48 Fun Facts About George Carlin

In which New York neighbourhood did George Carlin grow up, calling it 'White Harlem'?

Morningside Heights. He and his friends coined the nickname because it sounded tough; the real place was a small Irish enclave beside Columbia University, just up the hill from Harlem.

What role does Carlin play in Kevin Smith's 1999 religious satire Dogma?

A cardinal. The comic who spent decades mocking organised religion plays Cardinal Glick, who tries to brighten the Church's image by retiring the crucifix for a winking, thumbs-up 'Buddy Christ'.

Which entertainer did the young Carlin idolise and dream of emulating as a comedic actor?

Danny Kaye. Carlin's boyhood plan had three steps: radio, then stand-up, then the movies like Kaye; he later said he dropped the last one on finding he was a better comedian than he had thought.

In which branch of the US military did Carlin serve, training as a radar technician?

Air Force. Carlin called himself a behaviour problem who would not take arbitrary orders, yet the posting launched him: while still in uniform he landed his first job as a radio disc jockey.

With which radio colleague did Carlin form his first comedy team in Fort Worth in 1959?

Jack Burns. The pair quit radio in June 1960 to play nightclubs as a double act and split two years later to go solo; when Carlin died, Burns called him a genius he would miss dearly.

What was the title of Carlin's 1967 debut solo album?

Take-Offs and Put-Ons. It caught the clean suit-and-tie act that had made him a television regular; within three years he found that material bland and safe and walked away from it.

At whose arrest in a Chicago club in 1962 was Carlin also arrested, after refusing to show ID?

Lenny Bruce. By Carlin's own account, police were checking the Gate of Horn audience for anyone underage, and as he was hustled down the stairs he yelled into the bar, where his wife was, that he was going to jail.

On which late-night host's show did Carlin make more than 100 appearances across three decades?

Johnny Carson. Carlin first reached The Tonight Show under Jack Paar as half of a double act, then kept returning to Carson's couch long after he had swapped the suit and tie for a beard and jeans.

Carlin's most famous routine lists seven words you can never say where?

On television. He argued there are no bad words, only bad thoughts and bad intentions, and the routine made him what he proudly called a footnote in legal history.

Which comedian co-owned Little David Records, the label that signed Carlin away from RCA?

Flip Wilson. His own hit comedy albums launched the label in 1970, and its recordings of Carlin's new counterculture act then brought four gold records in a row.

Which 1972 album marked Carlin's shift to counterculture comedy and won his first Grammy?

FM & AM. One side kept his old clean television parodies while the other tried out new material on drugs and birth control, and the gamble paid off with a gold record.

On which album did Carlin first record his 'seven dirty words' routine?

Class Clown. He taped it in Santa Monica in May 1972, but it was a follow-up version on his next album, not this one, that a radio station aired and the Supreme Court ended up judging.

At which festival was Carlin arrested after performing his seven words routine in July 1972?

Milwaukee's Summerfest. Freed on $150 bail, he saw the case thrown out that December by a judge who found he had caused no disturbance, and for a while he called the bit the Milwaukee Seven.

Which Carlin album's liner notes promised that all messages from the Devil were recorded clearly?

Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics. The title copies the warning sticker record companies had just adopted, and the notes mock the panic over subliminal messages hidden in records.

Which radio station's 1973 broadcast of Carlin's 'Filthy Words' ended up before the Supreme Court?

WBAI. The only complaint came from a father who said he had heard the afternoon broadcast in his car with his young son; the boy was 15, and the father was active in a decency campaign group.

How did the Supreme Court rule in 1978 on a radio broadcast of Carlin's 'Filthy Words' routine?

Regulators could limit its airtime. By five votes to four the justices let the FCC keep such material off the air at hours when children might be listening, while leaving it legal late at night.

Which television show did Carlin host on its very first broadcast on October 11, 1975?

Saturday Night Live. NBC's new late show chose the counterculture's star comic as its first host, and he later admitted he had been 'loaded on cocaine all week long'.

Which sport does a classic Carlin routine contrast with football, calling it a 19th-century pastoral game?

Baseball. It is played 'on a diamond, in a park', he said, while football is played on a gridiron in a stadium 'sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium'.

On which album can you hear Carlin learn mid-routine that he has just won his first Grammy?

Occupation: Foole. He was booked to play the concert on Grammy night, so the news reached him on stage: handed a note mid-routine, he swears with delight and tells the crowd.

Which famous venue hosted the 1982-83 HBO special that marked Carlin's return to the stage?

Carnegie Hall. The comeback followed a lean spell and a heart attack, which he turned into a routine for the show, and he later said the HBO specials saved his career.

Which 1987 comedy starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long cast Carlin as Frank Madras?

Outrageous Fortune. It came almost two decades after his film debut had left him feeling 'totally at sea' as an actor and sent him back to stand-up to wait until he was ready.

What is the name of the time-travelling mentor Carlin plays in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure?

Rufus. He turns up in a time-travelling phone booth because a perfect future society will be founded on the two slackers' band, which means their failing history grade endangers the world to come.

Whom did Carlin replace as narrator of Thomas & Friends and as Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station?

Ringo Starr. The producers wanted a stand-up, someone used to conjuring magic in a void, yet on day one Carlin missed having an audience so badly that they sat a teddy bear in the booth with him.

In which 1991 drama does Carlin play Eddie, the hero's witty gay neighbour in New York?

The Prince of Tides. The script called the part flamboyant, and Carlin said the challenge was to play a gay man acting effeminate without turning him into a cartoon or a stereotype.

Which 1992 HBO special marked Carlin's turn to the darker, angrier material of his later years?

Jammin' in New York. Broadcast live from the Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden, it set the pattern for his last sixteen years: less whimsy, more fury at war, politics and a me-first culture.

What job does Carlin's character hold in his Fox sitcom The George Carlin Show?

New York cab driver. Carlin said he loved the cast and had a great time as George O'Grady, yet he could not wait to get out, because the sitcom kept him from what he called his true work.

Which co-developer of The Simpsons created The George Carlin Show with its star?

Sam Simon. Carlin called him very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but he disliked writing comedy by committee and later wrote that Simon had been hard to be around.

Which 1997 collection of routines and one-liners became Carlin's first best-selling book?

Brain Droppings. Carlin's own reading of it won a Grammy in 2001, and a Boston Globe columnist was suspended after jokes resembling its lines turned up in his column.

Carlin said paying off which creditor for nearly twenty years made him a better comic by keeping him touring?

The IRS. He blamed the arrears on business affairs neglected during his drug years, and said the long slog on the road to clear them cost him a film career but made him a far better writer.

Which casino hotel fired Carlin in December 2004 after he turned on his audience?

MGM Grand. After a bleak set about suicide bombings he turned on the crowd and was fired; weeks later he announced he was entering rehab for wine and Vicodin, saying nobody had told him to.

Which character did Carlin voice in Pixar's Cars (2006)?

Fillmore, a hippie VW Microbus. Pixar hid a tribute on his licence plate, 51237, Carlin's birthday of May 12, 1937, and in the film the laid-back van brews and sells his own organic fuel.

What was the title of Carlin's final HBO special, aired live in March 2008?

It's Bad for Ya. It went out less than four months before he died, and the album made from it won him one last Grammy the following year.

In which Ohio city did Carlin meet his first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, while playing a nightclub in 1960?

Dayton. Brenda was the hostess at the Racquet Club when his double act arrived for a two-week booking that August, and the pair married the following June.

Carlin's early routine 'Wonderful WINO' sends up which kind of broadcaster?

A Top 40 radio DJ. WINO is the station's call sign, and the patter came from life: Carlin had been a wisecracking disc jockey himself before he ever tried stand-up.

How does Carlin's 1972 line 'I used to be Irish Catholic; now I'm…' end?

An American. 'You know, you grow,' he added; decades later the pastor of his old parish opposed naming a street after him, saying his early comedy had mocked its priests.

In which city did Carlin give his final performance, in June 2008?

Las Vegas. At 71 he was still playing four-day weekends there about eight times a year; a week after the last show he went into hospital with chest pain and died that evening.

Which honour did Carlin become the first person to receive posthumously, in November 2008?

Mark Twain Prize. It was announced only days before he died, so the ceremony planned for that November in Washington went ahead without him, as an evening of tributes from fellow comedians.

What is the title of Carlin's autobiography, published in 2009?

Last Words. He had nearly completed it when he died the year before, so his friend and collaborator Tony Hendra saw it into print; its closing chapter is called 'New York Boy'.

Who directed the 2022 HBO Max documentary George Carlin's American Dream?

Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio. Apatow said he spent half his childhood in his room listening to Carlin's records, and he had already made an HBO portrait of another comic hero, Garry Shandling.

Carlin placed second on both Comedy Central's and Rolling Stone's lists of the greatest stand-ups; who topped both?

Richard Pryor. Their careers ran in parallel: each began as a clean-cut 1960s television comic, went through what Rolling Stone called a 'square' phase, then threw it over to find his real voice.

In 2024 Carlin's estate sued over I'm Glad I'm Dead, a 'Carlin' special presented as the work of what?

Artificial intelligence. His daughter Kelly called the podcast's special a poorly executed facsimile, and the case ended in one of the first settlements over an AI imitation of a celebrity's voice.

Which 'Weird Al' Yankovic song references the fake quotes attributed to Carlin online?

Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me. The song rages at a friend who passes on junk emails, and among the junk it singles out are quotations pinned on Carlin that he never wrote.

Which star headlined With Six You Get Eggroll, the 1968 comedy in which Carlin made his film debut?

Doris Day. Carlin played a wisecracking drive-in worker and expected the acting to 'just roll out' of him; it didn't, he said, and he shelved his film ambitions for years.

Away We Go, the 1967 summer series Carlin co-hosted, stood in for which CBS variety show?

The Jackie Gleason Show. The slot was a high point of some 80 television bookings in three years, a run Carlin later dismissed as superficial comedy done for the wrong people.

In which Louisiana city did Carlin land his first radio job, at station KJOE, while still in uniform?

Shreveport. Carlin remembered a hot nine-station market where his show reached number one, and the hours he logged on air there were the start of his whole career.

In Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl (2004), Carlin plays the father of whose character?

Ben Affleck. For a comic whose boyhood goal had been film acting, the grandfather who steps in to raise a motherless girl was, his official biography says, his most significant role.

Carlin's policeman grandfather copied out which writer's complete works by hand for fun?

William Shakespeare. Carlin told the story to explain his ear for language: his grandfather and both parents were gifted talkers, he said, and his mother made sure he noticed words.

Kelly Carlin's memoir about her father borrows its title from which radio show?

A Prairie Home Companion. Her book, A Carlin Home Companion, grew out of a one-woman stage show and gives an unvarnished account of a household where all three Carlins battled addictions.