George Carlin was honored last night at the Kennedy Center with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Carlin was informed that he’s been selected as the 11th recipient just a week before he died this past June.
Sounds like everyone attending had a wonderful evening, though not without some irony:
And as a comedian who made an art out of blue language [...] Carlin surely would have gotten some mileage out of the fact that only three of his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” were actually spoken from the Kennedy Center stage. [...]
Carlin himself rematerialized in a clip to do the bit, though — again, ironically — the commentary on language and the absurdity of banning words was itself bleeped repeatedly by the Kennedy Center censor.
The evening was taped by WETA, but won’t air on PBS until April.
