Dream a little meme of me: a review of George Carlin’s American Dream

George Carlin’s American Dream

Directed by Judd Apatow & Michael Bonfiglio

Starring George Carlin

Patrick Carlin Jr.

Kelly Carlin

Music by Jeff Morrow

No. of episodes 2

Production

Executive producers Teddy Leifer

Judd Apatow

Michael Bonfiglio

Jerry Hazma

Kelly Carlin

Nancy Abraham (HBO)

Lisa Heller (HBO)

Producer Wayne Federman

Animator Stefan Nadelman

Editor Joe Beshenkovsky

Production companies Rise Films

Apatow Productions

Distributor HBO Max

My taste in comedy spans a full century, Mack Sennett to Rachel Brosnahan and includes stand-up, slap-stick, observational, written, movie, television. There are less than a dozen that I would call “comedy geniuses” and the list would include Stephen Leacock, Robin Williams, Terry Pratchett, Jack Benny and yes, Bob Hope. (I remember being six years old and laughing hysterically, over and over, at the “Pattycake, pattycake” routine Hope and Bing Crosby would do just before the piss-up began.)

But there is one, and one only, that I could characterize as a comedy God, and that one is George Carlin. Almost a half century after I first heard it, I can still quote passages from AM & FM, and even remember watching his Al Sleet (“Hippy Dippy Weatherman”) man routine on the Ed Sullivan Show which may have been back when Jack Benny was still in diapers. I used to debate earnestly with buddies over who was funnier: him or Bill Cosby. (In retrospect, the answer is obvious, but there were times when we would argue who was the better band: the Beatles or the Dave Clark Five, and other differences of opinion of which history make complete jokes.)

When he died, I posted on a board, “Forecast for tonight: dark.”

If Carlin had died in, say, 1975, he would have been well established in my personal pantheon of comic geniuses. But he evolved into something much more: the most trenchant and mordantly funny social critic of our time. His wit became much sharper and angrier and darker in that time, and in the mouth of a lesser talent he might have segued into another bitter old man. But with Carlin, you cringed, but you also laughed, almost uncontrollably. He had your number, and you loved it.

HBO Plus put together a two-hour two-part documentary, and did so with considerable love and respect. By itself, it’s not an extraordinary documentary. It’s a fairly straightforward narration of his life and influences, and the people and drugs that helped shape him. There are interviews with his daughter, and with many of the leading figures in American comedy. It’s a fairly insightful look at the man.

What makes it an extraordinary show is the extraordinary nature of its subject: George Carlin, comedy God. They let his routines speak for him, an amazing counterbalance to his often chaotic and stressful life, and shows that it augmented and squeezed his brilliance. That alone makes this the must-watch documentary of the year.

Now on HBO+ and wherever fine YouTube videos are to be found.