but it's certainly not
his best work.

GEORGE: I want to tell you
how much I love peas.

I used to say, "I love this."
"Boy, I really love baseball.

Hey." (CHUCKLING)

GEORGE: You like baseball.

-I fucking love peas, man.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

PATTON: He was kind
of in the wilderness.

GEORGE: (SINGING TO TUNE OF
"GIVE PEACE A CHANCE")
♪ All I am saying ♪

♪ Is give peas a chance ♪

He had kind of collapsed
in on himself a little bit,

where he was literally
parsing words

to a point
where it sounded like

someone doing a parody
of George Carlin.

Underrated vegetables
like beets. Beets.

SCTV did a pretty vicious
take on him.

-Beats me.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

There's red wine,
and there's white wine,

-but there's no green wine.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

There's green grapes,
but no green wine.

-Why?
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

For God's sakes,
will you just shut up?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

Max, do you ever notice
when you're making a movie

that you always show eating
but never going to the bathroom?

Come on, come on, and stop doing
those stupid bits.

Women hate them. I hate them.

GEORGE: At the end of the '70s,

somebody wrote a column
in some paper,

and it was a paper I admired,
saying...

(READS PROMPT)

And then in an article
somewhere, Cheech Marin,

he says...

(READS PROMPT)

He's obsolete.

(READS PROMPT)

-I see that.
-INTERVIEWER: Jesus.

GEORGE: So I say to myself,

"I'm gonna make
these people pay..."

by getting better

"and learning how to really
be a fucking artist."

And it gave me an inner resolve
to be terrific.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

To go to a new level.

To just fucking show the world
what was really inside of me.

♪ (MUSIC SWELLS) ♪

♪ (MUSIC LOWERS) ♪

♪ ("I CAN'T STAND IT"
BY LOU REED PLAYING) ♪

♪ (SONG FADES) ♪