“When the culture began to change in the late 1960s — when the old one-liner comics on The Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the war in Vietnam — George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America.” (Zoglin)
Outside of a few exceptions like Lenny Bruce, the concept of comedy (and especially stand-up comedy) used to be far cleaner and more held to societal decency standards than it is today. George Carlin is one of the most influential stand-up comedians of all time because, more than any other comedian, he changed comedy to become rebellious, and truth telling in a way it never was before – especially in regards to United States political…show more content… Among many others, some of the comedians George Carlin has influenced Adam Carolla, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Mahr, Lewis Black, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, Stephen Wright, and Mitch Hedberg.
Because Carlin was one of the first comedians to prominently and publicly use comedy to aggressively challenge the status quo and the United States government, part of his clear influence on political culture is that he more or less popularized modern American political comedy as it exists today, whether he was challenging the government on civil corruption or its role in the many wars America has been a part of in his lifetime. He was one of the first people to establish that comedy could be more than polite one-liners on evening television, and that comedy could be used as a platform for truth, justice, and a look into how ugly reality can be. It’s no surprise that Bill Mahr, Lewis Black, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart were heavily influenced by Carlin – the man is responsible for the modern comedic political commentary. Without Carlin, it’s easily arguable that something like the Colbert Report might never have existed in the first