And that wasn't really him playing Mr. Conductor either

Tim Cavanaugh | November 10, 2005

George Carlin has been punk'd again, this time with what you are no doubt familiar with as the "Hurricane Katrina/sittin' with my ass in a wad" spam. As in the cases of the Paradox of Our Time and Bad American emails, the humorist who for my money has never been as good as the Mad parody "Cool Carnal, Campus Comedian of the Year" impatiently denies being the author, but he protests too much: What better way to establish plausible deniability of his roles in Justin Case, Outrageous Fortune, Americathon, and any number of Kevin Smith joints than with a pattern of demonstrable hoaxes? Ask yourself cui bono? What motivation would a bunch of anonymous spammers have to sign Carlin's name to their works (except to spare themselves the responsibility of being funny)?

Comments

Jeff P.|11.10.05 @ 5:10PM|#

There was one of these going around accredited to Robin Williams as well. I myself have seen something I've written circulated around as part of an chain email.
Chain letters are beyond evil. For more go to

http://www.baddaystudio.com/gravity.html

|11.10.05 @ 5:16PM|#

What motivation would a bunch of anonymous spammers have to sign Carlin's name to their works (except to spare themselves the responsibility of being funny)?

Because no one wants a chain letter from some douche sitting at his computer in his underwear. Carlin has an angry reputation, so it make sense to attach his name, even it it sound like it was written by Toby Keith.

|11.10.05 @ 5:33PM|#

Clue number 1 that Carlin didn't write the email:

It's not funny. Not even close.

|11.10.05 @ 5:38PM|#

Unfortunately, the bigoted crap sent to me by Charlie Daniels really was written by Charlie Daniels.

(Re: Toby Keith. Has he enlisted yet? I mean, he's such a tough guy, with his pickup truck and them nasty songs and 10-gallon hat and everything... them AY-rabs would almost certainly drop their weapons, adopt Christianity and hand over all their oil!)

Timothy|11.10.05 @ 5:41PM|#

Don't forget that George was the conductor on Shining Time Station!

|11.10.05 @ 5:47PM|#

Jeff P.

I got the supposed Robin Williams e-mail from a lady on my soccer team a couple of weeks ago. I actually made the mistake of thinking that it might be genuine and said that Robin was "clearly an idiot". She was amazed that anyone would disagree with the sentiments in the e-mail.

It wasn't until I thought about it again several days later that I realized that it probably had nothing to do with Robin Williams.
It was definitely one of those Homer Simpson "D'OH!" moments.

|11.10.05 @ 5:48PM|#

Don't forget that George was the conductor on Shining Time Station!

Yeah, but Ringo was better, though to Carlin's credit, he and Ringo both were cooler conductors than Alec Baldwin...

Timothy|11.10.05 @ 5:56PM|#

Or I could learn to read headlines.

[/brain]

|11.10.05 @ 6:00PM|#

There's a good, recent interview with Carlin at The Onion AV Club here, where he talks about both this and his questionable acting jobs over the years.

The Wine Commonsewer|11.10.05 @ 6:35PM|#

In all the email hoaxes the dead give away is that the opinions expressed ain't Carlin's (or William's, or Rooney's) politics. Okay, that one (Bad American) that was traced back to Free Republic could actually have been Nooge's.

|11.10.05 @ 6:53PM|#

Tim, please! Don't post when you're drunk! Most of the web connections here are older than the Bush twins!

|11.10.05 @ 9:26PM|#

And that whole JFK quote-as-a-closing-line bit doesn't seem to jibe well with Carlin's anti-government rhetoric.