I have to agree. I used to like him a lot, but in recent years he’s been giving the impression of The Crotchety Old Guy. Even his books don’t work for me. I have no idea what happened to him or why. You can certainly make aan act out of Crotchety Old Guy Complaining About The State of the World, but when Carlin does it now, it lacks wit, acerbic clever observation, or Irony. It just seems bitter and mean.
I didn’t care for his turn in The Aristocrats, but he was going for far gross-out in that. It wasn’t the same kinda bitter his cact has been, so that’s juast personal. He probably could have been better in Cars, but he got little to say. I’ll bet mosdt of his stuff ended up on the figurative ciutting-room floor. I did like his parody of The Architect from Matrix Revolutions in Scary Movie 3, though.
I think it changed when his philosophy evolved to the “fuck hope” stage. (That’s how he describes his basic outlook: “Fuck hope”.) A lot of comedians satirically comment on human follies – but when you’ve literally given up hope for the species, and expect it to destroy itself, there’s just too much bleakness in the mix.
Sadly, Margaret Cho was hit on the head with the same “Not Funny Anymore Stick” that got George Carlin. I used to love her: now she’s just angry, bitter, political and dull.
Jeez, I’m old enough to remember the brief, five-minute window when Bill Cosby and Erma Bombeck were funny . . .
Much as it pains me to disagree with our resident Matron of Arts, I goota.
Five Minutes? Cosby ruled for quite a while there. Back when he was new and edgy and starred in I Spy and had a zillion comedy albums out, long before Dr. Huxtable. He was cool through the 1960s. I ignore the series after I Spy – the Bill Cosby Show where he was the gym teacher, and go directly to his variety show. The man had Groucho Marx as a guest, fer cryin’ out loud! (and not a watered-down Groucho, either, although an old one. He even gave a running commentary over the closing credits) As a Margaret Dumont lover, how can you not like that?
You got that right. I just realized that GCs segment was the only part of that whole movie that made me want to turn the DVD off. I used to be a monumental fan of his. But Exapno Mapcase is right about the GC Show being unfunny. And that is where I think my fanship for hime began to decline. After that, he really was turning away from making jokes about his dislikes to just vitriolic insults.
I agree with a lot of his opinions, but I come to the show so he can make me laugh. And he doesn’t do that anymore. He still has a nugget or two of good humor in each show or album, but it’s buried under a lot of hate. He was best when he just did “Goofy Shit.”
This seems to happen to quite a lot of commedians. I still lament the turning of Dennis Miller. He wasn’t as funny as Carlin, but he still used to be pretty damned hilarious. Now?
I’ve been a Carlin fan since the early 80s, and I think the 90s actually represent his best work. Yes, the misanthropy was undisguised (though it had always been there), but it seemed to emerge at a time when his imagination was at full force and his energy onstage was greater than it had been in 20 years. To me, his masterpiece is “The Planet Is Fine,” a routine that starts out as an attack on enviro-liberals, veers through a pocket-history of the planet Earth, and ends on a brilliantly unexpected — and strangely reassuring — meditation on the absurdity of human existence. Like Richard Pryor, Carlin showed how the best comedy comes from the most painful things: sadness, despair, hopelessness, failure. And he did it in a way that I don’t think any other comic has done, from the cosmically detached point of view of the ultimate outsider.
Since then, though, his imagination and energy has withered, and he increasingly makes up for it by swagger and by shouting at the audience. It can be a little painful to see sometimes. On top of it, age itself is taking its toll: shortness of breath and a failing memory are ruining his timing. (I saw him in the mid-90s, and he actually stopped a routine midway-through because he wasn’t remembering it properly.) He still comes up with enough good stuff to be worth watching; I enjoyed the lengthy bit on suicide from the last special, and his point about education needed to be made even if it wasn’t very funny. But his career is winding down, and I don’t see him hitting any new peaks in the time he has left.
I’d like to know why Miller stopped being funny, too. It happened about the time he seemed to undergo a political change from liberal to conservative, but I can’t blame that. There are funny conservatives (P.J. O’Rourke). Thee’s plenty of non-poltical humor Miller used to do that shouldn’t be affected by a change in politics. But Miller definitely lost it. It used to be that I tried to see every one of his HBO specials, but I never was interested in his appearances or his own show later on. It just wasn’t funny.
And Miller doesn’t have the same possible excuses as Carlin.
I agree with this assessment. And I believe that a large, and generally unacknowledged, part of why he’s so disturbing to watch is that he represents an object lesson in how bitter and angry it’s possible to become when we give up hope that the fucked-up-edness of the world — or more specifically human nature — is ever going to change. It’s sort of like somebody who used to be a fervent religious type but suffers a crisis of faith and turns into an angry evangelical atheist; in Carlin’s case he seems to be more like a closet idealist who thought he could talk everybody into changing, but now, feeling betrayed by a world that resists such persuasion, has transformed into an aggressive missionary for bitter nihilism.
In contrast, those of us who have been cynical from a young age maintain a steady level of bitterness.
In any event, it seems to me that he has realized he isn’t going to see the change he seeks in his own lifetime, so he’s leveraging his celebrity and using his fame to publish, frantically, before death claims him, what is effectively his grand philosophical manifesto. Maybe he knows that his position as one of the five best comedians of the twentieth century (I’d argue Pryor as number one, but it’s debatable) means his words will have staying power, and if during his lifetime these last few years of pointed diatribes are seen as secondary to his “early, funny” stuff, there’s a chance the later material will be revisited at some future date. In other words, he could be making a bid to become a posthumus prophet.
Or, maybe he’s just old and cranky. Perhaps his hemorrhoid pad needs to be re-inflated.
He’s no longer funny, but then again, I can’t think of one 65 year old that is funny.
But watching a very old Carlin special on Comedy Central the other night, I did laugh out loud at his bit, something about you know you’re not getting the job when on the interview you point to the picture on the interviewer’s desk and say “who’s the cunt?”
Dennis Miller’s conversion to a Bush supporter may not have been the reason he stopped being funny, but it sure didn’t help. Listening to this guy who is supposed to have a Mensa like intellect talking about how smart Bush is makes you realize Miller either aint too bright or he’s a phony- I think phony is more likely.
Cosby seems to have turned after his son died. These days, he’s basically a social activist. He gives talks trying to get blacks to snap out of the entitlement mentality and take more responsiblility for their lives.
Miller always had a reactionary streak—even back in the '80s he was preaching “eye for an eye” in dealing with terrorists. 9/11 simply brought it out full force. The thing that REALLY killed Miller’s funny was that he know eagerly sucks up to those in power. A short ride on Air Force One was pretty much all it took to buy him out; in the runup to his last (cancelled) show he explained he wouldn’t be criticizing Bush because “I give my friends a pass.” If Bill Hicks were alive, his head would have exploded. Bush could only wish that all his would-be critics could be silenced so easily. (Wonder if Bush gave Miller one of his patented demeaning nicknames. “Dictionary”? “Egghead”? “Roget”?)
I’ve been saying this about Carlin for a long time. He has fallen into the trap that many comics do. He goes for applause instead of laughs. His act is basically broken up into three parts that he goes in and out of throughout his act. First he starts with some sort of beat poetry that lasts about ten minutes. Gets applause from the audience due to his verbal dexterity and ability to memorize a lot of words. Not many laughs. Second are his political rants. Again a lot of applause since he is usually preaching to the choir. Not many laughs. The third part is when he comments on the silly things people do. That was always his strength and where most of his memorable bits have come from. It is the only part of the show that he tries still for laughs. He is not getting very many any more.
I did mention this once before, but Lizard mentioned that the audience was pretty quiet on this latest special. It wasn’t that quiet if you were actually there.
Not that I was the first to say it, but when he went with the “I’m not making fun of the President anymore” thing, it was all over. I was a big fan of his at one point. Didn’t know that he was a conservative, because apparently he always was, but when you actually refuse to be funny of course it’s comedic suicide.
[quote]
If Bill Hicks were alive, his head would have exploded.[/quot]
And that provides this week’s “Marley misses Bill Hicks” moment.
“Roget?” I’ll do Bush the credit of assuming he knows what a thesaurus is, but I don’t think he would ever give a friend a French nickname.
I dunno, unless it was that he always made his mark making fun of current events, and then he just started swallowing even the biggest bullshit? I still loved the campaign slogan he said John McCain should have used:
sigh
Or maybe it was because now he just seemed like just another shill for the president. When he said he wouldn’t make fun of Bush-that just seemed so weak. And it’s not that I’m a liberal-I loved his jokes at the expense of the left wing, too. If you’re a commedian, you kinda HAVE to make fun of those in charge. Could that be it?
He just seems to have lost his edge.
And think about it-even Jon Stewart made fun of Kerry, Gore and Clinton.
Carlin got out of the Army in 1957. He became a DJ, teamed up with Jack Burns from 1960-1962 and then became a straight, slick stand-up. He spoofed - ta da! - the Army and radio DJs. His first album, Take Offs and Put Ons, was recorded in 1966. It was hilariously funny but non-offensive to anyone. The hippy-dippy weatherman became more hippyish as time went on, but he was spoofing a beatnik attitude, not the hippies. America didn’t know from hippies in 1966.
It wasn’t until, in his famous words, that he got fired for saying shit in a town whose major game was craps, that he started growing his hair and changing his act. He had to do a bit - the Beard poem - just to get his audiences to accept the new him. His next album, FM and AM, was similarly split: one side old-school and one side aimed at the newer, younger FM generation. This was 1972. So it was a 15-year gradual progression that brought him to the Carlin we know today. Recently-discharged, my ass.
And just who among the top comedians of the 1960s were advocating Communist revolution?
A quick history lesson. Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Shelly Berman, Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, the Smothers Brothers, George Carlin, Robert Klein, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor. You know what they all have in common? They didn’t tell jokes; they did routines. And each had a totally distinctive voice, style, and approach. None of this interchangeable, one joke fits all style of comedy you can find today on Central Central. There was room at the top for only a dozen or so comics, and so each had to be brilliant.
But Communist? Even among the younger, hippyish groups - Firesign Theatre, the Ace Trucking Company, the Committee - none were communistic.
The farthest left comedian I can think of was Dick Gregory. He is way underrated and forgotten today, but without him there would be no Richard Pryor. Heck, there would be no Bill Cosby. But a Communist, advocating revolution in the 1960s? I’d need to see some proof.
Please name names, if that’s not too much of an irony.
Comics and other funnypeople are like wines – some age into significance, depth and greatness while others just turn to vinegar. Carlin went the vinegar route. He was once one of my favorite comedians. humorists, whatever. He was what Louis Black is now (and Black is piss-my-pants funny!) Carlin should have gone the mellow route.
I like Lewis Black a lot, but he’s no George Carlin. He’s very funny when he’s on, but he’s one-dimensional and I think he’s not as funny as he was a few years ago. The two of them are actually at pretty much the same place right now, and I think they’re doing the same kind of stuff - although Black doesn’t do the body humor gross-out stuff that Carlin does, and I don’t like that stuff anyway.
