Seven Dirty Words_ The Life and Crimes of George Carlin - James Sullivan [35]
In May Carlin landed an audition for a new syndicated talk show set to premiere in July, The Merv Griffin Show. Having broken into show business as a singer, the host first found fame as the featured vocalist on popular bandleader Freddy Martin’s 1949 hit version of “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts,” which inspired Kaye’s own version a few months later. Before he got into television, Griffin had a brief film career, including an appearance in a 1953 musical (So This Is Love), in which he and costar Kathryn Grayson shared a then-controversial open-mouthed kiss. After hosting several game shows, the affable Griffin lent his name to a short-lived daytime talk show for NBC in 1962. Three years later he launched what would become his long-running syndicated show for Westinghouse Broadcasting. Most affiliates ran the show in the afternoon, though it was seen in some markets in prime time or in a late-night time slot opposite Carson’s Tonight Show.
Bob Shanks, the former Tonight Show talent coordinator, had joined the Griffin program as a producer. When Peter Paul urged him to take a look at this new comic, Carlin, Shanks agreed. “I had sort of forgotten George from The Tonight Show,” says Shanks, though his memory was refreshed when they were reintroduced in his office. On cue, Carlin performed “The Indian Sergeant” for his private audience. “I was falling out of my chair,” says Shanks. “I booked him right away.”
Carlin became one of The Merv Griffin Show’s earliest guests, along with another smooth-shaved product of the Bleecker Street scene, Peoria’s Richard Pryor, who sometimes did impromptu improv sketches with Carlin when they introduced each other at Café Au Go Go. “It was a gift to me to have both Carlin and Pryor walk in,” Shanks says. With the nightclubs beginning to move away from folk and comedy in favor of British Invasion-style rock ’n’ roll, Shanks felt fresh comic talent was becoming tougher to find: “I was looking hard for new comedians, and suddenly these two geniuses appear.”
“The Indian Sergeant” went over so well with both Griffin’s audience and the host himself (“Oh, Lord,” says Shanks, “he loved him”) that Carlin was invited back for regular weekly spots. In all, he did sixteen appearances with Griffin in 1965, and four more the following year. The success led directly to a high-profile booking at Basin Street East, one of the few midtown jazz clubs then still thriving in the decline of the bop era. He opened for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, who were “hot as a pistol then,” he recalled. “I didn’t get a lot of attention, but I didn’t care.” Carlin’s first few appearances on the Griffin show included encore performances of “The Indian Sergeant.” At first he was reluctant to do it again, but Shanks convinced him not to worry about overexposure: “I told him, not everyone watches the show every day. That’s the reason they repeat commercials. If we ask you to do a routine, then do that. They want to hear it again—it’s funny.”
Carlin also scored with several segments mocking the various conceits of television advertising—detergent and aspirin companies grandly exaggerating their significance in the daily lives of American families. “Our young Irish friend George Carlin is about to bite the hand that feeds us all,” Griffin said, introducing the comic at one taping. Carlin, Griffin claimed, had recently done his commercial jokes for a group of advertising copywriters. They cried, he said, but only from laughing so hard.
Standing in front of the set’s glittering curtain in an extra-skinny tie and a sharkskin jacket two sizes too big, a small spit curl dangling over his forehead, Carlin looked as though he was pledging a fraternity as he worked the Griffin audience. The commercial bits gave him a golden opportunity to showcase his growing repertoire of stock media characters—hale-fellows-well-met, pursed-lipped housewives, apple-cheeked little Jimmys at the dinner table—and his Jerry Lewis-like ability to screw his facial muscles into the daffiest expressions. In a prim,