George Carlin: 1937-2008

George Carlin was no stranger to Hamilton audiences.

The groundbreaking comic, who died Sunday of a heart failure at the age of 71, performed twice in the past six years at Hamilton Place and was a popular draw both times.

In fact, Carlin was enjoying as much popularity at the time of his death as he was when he became a cultural icon in 1972 with his famous (or infamous) Seven Words You Can't Say On Television.

Appearing in movies such as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) and Dogma (1999) introduced him to a second wave of fans, and his role as Mr. Conductor on the PBS children's program, Shining Time Station (1991-93), and as the hippie Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the animated movie Cars (2006), gave him a third generation of fans.

The New York-born-and-raised Carlin's movie career stretches back to the 1968 Doris Day movie With Six You Get Eggroll, but he had made his acting debut in the TV show That Girl two years earlier as Marlo Thomas's agent.

He had been working traditional standup in the early '60s with varying degrees of success, but it was when he fell under the sway of iconoclastic comic Lenny Bruce --and got rid of his suits and ties and grew his hair long in a ponytail -- that he scored big time as a counterculture comic, poking fun at the establishment and his audience with equal measure.

He started somewhat innocently with characters such as Al Sleet, the hippie dippy weatherman ("Tonight's forecast: dark, continuing mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning") but eventually his act took a sharp turn.

You couldn't really describe Carlin as a standup comic, although his performances owed much to that field of entertainment.

His show became more akin to guerrilla theatre, stream of consciousness monologues and obscene rants that ranged wide and far and deep inside what many might interpret as the mind of a pretty weird guy.

Carlin was an idea man, and words and phrases were his stock in trade, whether using them or questioning them.

"Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?" was a good example of his style, as was questioning phrases such as "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence."

Websites such as brainyquote.com are filled with Carlin one-liners, and his own site, georgecarlin.com, give great insights into his work.

While he became famous for his Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television routine, most of the rest of his act was equally unreportable in mainstream media.

At his 2006 Hamilton show, topics included suicide, auto-erotic asphyxiation, enemas, airplane flatulence, car accidents, various and sundry sexual acts and a list of people who should be killed, such as yuppie parents, Greenpeacers and white guys who shave their heads.

"Somebody's got to think of these things, and apparently I've been appointed," Carlin said during the show.

His appointment seemed to come in 1972 with his comedy album Class Clown, which included Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, and led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity laws.

He was arrested that year for doing the bit at a show in Milwaukee and charged for disturbing the peace. A judge dismissed the case, saying the bit was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

When a New York radio station later played his record uncut, a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upheld the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," Carlin told The Associated Press.

Carlin made 23 comedy albums, 14 U.S. cable specials and wrote three bestselling books, Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?. He was also the host for the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975.

He won four Grammys and learned last week he was to be awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Nov. 10 in Washington.

But in between the accolades were setbacks and tragedies.

His wife of 36 years, Brenda, died in 1997, and Carlin had suffered a series of heart attacks and some battles with the bottle and other substances.

Carlin went into hospital in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died that evening. Carlin is survived by second wife, Sally Wade, and his daughter, Kelly Carlin McCall.

Tributes poured in for the comic yesterday, with Ben Stiller calling Carlin "a hugely influential force in standup comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humour was brave and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats."

Added Judd Apatow, director of Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, "Nobody was funnier than George Carlin."

Carlin started working as a disc jockey while in the U.S. air force in the mid-'50s before hooking up with fellow comic Jack Burns and heading to Hollywood in 1960 as Burns & Carlin.

His break came within months when they appeared on The Jack Paar Tonight Show.

He broke with Burns two years later and worked solo in traditional standup until he had an epiphany.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin is quoted by The Associated Press.

So out went his shirt and tie in favour of T-shirts, jeans, a beard, ponytail and new attitude. The rest was entertainment history.

dfoley@thespec.com 905-526-3264

With files from The Associated Press