George Carlin - Comic Great or Overrated?

[applecorped]

I love George Carlin. I remember finding his album Occupation Foole when I was 8 or 9 in my parents collection. His style of observational humor was and is very entertaining. I noticed he got more sarcastic and somewhat mean as he got older and it take away from the enjoyment somewhat but I appreciate his body of work and hope it holds up over the years.

Where do you rate George Carlin within the pantheon of comics?

[HarryKeogh]

I find Carlin to be quite funny (and insightful...I'll admit I don't laugh out loud much when listening to Carlin but always think how spot on he is with his observations) but I think I would have appreciated his (and Pryor's) brand of comedy if I experienced it when they first performed it in the 60's and 70's.

I think their stand-up was very topical and you miss a little when you're not experiencing it in the cultural and political climate they were when they first performed it.

In a similar way, I wonder if people will find Lewis Black or Bill Mahr as funny 20 years from now as they do today (I'm not comparing their level of talent to Carlin's but they all do pretty similar forms of stand-up).

[PitPat]

He's in the great category. Up there with Newhart, Steve Martin, Cosby (as well as many others I'm sure I'm omitting) -- all the pioneers that put stand up on the cultural map. I suppose you could go back to vaudeville, Spike Milligan and others as precursors, but the concept of some person standing on a stage and making funny observations for an entire evening (with people paying to see it) was born in the mid to late 60's-ish.

His material was innovative at the time, to be sure. I guess that goes with the territory of being one of the first people popularizing an art form from the ground floor. Personally, I'd give him more props for his historical importance than the material itself.

I'd place him above Lenny Bruce in terms of forging a popular legitimacy of the art. Bruce's primary contribution was to free speech precedent with stand-up a distant second. His material, however ironic he claimed it to be (and it's not so clear about how "ironic" he was being) -- it's just caustic and unoriginal. Very little of it holds up today.

But back to Carlin. When I first got into comedy, I loved every word he uttered. As I became exposed to more and more comedians, he kinda dropped to the middle. And yeah, part of the disenchantment for me was the bitterness and preachy tones to some of his routines later in his career.

By the way, how many married couples do we have in this thread tonight? How arrrre ya! (Dang, it's hard to do a Bobby Bittman impersonation in writing).

[LukeB]

His early stuff was kinda goofy and his later stuff was less comedy and more the bitter rantings of an angry crank. But when he was good he was superb.
Is it possible to be a comic great and overrated?

[applecorped]

His early stuff was kinda goofy and his later stuff was less comedy and more the bitter rantings of an angry crank. But when he was good he was superb.
Is it possible to be a comic great and overrated?

Good question.

[truethat]

He was a different comic when he was younger. Not just in his style of speaking but in the way he moved.

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


When he got old he got stiff and bitter.

[Piggy]

A genius.

There was a time when he seemed to have lost it and was just indulging in bitter rants.

Thankfully, he bounced back from that, and in the past few years was back to his old brilliance.

He had it all -- the material, the moves, the face, the voice, the innovation, the ability to handle hecklers, social relevance, an incredible memory, you name it.

Absolutely iconic.

[applecorped]

He was a different comic when he was younger. Not just in his style of speaking but in the way he moved.

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


When he got old he got stiff and bitter.

You're right and it was sad to see him get so unequivocally bitter towards modern life. His observations in the past were humorous but his anger towards modernity and its foibles was strained.

[cgallaga]

Comic Great, not at all overrated.

[beeksc1]

George Carlin...

A genius.

Comic Great, not at all overrated.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Is it possible to be a comic great and overrated?
This was what I was wondering. I showed up to point out that I thought the title was a false dichotomy. He had a long enough career to spend time as both.

Thanks to an aunt whose views on what was acceptable viewing for children was a great deal more liberal than my parents', I was exposed to Carlin at a fairly young age, and loved it. As I grew up, I got my hands on everything I could find of his, and always loved it.

As he grew older, though, it seemed to me that he started sounding more and more like a vulgar Andy Rooney, just bitching about things in a not particularly funny way. I also thought he started to tend more towards shock value for its own sake, as opposed to saying funny things which were also shocking, as he aged.

And, frankly, his prescriptivist language rants never failed to raise my hackles.

Of course, as he was getting older, so was I, so it may well be that the changes I noted in him were really changes in me. I haven't gone back in ages and watched any of his old stuff. Maybe it would strike me as whiney and pointless as his more recent stuff if I did.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

George Carlin was a great comedian, probably among the 10 best stand up comedians that ever worked.

What I find odd about his career is that he seems to have only completely and trully found his voice in the 1990s. Before then, he was near great, touching great and great but in the 90s, he was great, great, great.

He himself even suggested that his last special, "It's Bad for Ya" was actually his best work to date.

He had better and worse bits but I never thought that he was "just bitterly ranting". Even when it wasn't quite working as perfectly as it should have or it didn't flow as well as other routines did, it never descended into meanness or nastiness.

[Delvo]

Sometimes he's pretty funny and sometimes he's just bitter (especially later) and sometimes he's just dull (especially earlier). My main problem with him is not about him himself, but about the massive overrating he gets by his fans, going beyond just saying they like his comedy and think he's funny or even merely better at it than anybody else, and into worshipful stuff like what a deep intellectual insight into our souls everything he said was, and quoting him in political or philosophical debates. He's the Joss Whedon and/or Robert Heinlein of comedy. And I won't read or watch another of their products either, even though I acknowledge that they've both produced some good stuff before (even if not consistently), just because doing so would remind me of the world's most annoying fans.