George Carlin’s mugshot from his 1972 arrest in Milwaukee
Recently, a pair of audio clips from George Carlin’s 1972 Summerfest show has surfaced on YouTube, posted by Carlin’s official channel. This was, of course, the legendary show where Carlin did his “seven words you cannot say on TV” routine, which caught the sensitive ears of an off-duty Milwaukee cop and led to Carlin’s arrest after the show. You can read more about the event in an article I did for the Shepherd a few years ago.
In this clip, Carlin talks about his disdain for outdoor comedy shows (which the Summerfest set was) and the need for closeness and intimacy in the fragile medium of comedy.
(He uses some of those seven words in each of these clips… I’ll let you decide if that makes these unsafe for work or not)
Here, Carlin jokes about picking the right priest to deliver your confession to.
Evidently, Carlin kept tapes of his favorite shows. Hopefully, a complete recording of the Summerfest exists and is soon to follow to public release.
