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Dig A Hole: Mr. George Carlin

June 23rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

$h[+! The last thing that I wanted to do tonight was bid farewell to the paladin of stand-up.

George Carlin, one of the most influential stand-up comic of this or any other generation, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday. He was 71.

George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in New York City on May 12, 1937. He was educated mostly in Catholic schools and he attended (but was expelled from) Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, the same alma mater as Regis Philbin and (Timpani!) Martin Scorsese!

A stint as a radar technician in the Air Force brought him to Bossier City, Louisiana. Labeled an “unproductive airman” by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. He began working as a disc jockey on KJOE, a radio station based in the nearby city of Shreveport.

Late in 1959, Carlin partnered with Jack Burns as a short-lived comedy team. When the act broke up in 1962, Burns signed on with Chicago’s Second City while Carlin pursued a solo career in (and ultimately redefining) stand-up comedy.

His first television appearance was on The Mike Douglas Show in 1965. Soon Carlin began guesting on television variety shows, and I saw them all. He broke into television as a writer and performer on The Kraft Summer Music Hall (1966). The summer replacement series reunited George with Jack Burns who was making a name for himself as half of the comedy team Burns and (Avery) Schreiber.

This was around the time when I began channeling the art of “actor spotting.” I have forgotten the faces of countless former students that I spent weeks in a classroom with, but if you appeared in a 3 Stooges short and later pop up in the background of a Blondie comedy, I’ll spot you! It gives off an odd, triumphant feeling of personal satisfaction and after watching the Music Hall, I was delighted to see Carling pop up in a cameo on That Girl. Ditto for his brief appearance as a carhop in With Six You Get Eggroll.

After his many appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, I broke down and bought a couple of his albums. I wore out the grooves, and learned so much about comedic timing, after countless playings of Al Sleet, the “hippie-dippie weatherman” on Wonderful WINO.

In the late 1960s, Carlin did a complete career overhaul. Gone was the slick-backed hair and clean shaven face. Carlin changed from a Newhart-esque monologist to America’s supreme hippie satirist. His often imitated observational approach to humor remains unrivaled. And unlike Sienfeld, his humor was about something:

“If someone loves you and they leave and don’t come back, it was never meant to be. If someone loves you and they leave and come back, set them on fire.”

“When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.”

“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, ‘You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.’”

Creased pants and Arrow collars rapidly gave way to faded jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts. (His then unconventional attire cost him several TV bookings.) On July 21, 1972, Carlin made history after uttering the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. He was arrested for violating obscenity laws. The case, which Carlin referred to as “The Milwaukee Seven,” was dismissed after the judge cited some arcane clause written on a dated piece of paper concerning our constitutional rights to free speech.

Long before Howard Stern, Carlin was the first to wage war against the FCC. In 1973, some schmuck dropped a dime on Carlin after his son heard the same “filthy words” routine played on a New York radio station. it resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the government’s authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.

The controversy certainly didn’t hurt his career. On the contrary - It transformed him into a legend! He was the first-ever host of Saturday Night Live”(1975) on October 11, 1975, and coincidentally, the first-ever host of “Fridays” (1980), an ABC rip-off of SNL. In 1976, while at the top of his game, Carlin took a five year vacation from stand-up. He began his popular and very funny HBO specials in 1977, but for all intent and purpose disappeared from live performance venues. It was later revealed that the mysterious absence was due to a series of heart attacks he suffered during his layoff.

I have to admit that it’s right about here that I lost track of George Carlin. His HBO specials were a bonus for this late night Cablevision dispatcher, but with the exception of a few movie roles, I am embarrassed to say that I know little of his post 1985 output.

At the movies, it was pretty much uphill after Eggroll. After a twenty year absence from the big screen (give or take a Car Wash), Carlin returned to claim a modest late period crop of cinematic oddities.

He was wasted (in every way) in Outrageous Fortune and very funny in both Bill and Ted pictures. Streisand gave him work on Prince of Tides while towards the end Kevin Smith cast him in three movies. His last major appearance was as the voice of Filmore in Pixar’s Cars.

In December 2004, Carlin announced that he would be voluntarily entering a drug rehabilitation facility to receive treatment for his dependency on alcohol and painkillers. On Christmas Day 2005, after celebrating one year of sobriety, he experienced significant shortage of breath and other heart-related symptoms. During an eight-day stay at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, he was treated for a lung infection and narrowed arteries.

Four days ago, it was announced that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC would honor Carlin with its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Considering how brutally honest Carlin was, in his own way, he helped to humanize the hippies for middle America. How fitting that George Carlin be the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. If Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the great American novel, surely George Carlin was the great American stand-up.

THE SEVEN WORDS YOU CAN NEVER SAY ON TELEVISION

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Filed Under Obituaries

Dig A Hole: Harvey Korman

May 29th, 2008 by Scott Marks

“That’s Hedley…”

As far as Emulsion Compulsion is concerned, Harvey Korman’s career can be summed up with one name: Hedley Lamarr.

As Blazing Saddles’ ruthless land baron bent on keeping avarice alive in the the small town of Rock Ridge, Harvey Korman distilled every movement, every gesture, every facial contortion, every everything that ever got him a laugh into one nasty comic character. Although he appeared in three more movies for Mel (High Anxiety, The History of the World Part 1 and Dracula: Dead and Loving It), nothing the actor did either before or after came close to matching Hedley’s depth of Hedley’s satirical silliness.

Korman died today Korman died at the UCLA Medical Center four months after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was 81.

Harvey Herschel Korman was born in Chicago on February 15, 1925. The lanky TV comedy had a couple of unbilled spots in Gypsy and Son of Flubber before quickly realizing that his broad comic characterizations were better suited for the small screen. Korman’s first big break was a stint as a featured performer on Danny Kaye’s 1963 musical variety show.

On The Danny Kaye Show Korman began working in a format that would eventually bring him everlasting fame on The Carol Burnett Show. Over the years, Korman garnered four Emmy Awards for his work on Carol Burnett. I was never able to last more than 5 minutes watching this show. Broad comic antics with characters frequently breaking up at their own brilliance. This was the type of show that was for my parents and their generation. To my folks’ credit, neither one of them could stand it.

Korman’s distinct voice also led him to work as a vocal performer in cartoons. In recent years he contributed his vocal talents to Garfield and Friends, Hey Arnold, The Wild Thornberrys, but when it comes to animation Korman is best remembered as the snooty spaceman The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones.

In 1977, after the success of both Blazing and Burnett, Korman decided to strike out on his own. The Carol Burnett Show nosedived in his absence. Korman never learned the joy of being a second banana. No matter how much fame and recognition Mel and Carol gave him, Korman would never again find showbiz success.

As with all second-rate comics, Korman felt that he had at least one great dramatic role screaming to get out. The comic played straight man Bud Abbott in the terrible TV biopic Bud and Lou. As a dramatic actor, Korman gave one of his funniest performances. And his post-Carol shtick with Tim Conway wasn’t much better. I stepped into The Longshot based on the stellar reputations of director Paul Bartel and cinematographer Robby Muller. The colors were dazzling, the closest Chicago’s Plaza Theater ever came to dye transfer Technicolor.  Everything else about the production was ashen.

Korman was twice married, first to Donna Ehlert in 1960. It ended in divorce in 1974. He married Deborah Fritze in 1982. In addition to his wife, Korman is survived by four other adult children — Kate, Laura, Maria and Chris — and three grandchildren.

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Filed Under Obituaries