A quick chronology: November of 2009, in response to Newsweek's "Twelve Comics Who Aren't Funny,"
I offer in these pages, "Let Us Now Bash Robin Williams Part I," in which I defended (most of) the unfunny twelve, and protested that the author, Sarah Ball, should have taken on sacred comedy cows like the late George Carlin and Robin Williams.
Ball never took me up on it, so today I offer a continuation of my previous complaint:
According to their many fans, Carlin, as well as Williams, deserve exalted status as comedians, right up there alongside Richard Pryor, because they talk about life, culture, politics and have something wise and valuable to say, while at the same time being funny. I'll go out on a limb here -- getting laughs is a good indicator that what is being said is funny. Getting mostly cheers and applause, when not preceded by laughter, is a good indicator that what a comedian is saying may be very wise, but not funny. In ending up with this sort of material Carlin failed at, or ignored, the central challenge that rests upon a comedian and makes being a comedian an art form to be respected: make what you say get laughs. That, in a nutshell, is my problem with George Carlin, particularly in the latter half of his career.
Carlin fans make my point for me. Tony Hendra in his essay, "The Last Words of America's Greatest Comedian Ever," writes, "His mature pieces were essays, broadsides, jazz-like solos" -- great, but that doesn't mean it's stand-up. (That's why there are books -- happily, Carlin left us with six pretty decent ones. Don't miss, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?.) Hendra, more or less, admits as much saying, "In his maturity Carlin became a unique creative force, equal parts actor, philosopher, satirist, poet." Comedian? No.
And, to be honest about it, upon close inspection, Carlin doesn't even have much to say on weighty topics. There are mostly just boilerplate lists of left-wing complaints about society and politics. (Author's note: I'm left wing.) Worse, these routines -- for example, "The American Dream," the riff most celebrated, by fans and even my fellow comics, as an example of Carlin's profundity -- are delivered in a overweening style that condescended to the audience, the tone being something like Dennis Kucinich talking to third graders. Not that Carlin's audience seems to mind. They applaud and cheer. But once again, do they laugh? A couple of times. And, this is an audience of Carlin acolytes -- imagine the trouble getting diaphragm spasms from an audience that has no idea who he is -- i.e., an unbiased "control group."
How did Carlin's rep end up so exceeding what he had to deliver? I'd say it all goes back to "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV." Fans remember it as being cultural criticism on censorship and media, but it was mostly wordplay, Carlin's strength. And, even if had been a cultural critique, one funny routine does not give you a free pass to be unfunny with whatever else you come up with.
If you want to check out someone who offers a relief from all this, check Bill Maher's last special, "But I'm Not Wrong." During his set, -- as on Real Time -- when the audience cheers for a notion that is not a punch line, he admonishes them, "this is not a rally." Then he proceeds to punch lines, and they get laughs, -- and then the applause.
Next column, I shall do my best to eviscerate Williams. In the meantime, I welcome all comments that I'm a bitter, unfunny, jerk. To that end, you can watch my days in stand-up and decide if I should have been part of the aforementioned, "Unfunny 12."