The Impact of George Carlin

As many of you know, comedian George Carlin passed away a little while ago. What you probably don't know, however, is that he is widely regarded among comedians as a pioneer in the field who changed stand-up performing forever. Dissecting what he did is incredibly valuable to any hypnotist, especially those of us who give any type of lecture or public presentation.

George Carlin was, in my opinion, one of the most talented orators in the second half of the 20th century. He studied words and their meaning as well as any hypnotist I have ever known. He knew the difference between meaning what he said and saying what he meant and was great at doing both.

People know his "Seven Dirty Words" rant that he did early in his career. That's the one that really made him famous, but it is just a hint of what he did later in his career. In the late 80's he changed comedy in an HBO special where he started doing what he called, "Long Form." There were no jokes or gimmicks in long form, just ideas that he found ironic or amusing. The amazing thing about this, though, was that he was incredibly influential in them. It was a giant re-frame, complete with nested loops.

Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Mahar publicly said this changed comedy for them and the rest of the profession forever. It spawned a new style of entertainment that people like Dane Cook, Lewis Black, John Oliver, and many others use today to varying degrees. None of them do it like Carlin could. As Carlin continued experimenting with this new style he got much more fluid with it, weaving narratives, nesting loops, re-framing and even embedding commands as he bent everyone's perspective to match his own.

In the movie, "History of the World, part I" Mel Brooks' character during the roman empire is named Comicus, the first 'stand up philosopher.' Mel Brooks understood, as all great comedians do, that comedy isn't as much about jokes as it is about effective story telling. George Carlin brought this to a level that nobody before him had ever been able to do. He truly was a stand up philosopher.

People came by the thousands and paid to have their opinions changed about things that effected them. It was like He was the first motivational speaker, the ancestor of Tony Robbins.

I may be as much a student of George Carlin as I am Milton Erickson. He used words in a way that is truly inspirational to those of us who understand their weight and value.

If you haven't heard his stuff you can look it up on YouTube, but as with any great orator, it loses some of its punch when it's taken in smaller chunks and out of sequence. He tied those tales together in a way that built seemingly unrelated things into a single ethos.

Those of you who know his work as well as I do understand what I'm talking about already. Studying George Carlin will make you a better hypnotist. You can rent his HBO specials from blockbuster and watch them with your significant other. You will be doing hypnosis homework and getting great entertainment and insight for both of you.


enjoy,
Scott Sandland