George Carlin is one of the most influential comedians of all time. In my opinion he was is the best to ever perform onstage with a microphone, his wit and intelligence, with the sole purpose to make everyone in the audience and viewers at home laugh. Carlin was a game changer for the better part of five decades. George Carlin was much more than a comedian he was one of the most influential comedians of all time. Carlin began his career as a typical looking comedian at the time with short hair, skinny ties and a suit jacket. Early on his jokes were parodies of fast talking radio disc jockeys and goofy weathermen and mostly "clean". In the late 1960's Carlin became intrigued by the swell of counterculture and civil rights movement and realized he wanted to target a new audience. Although he was successful early on with his original style of comedy Carlin's popularity …show more content…
His reversal of his early clean comedy career took many by surprise especially since he was one of the sixties most popular comedians. Carlin's counterculture view and jokes on things such as the Vietnam war lead to him being threatened by audience members and banned from certain comedy clubs. He was once arrested on obscenity charges for his take on the "Seven dirty words you can't use on TV". It wasn’t only his words that caused a stir but also his embrace of the counterculture drug use. Carlin was banned from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson due to his heavy use of cocaine. Carlin's cocaine use was so heavy it caused him to have his first heart attack in 1978, this would be his first of many and would eventually cause his death in 2008.During the late seventies and early eighties Carlin lost five productive years to his struggles with addiction. When Carlin spoke of the 70's later in his life he said he wasn’t being creative and that he lost years. In the 1980's Carlin was able to kick drugs and revive his