Steve Martin is the first comedian I mimicked, whose work I eagerly bought up, whose routines I (pathetically) aped in my room. Richard Pryor was the most lacerating and challenging (the impact of which hasn’t faded, whenever I rewatch), but man he was funny, even when I got the edge and anger more than the punchline; Richard Belzer’s breezy nihilism (on a talk show, no less!) gave the adolescent Reynolds too much confidence in his own sarcasm, and; Albert Brooks was the guy I loved to love ’cause so few other people seemed to know him (or, as often, understood or found him funny)–my god, a parody of the Mr. Jaws records that was patently unfunny?–Brilliance!
But George Carlin. Ah, damn. I can come upon an old routine–about planes, pieces of corn in shit, God (“But he loves you!”), the infamous seven words and the lovely extended riff of further words (“Mongolian cluster-fuck” the one that sticks with me)–and I pull up short and watch, as I did about seventeen times today, and they still make me laugh. Routines from the ‘seventies, ‘eighties, ‘nineties, and more recently–funny, pushy, witty, biting stuff in each decade. No one pitched as neatly smart and silly and scatological as Carlin.