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George Carlin - a Texas connection
Comedian George Carlin died of heart failure on Sunday. For many like me, he left several decades’ worth of memories, from his frequent “Saturday Night Live” appearances to later TV specials and occasional movie appearances (or voice ones: He was the VW bus in the animated Cars).
Carlin struck me as smart, fearless and, in later years, angry and maybe a little bitter. Most people mellow with age; he seemed to start mellow and grow sharper and less compromising with the years.
I remember my first day as a Daily Texan wire editor at the University of Texas at Austin. The Supreme Court had upheld the government’s right to fine radio stations that broadcast adult language during hours when most children might be listening. The language in question was in Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television” routine - two of which you can hear most any given day on Waco streets when rap-thumping cars with windows down cruise by - and I expected my editors to debate the free speech ramifications of the story.
Their sole question? Did the wire story include the seven words in question? It did. “We’ll run it, then.”
John Fletcher, president of Fletcher Communications and a former Waco broadcaster (KJNE-FM), recalls Carlin worked with his father Earle Fletcher and Fort Worth radio station KXOL-AM (1360) early in Carlin’s career.
“My father felt that George was burning the candle at both ends, with an incredible radio show that ended at midnight, and then comedy until 3am at the Cellar night club,” he emailed me.
“He called him in and said, ‘Hoss, you’re going to have to choose between radio and comedy,’ knowing full well that George would choose radio. His reply shocked Dad: ‘You’re right, Boss. I’ve been needing someone to force me into a decision. I’m taking comedy, so I quit.’
“It was one of those forced decisions that turned out very well for George. He took newsman Jack Burns (who later teamed with Avery Schreiber to form the comedy team Burns & Schreiber) with him. Within 10 months, he was on (television’s) “The Jack Paar Show” and then his career really took off.
“Just think, in a short span of time, KXOL had George Carlin, Jack Burns, (then-future game show host) Rod Roddy, and (soon-to-become CBS News reporter and anchor) Bob Schieffer. A pretty good breeding ground for talent on a national scale!”
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Comments
By Ben Dover Waco
June 25, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this
Bitter? I wouldn’t call it bitter, I would call it “more meaningful”. He went from the hippy-dippy weatherman, and severn dirty words, to spot-on commentary on the screwing that hard-working, intelligent caring people are getting at the hands of the powerful, rich, greedy, and arrogant. Yet, while he was meeting out blistering commentary, he could still do it in a way that could make you roll on the floor with laughter. A rare trait, indeed. With the impending freak show that is about to unfold with the McCain/Obama election, I feel totally betrayed by Carlin for leaving us now. Who else beside Carlin and maybe Russert are gonna call “BS” on all the dung?
By Carl Hoover
June 25, 2008 6:34 PM | Link to this
Keith Randall, assistant director of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas A&M University (and a former Tribber and Baylor PR person), sent me this link on another Texas connection that Carlin had.
Seems that Carlin quietly established a journalism scholarship at A&M (insert Aggie joke here) in honor of a Louisiana broadcaster who had given him a hand up early in his career. A&M no longer has a journalism department, but still awards scholarships to students in journalism studies.
Carlin and A&M. Who’d have thought the two would meet?
By Jenn
July 2, 2008 11:42 AM | Link to this
Carl: I think that Carlin & A&M are a perfect fit. Two enigmas drifting in the wind. PERFECT. Now I can get away with this analogy because I’m the sister of an Aggie grad, Class of 1973.
I will miss George Carlin because his warped sense of humor suited me well. I loved that he took the English language and he made fun of it and with it and taught folks to let go and laugh.
Thanks George for one more laugh…God bless you wherever you are in the universe!