George Carlin unleashed George Carlin Commemorative Collection MPI Home Video, $99.98 As we remember George Carlin on the twelfth anniversary of his passing (June 22, 2008), it will come as a great joy to fans to be able to celebrate George’s talent with a new 10-disc multiformat set, George Carlin Commemorative Collection. The set incorporates all fourteen of George’s standup specials for HBO, several hours of additional television appearances and interviews, the recent posthumous CD I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, and HD versions of his final two specials. It’s the definitive George Carlin video collection. Fans of stand-up comedy already know that George Carlin is often mentioned as one of the top two or three stand-ups of all time. (If George isn’t number one, then maybe we give it to the visionary storyteller Richard Pryor, or maybe the anti-establishment soothsayer Lenny Bruce.) Fans also probably know that George’s stand-up has gone through many phases. The first phase, from his start in the late ‘50s to some time in the late ‘60s, was, in essence, his “entertainer” phase. He would goof on popular culture, do funny voices, and attempt impressions of famous people. George never necessarily stopped doing this kind of stuff entirely, but as the counterculture grew in prominence, and the ‘60s became the ‘70s, George’s focus shifted from the funny things people say on television to the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” In the next phase, George’s material became more autobiographical, more observational, more poetic and more philosophical. The first two impulses are strong in the nostalgic bits from his 1972 Class Clown album (from which the famed “Seven Words” routine originates), while the latter two are obvious in the title track of his 1973 follow-up, Occupation: Foole. That’s the space where we find George during his first HBO special,
DVD TALK JUSTIN REMER
On Location with George Carlin (1977). The show, recorded in front of a college crowd at the University of Southern California, is looser than most folks would expect a TV stand-up special to be. After a disclaimer about the profanity contained within the special, George is interviewed about his comedy influences. Then when he takes the stage, he riffs for a good two or three minutes before attempting any material. Later, a stagehand comes up and swaps out a faulty microphone, forcing George to dig himself out of the hole created by that energetic lag. Considering the powerhouse that HBO would become in the world of stand-up specials, it’s interesting to see both George and the company just casually trying things out in this first effort together. George does a version of the “Seven Words” routine in On Location, and he continues to do variations on it for the next few specials, redacting and expanding the list with new selections.
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It makes sense that someone who “thinks up goofy shit,” as George claims he does in his second special George Carlin: Again! (1978), would never be satisfied boiling down humanity’s complex relationship to language into one 10-minute routine in 1972. Although, by reprising the bit and getting the guaranteed laughs, there is also the vague sense of George resting on his laurels. The choice to shoot the Again special in the round, with the audience on all sides, also feels like a gimmick to goose some extra juice from material that a large chunk of the audience might already know by heart. But... it’s arguably a gimmick that works. George’s mid-’80s specials blur together for me, but I always remember this one for its look and energy. Speaking of those specials, Carlin at Carnegie (1983), was taped after Carlin’s second heart attack. The long hippie hair is gone, and a new hardness is visible in George’s eyes. His material is still pretty whimsical here, but one
catches a whiff of future anger in bits like his argument with his Rice Krispies: “Snap, Crackle, Fuck Him.” Carlin on Campus (1984) opens with George combining phrases from the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance into a prayer for the separation of church and state. Arguably, it’s an early version of the poetic word games that George would often use to kick off future sets and an indicator that his mild disillusionment with his Catholic upbringing was starting to change into something more intense. This special is essential, if only because it contains great performances of two of George’s best-known routines: the materialism critique “A Place for My Stuff” (“Have you ever noticed that other people’s stuff is ‘shit,’ and your shit is ‘stuff?’”) and “Baseball and Football,” in which George illustrates how the first sport is calm and the second is war-like. The 1986 special Playin’ with Your Head is sometimes characterized as the creative nadir before Carlin rebounded with his “cranky old man” phase. Sure, the special is a little short (padded out by a fake noir short film featuring Vic Tayback that has nothing to do with anything), and thematically, it’s kind of scattershot, but George is so damn good at what he does that this one can’t be categorized as a miss. There are just too many laughs. In fact, I’ve read quite a few online rankings of George’s specials (including one from my DVD Talk colleague, Oktay Ege Kozak), and I realized that even the specials that were getting dissed by these other writers I’ve watched multiple times in my life. The weakest George Carlin hour is still better than most comics’ best. Not that Playin’ with Your Head is my personal least favorite. That one is still to come (and, if you’re a Carlin fan, it’s probably not the one you’re suspecting). With 1989’s What Am I Doing in New Jersey?, George’s philosopherpoet persona morphs into something angrier and more aggressive. The energy he once put fully into analyzing the minutiae of everyday interactions he now focuses upon dissecting the hypocrisies of those in power and those who seek power. The Reagan administration and Christian fundamentalists are among the ripe targets he tackles with vicious aplomb. There’s still some everyday stuff in there, like a long chunk on driving, but
