Updated Monday Morning
Breaking news reports that George Carlin has died of heart failure at age 71.
Here is a link the CNN obituary and an excerpt:
“But he was probably best known for a routine that began, “I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can’t say.” It was a monologue, known as “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the Supreme Court.
The “Seven Dirty Words” bit, which was initially recorded for 1972’s “Class Clown” album, prompted a landmark indecency case after New York’s WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.
The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices ruled 5-4 that the sketch was “indecent but not obscene,” giving the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.
“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” Carlin said. “In the context of that era, it was daring.”
Carlin was one of my favorite comedians. If memory serves the first comedy album I owned was AM/FM.
He had so many outstanding routines. BTW, these are NSFW.
Stuff
Seven Words you Can’t Say on Television
Icebox Man– Used to crack me up. There is a better version of this, but I couldn’t find it.
Rest in Peace George.
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