Ask The Photographer If You Can Buy Pictures Of Other People And 14 More Apex George Carlin Jokes
We've talked about his complex legacy as Comedy's Moral Compass, defender of the downtrodden and free speech. We've detailed his (and Richard Pryor's) shift from straight-laced to bad boy truth-teller. We thought he was most excellent in Bill and Ted. Today, some of George Carlin's best material gets its long-overdue induction into Cracked's Comedy Hall of Fame:
The Seven Words You Can't Say On TV
Wikimedia Commons: Bonnie
George's signature bit on linguistic curiosities deserves first billing in the Hall of Fame. Here's Blink 182 setting the words to melody with a pleasantly ascending major chord progression.
Bi-Labial Fricative/Attracting Attention/Squeamish
Wikimedia Commons: Kevin Armstrong
“The class clown was the first guy to discover this” followed by a litany of the pure, uncut comedy that is the human body.
Solving The Housing Crisis
“I got just the place for lost-cost housing. I have solved this problem. I know where we can build housing for the homeless: golf courses. Perfect, golf courses. Just what we need: plenty of good land in nice neighborhoods. Land that is currently being wasted on a meaningless, mindless activity. Engaged in primarily by white, well-to-do male businessmen, who use the game to get together to make deals to carve this country up a little finer among themselves.”
The Government Wanted Muhammad Ali To Change Jobs
Wikimedia Commons: Trikosko, Marion S., photographer
“He couldn't work for a while. Of course, he had a strange job, beating people up…Government wanted him to change jobs. The government wanted him to kill people. He thought it over, and he said, ‘no that’s where I draw the line. I'll beat ‘em up, but I won’t kill ‘em.’ And the government told him, ‘well if you won’t kill ‘em, we won’t let you beat ‘em up.’”
On Federal Crimes
Shutterstock: Nathanael Lark
“The Supreme Court decided about a year ago that it's all right to put people in jail now if we just think they're going to commit a crime. It's called preventive detention. All you got to do now is just think they're going to commit a crime. Well, if we'd known this shit seven or eight years ago, we could've put a bunch of these Republican motherf—rs directly into prison.”
On The Sanctity of Life
“The longer you listen to this abortion debate, the more you hear this phrase 'sanctity of life.' You've heard that, ‘sanctity of life.' You believe in it? Personally, I think it's a bunch of sh*t. Well, I mean, life is sacred? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death."
On Death
Wikimedia Commons: Bonnie
“Nobody wants to die. People don't mind being dead. Being dead is great! But getting dead…nobody wants to get dead.”
On The Death Penalty
“We made ‘em both up: the sanctity of life and the death penalty. Aren’t we versatile?”
All-American Values
Wikimedia Commons: Little David Records
“By the way, speaking of American values: aren't we about due to start bombing some small country that only has a marginally effective Air Force? Seems to me like we're a coupla weeks overdue to drop high explosives on helpless civilians. People that have no argument with us whatsoever."
An Interest In Photography
Wikimedia Commons: Tony Fischer
Things you can do to keep people on their toes: “Go into the photographer's studio in your neighborhood and ask the man if you can buy the pictures. Of the other people.”
Church Consistency
“My church would keep changing rules. How could they change a rule? Any time they wanted, 'THIS LAW IS ETERNAL…except for this weekend! Special dispensation, magic words. Yeah, like eating meat on Friday was definitely a sin, except for the people in Philadelphia, they were number one in the scrap iron drive! Yeah!”
On Practicing Your Craft
Wikimedia Commons: Dietmar Rabich
Regarding cellist Pablo Casals: “Pablo Casals was 94 and still practicing three hours a day and someone said to him, ‘Why do you still practice three hours a day?’ And he said, ‘I’m beginning to notice some improvement.'”
Predicting the Militarization of Football in 1984
Wikimedia Commons: Staff Sergeant Bradley Lail, United States Air Force
“The object of the game in football is for the quarterback—otherwise known as the field general—to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with sustained ground attack, which punches holes in the forward walls of the enemy's defensive line. In baseball, the object is to go home."
What Success Looks Like For Comedians
Wikimedia Commons: Alex Lozupone
“Comedians don't wanna die. It's only a metaphor, but it's so true of all of us. We don't wanna die out there…geez, I was dying out there…Of course, if the comedian doesn't die, if he succeeds, if he makes you laugh…then he can say ‘I KILLED ’EM!'”
The Necessary Disclaimer
Wikimedia Commons: Noah Wulf
“Say what you want about America—land of the free, home of the brave—we got some dumbass motherf—kers floating around in this country. Dumb. Ass. Motherf—kers. You know? Now, obviously that doesn't include this audience, I understand that.”
