Monday, June 23, 2008

HBO to rerun all of George Carlin's specials

Continuing today's all-Carlin, all-the-time theme:
HBO will remember George Carlin this week with encore presentations of many of his HBO specials. The specials span his association with the network, from his first HBO special (“George Carlin at USC”) to his last (“It’s Bad for Ya”).

“George Carlin: It’s Bad for Ya,” which debuted on the network in March, will be seen on the main HBO channel this Friday, June 27 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).

In addition, HBO2 will present 11 of his specials over two nights. The HBO2 schedule is (all times ET/PT):

Wednesday, June 25
8:00 p.m. George Carlin at USC (1977)
9:30 p.m. George Carlin Again! (1978)
11:00 p.m. Carlin at Carnegie (1983)
midnight Carlin on Campus (1984)
1:00 a.m. Playin’ with Your Head (1986)

Thursday, June 26
8:00 p.m. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)
9:00 p.m. Doin’ It Again (1990)
10:00 p.m. Jammin’ in New York (1992)
11:00 p.m. Back in Town (1996)
12:05 a.m. You Are All Diseased (1999)
1:00 a.m. It’s Bad for Ya (2008)

3 comments:

Josh Mauthe said...

Alan - I don't know if you'll see this, since it's been a couple of days, but how would you rank these? I've enjoyed all the Carlin I've seen, but don't really want to record 10+ hours (plus, I'm running short on DVR room). What are your thoughts about the essentials here?

Alan Sepinwall said...

The ones I hold closest to my heart at Jammin' in New York and You Are All Diseased, but both of those are for personal reasons (the former came at a time in my life when my comedy sensibilities were being formed, while I took the woman who would become my wife to the taping of the latter).

Because he didn't like to riff much on current events, they're all fairly timeless. The progression is that he got angrier as he got older, and some people feel the anger eventually overwhelmed the comedy. (It was said particularly about the last few specials.) If you have to watch a few ,I'd say the sweet spot was that stuff from the mid-80s to the early 90s. I'm sure others would disagree.

Josh Mauthe said...

Thanks! That helped quite a bit. I ended up still unable to decide, though, and just cleared off some stuff I didn't need on the DVR. I figure I can break it down over a week or two, and have some fun.