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Comment by jdub | Hacker News Reader

They're not even in the same sport, let alone the same league.

Not yet, but if you watch early Carlin it is the same pattern:

1. initially safe,sanitized corporate friendly jokes 2. some commercial success 3. ? 4. jokes increasingly become a social commentary and are less and less 'friendly'

I remember early Carlin and he pushed the legal limits of radio and TV broadcast from the start. AFAIK he was also the first to cross the lines with the "7 words" one can not say on that industry. He was always providing commentary on society but what I noticed was that his views got darker and more jaded with time. He started off using his knowledge of language to be rebellious and edgy, then delving more into self analysis tearing himself apart for self deprecating routines then eventually teasing and tearing society apart.

Hmm. My point is that Carlin did not start with 7 words. That is what he is famous for, but he didn't magically show up that day to recors that line out of the blue.

I am too lazy to dig it up now, but youtube has multiple interviews that go over that stage of his life.

Yeah I am not saying he started with the 7 words either, rather he was always one of the first to push the limits as the limits evolved. There were other taboos crossed prior to him.

"I Love Lucy" was the first TV show to say "Pregnant". "Bewitched" filmed Samantha wearing almost see through evening wear but television was such grainy low resolution analog broadcast that the audience was unaware. The remastered DVD's make that more obvious now. There are many other lines that in hind sight seem odd now. Benny Hill crossed a few lines and managed to get nudity allowed on TV when it was otherwise forbidden.

Not disagreeing, but since society was evolving as well, it seems more like Carlin was pushing whatever the current boundary was at the time. When he pushed and society gave a bit, he pushed more.

Trying to start his career with The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television would have clearly been a ... non-starter.

No one ever seems to remember Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce was in the same league as Carlin. Carlin's seven dirty words was straight from one of Bruce's routines.

3. shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits

For anyone wondering, these are the seven words you can’t say on TV (or couldn’t in 1970?) and the actual monologue about them is insightful and eloquent.

This is just the punchline without the setup.

I figured in a thread about George Carlin most people would at least get the hint, and also it marked a pretty important point in his career between family friendly comedian and counter-culture icon

" ...and tits doesn't even sound like a swear word. It sounds like something you should eat.

Try new cheese-tits! Bet you can't eat just one"

R.I.P. George

That's mostly the timeframe of his career. It doesn't put jerks at his level.

Carlin and safe, sanitized corporate friendly jokes never happened. If anything he became less intentionally rude over time.

Isn’t that how he started, before the hippy dippy weatherman?

I watched the complete Carlin HBO specials about five years ago, from the 1970s up to the last one he did, and they are very anodyne at the beginning. Having watched a few documentaries about his career, they don't necessarily reflect the risks he was taking live sometimes; but really, if you watch those specials, he seems to evolve from a tediously corporate comedian into a hilarious and unstoppable force of nature. So I can understand how people would have the perception that he started out generic, as that was what the public saw in popular output he made.

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