George Carlin used to be my all-time favorite stand-up, but some time between the mid-1980s (Icebox Man, A Place for My Stuff) and today, he’s taken 90% of the funny out of his performance and become a grating, curmudgeonly ranter. (Fortunately, he’s archived the funny stuff in his books, e.g. Brain Droppings, but it’s not as good as seeing him perform it.)

(Before I get jumped on, please know that I’m not saying it’s wrong for one’s style to evolve as one’s perspective changes. If he wants to play the curmudgeon, that’s fine! But that doesn’t mean you have to turn off the Humor valve. A lot of his rants just involve name-calling.)

So my question is, when did the change happen? Was it a seemingly sudden change, or did it evolve over time?

he never jumped the shark just changed his style.

First of all buy George Carlin’s All My Stuff box set. best 150$ you will ever spend and the two interviews with him that are included in the set will go a long way twoards ansewring you question.

Now i will give my best shot at explaning the change in Carlins 50+ years of stand up. George carlin has said that most of his work fits into three catagories. Small world , big world, and the english language. Early in his career most of his work fit into the small world and english language catagory. This worked well in for him until the early to mid 80’s where he seemed to hit a slump. in the late 80s early 90s George Carlin decided that he didn’t have to be funny all the time. So he made a transition in styles in which most of his work was in the big world catagorie and he abandoned the set up punchline style that a majority of comedians use. This transition is marked with his HBO special Jammin in New York(or maybe it was What am I doing in New Jersey. I cant really remember). Which contains big world routines such as pro lifers arent prolife they are anti woman. some fans of carlins would consider this transition to be “jumping the shark”.

I liked Carlin’s older style better as well, this isn’t to say I hadn’t gotten a laugh or two from his later material.