Somehow throughout my comic travels, I completely missed George Carlin. I am mostly unfamiliar with his albums and specials, and other than a few bits online and a cameo in Dogma, the man was mostly off my radar. That being said, I am very aware of the trajectory of his career, as well as the comic icon he became. His penchant for exposing the raw and naked truth isn't really explored much in this special, On Location with George Carlin, but since it's Carlin's first HBO special I thought it would be a good place to start.
This special has some significant context to it. It opens with a little old lady in a chair telling the viewer that the FCC had a serious legal hearing about Carlin's freedom of speech in relation to this special, since the final twenty minutes contain the "seven words you'll never hear on television" bit. They ruled in favor of his freedom of speech, but Carlin chose to do less controversial humor because of the commotion that had been going on. This muzzle greatly softens Carlin's voice in this early 1977 special. He spends a lot of time with the small world, especially early on, and comes across a little bit bored.
It is very hard to nail down what is going on with Carlin in this particular special. His pace is slow, and the topics and premises he explores early on are a bit simple. Just basic observations about shopping, walking, playing monopoly, differences of dogs and cats, burping/farting. No deep exploration or honest insight to much of it, but simply pointing out that certain quirks exist, and then articulating those quirks with silly faces/voices/physical humor. His face always remains fully animated, and his bits of physical humor remain charged throughout the special, which juxtaposes oddly against his seemingly bored narrator. As the special goes on and Carlin gets closer to topics and ideas that interest him, it starts to mesh better.
The Seven Dirty Words bit, which comprises the final twenty minutes, is by far the strongest material. He leads into the routine with a bit about language regarding the elasticity and malleability of word meanings. Before the bit starts, there is a twenty second pause in which the following appears: "THE FINAL SEGMENT OF MR. CARLIN'S PERFORMANCE CONTAINS ESPECIALLY CONTROVERSIAL LANGUAGE, PLEASE CONSIDER WHETHER YOU WISH TO CONTINUE VIEWING." A jarring and off-putting reminder that clearly renders the tone of the comic landscape Carlin lived in. A world where television was strictly monitored, and the comedian's artistic and comedic principles did not yet outweigh the standards of rules and practices. This comic bit that clashed against this world, Seven Dirty Words, is originally from an album called Class Clown from 1972, and at this point the routine is already famous. The style of humor doesn't change much from the earlier jokes, but it's a much more interesting subject than his other bits of disconnected small world comedy fluff. Ultimately, it's his intellectual exploration of the topic that one ends up taking home, along with some clever lines about language that unfortunately did not age very well and seem now common and possibly corny.
The comedy in this special does seem a little corny at times, and might be responsible for skewing my interpretation. Sometimes older comedy just feels...old. Sometimes it's corny because the humor might be too close to its time period, wearing its era too snugly, and it's hard to crack for younger generations; the history ends up superseding the comedy. Also to contend with is my expectation of who Carlin is as a comedian which might get in the way of his jokes. I am hoping that by starting early and working through all his specials, I can closely examine how he found his comic voice, and better still how he developed the tools to express it. In the meantime, it's an interesting history lesson in comedy.
