George Carlin

[lavrentis]

[MikeyT]

Very good and true.

[ozleicester]

Pure quality

Had this on my daughters t shirt during the formative years

[Zingari]

definitely one of the all time greats

he's on of those comedians that just seems to verbalise my own thoughts and make them funny and entertaining .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM

[21st Century Fox]

So many good Carlin bits!!!

If you like Carlin you should check out Louis C.K.

[Webbo]

Got to be honest, I've watched all these videos and not laughed once.

[Zingari]

Got to be honest, I've watched all these videos and not laughed once.

have you tried putting the sound on ?

it's not like charlie chaplin or the keystone kops you know

[SOCCERROO FOX]

If you like Carlin you should check out Louis C.K.

Never heard Carlin until this thread but i had a mate at work who went to download some Shameless episode for me and ended up with Louis C.K Shameless it was so crude but absolutley hilarious nothing was taboo.

[Finnegan]

I love(d) Carlin. For me it's less about laugh-out-loud comedy and more about the contents of his rants, to be fair. I think he was an absolutely brilliant poet and social commentator.

[Zingari]

I love(d) Carlin. For me it's less about laugh-out-loud comedy and more about the contents of his rants, to be fair. I think he was an absolutely brilliant poet and social commentator.

Yes , that's probably an accurate summation of his humour in all honesty .

It's like a warm feeling that you get when someone understands how you feel about the stupidity of a situation and can relate that in humour .

He just seems to be on the right wavelength to me personally , but I suppose if one disagrees with his viewpoint it will not be funny .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

Bill Hicks has/had the same effect on me

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

[General Smuts]

The 7 curse words routine Carlin does is ****ing hilarious. And he was immense in Jersey Girl.

[21st Century Fox]

Louis CK definitely took a page from Carlin's book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

If you like Carlin rants, you should listen to Carlin's 'Complaints and Grievances' album, he got pretty acidic as he got older.

[Trav Le Bleu]

If you spent all your life questioning everything, then you would never do anything or get anywhere - sometimes you just have to act on what you're told cos otherwise the BS he talks about is going to hit YOU!

I agree about the national pride though.

[Webbo]

I agree with the national pride thing and question everything, I'm totally on board with that, I just didn't think he was funny. It's always a bad sign when a comedian gets more applause than laughs.

[StanSP]

I find myself in a similar position to Webster. Didn't laugh once but that's probably because I'm used to a different kind of comedy.

I just ended up watcing Lav's sig instead

[Finnegan]

Louis CK definitely took a page from Carlin's book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

If you like Carlin rants, you should listen to Carlin's 'Complaints and Grievances' album, he got pretty acidic as he got older.

Absolutely loads did, there's a whole generation of comedians that sprung up in his wake. Another personal favourite of mine is Lewis Black.

[Finnegan]

It's always a bad sign when a comedian gets more applause than laughs.

I think I think the contrary, really.

Or maybe. I don't know.

I like all sorts of comedy, I don't watch Bill Hicks or George Carlin when I want a good gut-laugh, I'll stick on Rhod Gilbert or Ed Byrne or someone more "obviously" hilarious.

[Zingari]

I think a lot of comedy is only funny if you fully understand the subject matter

( for instance in the Bill Hicks video he talks of pidgeons in a bar saying "coo coo" and this is only funny if you know that he is meaning "coup coup " )

OK this is not exactly esoteric but i'm just using it as an example to demonstrate a point

I must admit that i don't find a lot of modern comedy funny because i don't fully understand the subject matter and don't even try to because some comedy needs a form of exclusivity to the audience and I accept that I will never fully understand some youth street culture .

Hope this makes some sense

[Finnegan]

Absolutely.

It's also worth pointing out that you probably need to share something with the comedian beyond a basic understanding. I imagine Webbo understands Carlin and Hicks' humour but it probably doesn't exactly match up to his political persuasion.

[Webbo]

It's nothing to do with agreeing with someone. I can laugh at Bill Hicks, I used to laugh at Ben Elton (bad example I know). I don't agree with Zinger's and El Empty's conspiracy theories but I still think they're good laughs. Even you make me laugh as well, on occasions, Finners.

Imo it's the job of a comedian to make me laugh. You say the George Carlin is a poet or a social commentator, fair enough, he's not a comedian to me.

[Zingari]

I'm not disagreeing with you Webbo because a comedian should indeed make us laugh , but to a large extent most comedy is about social commentary .

I watched an excellent programme on BBC4 a few days ago about the development of situation comedy since the early 60's and how it reflected ( or even heralded ) the social changes of the time.

Such sitcoms such as "Steptoe and Son" showed how the younger generation had different aspirations from the older ones . I fairly sure that I was laughing at different things ( or the same things but from a diffferent angle ) to my parents

"Til Death us do Part" showed the changing morals and attitudes in society .

Perhaps some of the older viewers were laughing with Alf Garnett while some of the younger ones were laughing at his outmoded attitudes . So it was appealing to a wide audience but for quite different reasons

I suppose in a sitcom it is easier to have characters that the audience can relate to because it mostly relies on some sort of conflict , whereas a stand up comedian has only his own viewpoint and if you don't relate to his stance then basically it will leave you flat .

Pehaps it isn't good to disect comedy too much though

[Trav Le Bleu]

It's nothing to do with agreeing with someone. I can laugh at Bill Hicks, I used to laugh at Ben Elton (bad example I know). I don't agree with Zinger's and El Empty's conspiracy theories but I still think they're good laughs. Even you make me laugh as well, on occasions, Finners.

Imo it's the job of a comedian to make me laugh. You say the George Carlin is a poet or a social commentator, fair enough, he's not a comedian to me.

But is it intentional?

[21st Century Fox]

Absolutely loads did, there's a whole generation of comedians that sprung up in his wake. Another personal favourite of mine is Lewis Black.

Yeah Lewis Black is good too. Also Patton Oswalt...

[Webbo]

I was at the Highlight on Saturday, 2 of the comedians were a bit crap but the compare and the last guy were very good ( it might have been that I was pissed by the time he came on). I wish I could remember the guys name, he was from Devon.

[Zingari]

I was at the Highlight on Saturday, 2 of the comedians were a bit crap but the compare and the last guy were very good ( it might have been that I was pissed by the time he came on). I wish I could remember the guys name, he was from Devon.

Was it Jethro ?

or Josh Widdicombe ?