By George, he did it

Given the amount of coke, booze and pills he consumed in his career as American comedy's greatest troublemaker, George Carlin lived longer than he or anybody else had any right to expect. Nevertheless, when the 71-year-old comedian died of heart failure on June 22, it was still too damn soon.

From his first appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in the early '60s through to his incendiary HBO specials and tours of the '90s and beyond, Carlin was one of the most acerbic and astute commentators of his times. "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately," he once said. And so he did – often.

No bit of line-crossing ever got him as much attention as a routine he developed in the early '70s, some years after he gave up the more clean-cut, suit-and-tie style of his early days and threw his lot in with the freaks, hippies and burnouts who would remake and remodel popular culture. The routine was called "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." Both a celebration of the American vernacular and a defiant demonstration of free speech (and its limits), the shtick got him arrested in Milwaukee and led to a battle with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Just for the record, you can now say at least three of these words on TV broadcasts — maybe four if you're Bono, and you're using the word as an adjective and not a verb.

With that magic number in mind, we present seven reasons we'll miss George Carlin.

1. He was the first and best host of Saturday Night Live (except for Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin and possibly Wayne Gretzky).

Though the Oct. 11, 1975, debut of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players represented a sea change in American comedy, this incursion into the culture's soft, tubby centre was a long time coming. It certainly wouldn't have happened if not for the trailblazin', status-quo-confrontin' efforts of Carlin and Richard Pryor, who themselves followed in the footsteps of such pioneering stand-ups as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. Indeed, for all of the critical props that SNL has received over the last 30-plus years, the show always spent more time coddling its audience than confronting it. Carlin never played it so safe. And though he, too, overindulged in the sins of the age, he'd outlive many of his peers (e.g. John Belushi) and maintain his edge well into the next century. Could anyone say the same about Chevy Chase?

2. His fake DJ act was better than the real thing.

Carlin started his career in showbiz as a DJ at stations in Shreveport, La., and Fort Worth, Tex. As a stand-up in the '60s, he'd show off what he learned in his razor-sharp and gloriously inane monologues as Willie West, a motor-mouthed on-air personality for "Wonderful WINO Radio." When not spinning tunes like Danny and the Demonstrators' Don't Want No War (a dour little number that prompts the retort "don't want no job, neither!") and encouraging young listeners to head to the Makeout Drive-In Theater ("I think you'll like it out there, kids — no lines, no waiting… no movie, either!"), our host spins out a line of bafflegab that was only a hair more absurd than what listeners heard from real disc jockeys. What's more, the snappy jingle that capped off the WINO routine captured the frustrations of radio listeners in the decades to come: "We got the old tunes, the new tunes, the show tunes, the blue tunes, the greatest music in town… but we never play it!"

3. He called it like he saw it; and whatever he saw, he didn't like much.

The titles of some of Carlin's shows reflect his perspective on things: Complaints and Grievances, Life Is Worth Losing, You Are All Diseased. As he once told an interviewer, "I think we're already 'circling the drain' as a species, and I'd love to see the circles get a little faster and a little shorter." Politicians, pro-lifers, clergymen, idiots who liked to holiday in Las Vegas, white people who play the blues – Carlin was always willing to give 'em a piece of his mind. And he never softened his language. Back when the music industry was coping with a new wave of censorship in the early '90s, he actually named an album Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.

4. He never went cute or did a romantic comedy.

Carlin left that to Woody Allen, Albert Brooks and other guys more willing to show off their sensitive sides. Which is just as well, because George was never going to be a ladies' man. A classic SCTV sketch suggested what might have happened had Carlin tried to do his own Annie Hall. In a mock trailer for Reel Love, George (played by Rick Moranis) turns out to be way more interested in perfecting his next observational bit than in anything his date has to say. "Why can't I find a woman?" mutters Moranis-as-Carlin, complete with ponytail. "Maybe I should go to the lost and found. But I didn't lose a woman…" (Moranis did his Carlin in several other sketches, including one that answered the question, "What would it be like if George played Biff in Death of a Salesman?" Answer: not great.)

5. He starred in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, yet kept his self-respect.

Actually, his part as Rufus in the two Bill and Ted movies was one of his better efforts as a movie actor. Always more comfortable onstage than on screen, Carlin never had much success in Hollywood. Aside from The George Carlin Show, a so-so Fox sitcom he headlined in the mid-'90s, most of his credits consist of goofy cameos (e.g., Car Wash, Scary Movie 3) with the very occasional dramatic part (relatively straight-faced roles in The Prince of Tides and as Ben Affleck's dad in Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl). Kids got to know him in a kindlier guise as the narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine, the voice of Fillmore in Cars and for playing Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station, a role he took over from fellow '70s party king Ringo Starr.

6. He was a friend and hero to his peers.

Unlike Andy Kaufman, Bill Hicks and Mitch Hedberg, Carlin didn't have to die to get the appreciation he was due. A Comedy Central special named him the second-greatest stand-up of all time (after Pryor). Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Lewis Black and Bill Maher all owe him an enormous stylistic debt. Jon Stewart paid his dues by hosting a tribute at the Aspen Comedy Fest in 1997. On June 18, four days before his death, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Carlin would be this year's honouree for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour.

7. He might have had a dirty mouth but he knew how to use it.

'Nuff said.

Jason Anderson is a writer based in Toronto. He is the author of Showbiz, a novel about stand-up comedy and political assassination.