Hear George Carlin Routine Deemed Too Dark for Release
A never-before-released George Carlin bit, recorded the day before 9/11, found the observational comic casually joking about mass fatalities. The comedian decided to shelve the controversial material after the tragedy and held onto it until his death in 2008. Now a new Carlin LP, I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die (MPI), will feature the dark routine for the first time when it comes out digitally and on CD and LP on September 16th.
Part of the routine, streaming above, features jokes about famine, natural disasters and even a sky-is-falling situation. “You know what my favorite disaster would be, and gee, I pray for one of these? An asteroid.” he says. “I’m talking about a big hunk of rock the size of Minnesota … screaming through the atmosphere and smashing right into,” he pauses, “Minnesota. What the fuck. You can never have too many dead people.”
The routine was originally set for his Complaints and Grievances HBO special, which aired that November, but he pulled or refigured most of the material.
In addition to the dark subject matter, the album will feature a home recording of the comic from 1957, as well as interviews with Hamza and the director of 10 of Carlin’s specials, Rocco Urbisci.
“George was a bit of a disaster-chaser,” his longtime manager Jerry Hamza tells Rolling Stone. “And in turn, he had crafted this piece called ‘I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die.’ And then 9/11 happened, and, once those towers went down, George knew right away he couldn’t use that material in his next special. He said then to himself, ‘I’ll put it on the back burner. Sooner or later, I’ll get to it and put it back in the act.'”
SiriusXM will premiere the special on September 1st on its comedy channels Comedy Greats and Carlin’s Corner before later airing it on Raw Dog Comedy Hits. The network also announced the premiere of George Carlin: A Life in Comedy, a documentary on the comedian featuring Penn Jillette, Kevin Hart, and Seth Rogen set to air at 3 PM EST.
