http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFW6NHbWX0E

George Carlin




While all of you were making gimmick comedy picks like Andy Samberg, Weird Al Yankovic, Charlie Kelly and DJ Pauly DJ we get to draft the standup with arguably the highest peak of all time and certainly the best career. Carlin was a machine and while other standups moved into film, TV or bluegrass music Carlin kept pumping out stand up specials every other year for around 40 years. Some of his material doesn't age that well, but that is usually because other standups have co-opted so much of his material that it seems cliche now.

There is no better example of this than the airline bit posted in the OP, which really should have been the airline bit to end all airplane bits but there are still hack standups all over the country doing jokes about airplane food. When people are introduced to this some of Carlin's material after seeing material like that they don't understand how innovative he is.
One of my favorite bits of his is thisin Jammin' in New York. I originally stumbled upon this under the title "Global Warming" eventhough it was performed in 1992 well before Global Warming entered the national conscience. While the video was likely titled that to prove a political point. That people bought the title shows how far ahead of the curve Carlin was. He was doing political satire that holds up 20 years later.

I remember looking at Carlin's wikipedia page and seeing a list of people he influenced and I joked that it should just say "Every comedian born after 1960".In this draft we are supposed to take artists that are "well-regarded, influential and timeless" Carlin fits this criteria as well as anyone in this draft and we are happy to take him last overall and get a monopoly on standup comedy.