George Carlin: Playin' with Your Head (1986 TV Special)

George Carlin: Self, Mike Holder

Photos 

Quotes 

• George Carlin : Now, tennis. Very trendy, not a sport. Tennis is a form of ping pong. In fact, tennis is ping pong played while standing on the table. In fact, all racquet games are nothing but derivatives of ping pong. Even volleyball is racquet-less team ping pong played with an inflated ball and a raised net while standing on the table.

• George Carlin : [In his skit about losing things, he suggests there's a huge pile of lost items]  And where is the pile? In Heaven, of course. That's the first thing they do when you get to Heaven. They give you back everything you ever lost. That's the whole *meaning* of Heaven. You get back everything.

  [Imitating the "lost-and-found" guy in Heaven] 

  George Carlin : Here you go. Seventy-nine pairs of sunglasses, 212 cigarette lighters, and 4.983 ball point pens. Oh, and here's a jock strap we found on the Santa Monica Freeway. It appears to have mule hoof-prints and chocolate sprinkles on it. Must've been quite an evening.

• George Carlin : Lacrosse? Lacrosse is *not* a sport, it's a faggot college activity. Sorry about that... that's right... Any time you're standing in a field with a stick with a net on the end of it, you're engaged in a faggot college activity.

• George Carlin : I've always wanted to work in a delicatessen, just so that one day, a woman would come in and ask me to give her some tongue. And I'd say "well, I don't get off 'till four o'clock." And she'd say "well, I don't get off at all; that's why I'm looking for some tongue!"

• George Carlin : The only reason I mention baseball, basketball, and football is because to my way of thinking, these are really the only three sports we have. Nothing else qualifies as a sport, according to me. Everything else is a game or an activity. Hockey comes to mind. People think hockey is a sport. Hockey is not a sport; hockey is three activities going on at the same time: ice skating, playing with a puck, and beating the shit out of somebody.

• George Carlin : Another reason hockey is not a sport: it's not played with a ball. Anything that isn't played with a ball can't be a sport. Hockey is played with a puck. What is a puck? I've never even heard of a puck outside of hockey. Have you ever heard of a puck? The only other place you'll find a puck is in the urinal to control the smell in the bathroom. And as far as I'm concerned, any game where the main object is something that came out of a urinal is definitely not a sport.

• George Carlin : Darts *could* be a sport, 'cause you might put somebody's eye out. But darts will never be a sport because the whole object is to reach zero, which goes against all sports logic.

• George Carlin : Boxing is not a sport; boxing is a way to beat the shit out of somebody. In that respect, boxing is a more sophisticated form of hockey. But beating the shit out of somebody is not a sport, in spite of what the police think. When police brutality becomes an Olympic event, fine, then boxing can be a sport.

• [about auto racing, during his bit about sports] 

  George Carlin : Let me put it this way: when else am I going to see a twenty-six car collision and not be *in* the God damn thing?

• George Carlin : The whole concept of battered distant relatives strikes me as awfully strange. You know? To get on a bus and ride for six or seven hours just to beat the shit out of someone you hardly ever see.

• George Carlin : [after unexpectedly breaking out in opera for about 10 seconds]  My uncle used to do that. And we used to slap the shit out of him. He was a real asshole.

• George Carlin : Here's how I'd change basketball. You could make basketball a lot quicker. You know what you do? You have a two second shot clock.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : As soon as that ball is in bounds, get that sumbitch up in the air. I didn't come to watch a game of catch. I'm looking for a four or five hundred point ball game! I'm a fan! I want six overtimes and a thousand points on the board! Another thing I would do for basketball, at the center court line, for ten feet on either side of the center court line, I would have a gasoline fire.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : You talk about the fast break, you'd see the *really* fast break. Here's another suggestion for basketball. I would allow twenty-five points for any ball that goes in the basket off another guy's head. You'd see some good fights during those close games, I'll tell you. And you'd increase the chance for serious injuries! That's what I'm looking for, injuries! That's what I like about sports! I don't care who wins these games; if I want to see winners, I'll watch the Academy Awards. I'm looking for injuries. Serious, lifelong, crippling, debilitating injuries. I'm an American! Give me a little violence and I'm a happy guy! Most people won't admit that. Most people won't admit that; they'll say "Well, I like the competition." Yeah, like Hiroshima, right? Fuck the competition. I'm looking for a leg in two or three places.

• George Carlin : Jimmy Hoffa isn't "missing." He's in an oil drum in New Jersey!

• George Carlin : [Repeated line]  And that seems to hold them for about a half an hour.

• George Carlin : [Repeated line]  And that seemed to satisfy his curiosity.

• George Carlin : [Repeated line]  Well, some people need practical advice.