Just followed a link to a George Carlin bit on war. He was making the
profoundly insightful and never-before-observed point that war can be
like a dick-size competition.
that kind of insight into human frailties? Oh wait, EVERY SINGLE ONE
OF THEM. Every bit of his I’ve ever seen has been like that. It’s like a guy
gets up and says “boy, those women. They sure are moody once a month,
amirite?” and everyone roars with laughter. RIP and all that, but seriously, I think he’s one of the most
overrated comics of all time.
UPDATE: BTW, I feel the same way about Lewis Black, a man who appears to think that yelling makes things funny. It doesn’t.
That isn’t his best work, but I’ll explain George Carlin ‘s appeal as being context-sensitive. When he started that phase of his career, he was unique. He followed in the footsteps of other acerbic comics with anti-establishment social commentary and turned the dial up to eleven.Today, there are lots of comics who do what he did. Many of them were copying his style. So if you weren’t around when his act was daring and new, it seems dated and not particularly inventive today.I don’t know what his best work would be, but I would point you to “Golf Course for the Homeless” or the sadly prescient “Airport Security” as good examples of him on form.