10 Surprising Facts About George Carlin

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 10 Surprising Facts About George Carlin.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. HE HAD A LIFELONG INTEREST IN CURSE WORDS.
He wrote down the “most colorful” profanities he heard in his neighborhood and put them in his pocket. When he was 13, his mother found them in the wallet. Carlin claimed he overheard her saying to his uncle that she believed George needed a psychiatrist.

7. HE WAS THE FIRST-EVER HOST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, BUT DIDN’T REMEMBER THE EXPERIENCE.
He was “loaded on cocaine all week long” leading up to October 11, 1975, when he performed stand-up and introduced the inaugural episode’s musical guests, Billy Preston and Janis Ian. Carlin and the longtime SNL director Dave Wilson had gone to summer camp together as kids. For the Saturday night talent shows, a young George would do monologues. After years of Wilson winning the contests, Carlin finally beat him. (George eventually got kicked out of camp for stealing film from the owner’s camera to take his own photographs.) When Lorne Michaels interviewed Carlin about performing the hosting duties, he said, “Well, I know the director.”

Carlin was also the first-ever host of Fridays (1980-1982), ABC’s attempted version of SNL.

10. THE IRS HELPED HIM BECOME A BETTER COMIC.

About the Internal Revenue Service taking a large percentage of his money after years of owing taxes, Carlin saw the bright side of it all:

“It made me a way better comedian, because I had to stay out on the road, and I couldn’t pursue a movie career—which would have gone nowhere—and I became a really good comic and writer eventually, saving all my files and thoughts and things. I had to be prepared for that, because HBO was coming along, and about every two years—at my choice—I had to have another hour ready. So my having to stay on the road turned me into a g**damn good comedian. So there’s a bright part of everything.”