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George Carlin Biography

Comedian

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George Carlin was the cranky stand-up comedian most famous for his 1970s routine known as "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." After being discharged from the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s, Carlin began his comedy career on the radio and in nightclubs in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Throughout the '60s he did standup while appearing on television sit-coms and talk shows, doing hip-but-clean routines like his famous "hippy-dippy weatherman." He emerged in the 1970s as a Grammy-winning comic known for mixing off-color wordplay, goofy absurdity and angry social commentary on albums such as FM & AM and Class Clown (both 1972). Later he had his own TV specials, wrote books and guest-starred in feature films, most notably as Rufus in 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (starring Keanu Reeves). As cable TV blossomed in the 1990s, Carlin found that not only could he now say his famous seven words on television, but that he had become a mainstream comedy icon. His records include A Place for My Stuff (1981) and Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990); his books include Brain Droppings (1997) and Napalm and Silly Putty (2001); and his movies include Outrageous Fortune (1987, with Bette Midler) and several Kevin Smith comedies, including Dogma (1999) and Jersey Girl (2004, with Ben Affleck).

Extra credit: Carlin hosted the first episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live in October of 1975... He was "Mr. Conductor" in the '90s on the children's TV shows Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and Shining Time Station... Carlin entered the U.S. Air Force in 1954. His official site says he received "three court-martial and numerous Article Fifteens (form of punishment just below court-martial)" during the next three years and was given a "general discharge under honorable conditions" -- one notch below an honorable discharge -- in 1957.

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