On September 9 and 10, 2001, George Carlin appeared at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, where he performed material intended for his upcoming 12th HBO special. When the special was eventually released two months later, it was titled Complaints and Grievances, but the original plan was for the title to be “I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die.”
As you probably could’ve guessed, the events of September 11th had a significant impact on the jokes that ended up making it to HBO that November. In fact, most of the stuff Carlin was doing leading up to the attacks wouldn’t be heard again until 15 years later.
As the title pretty clearly implies, I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die features Carlin’s musings on death and how entertaining he finds it. “You know the best thing I can hear on television? ‘We interrupt this program,’” Carlin jokes at one point. “You know the worst thing I can hear? ‘No one was hurt.’”
He goes on to explain that the latter news bulletin gets him depressed because he always roots for a high death toll. The existing recordings from those Vegas shows even contain a joke about an airplane exploding. “And you know who gets blamed? Osama bin Laden,” Carlin says.
Revisiting George Carlin’s Lost 9/11 Comedy Special 25 Years Later
Though little of what Carlin talked about during those sets revolved around terrorism, using such dark material that soon after 9/11 wasn’t something that would’ve gone over well. According to Carlin’s longtime manager, Jerry Hamza, the comedian only expected to put the material on the back burner temporarily and figured he’d get around to using it again in the future.
The closing bit he performed in Vegas in 2001, including an extended doomsday fantasy of his own, was reworked into the closer from his 2005 HBO special, Life Is Worth Losing. However, references to planes and Bin Laden were nowhere to be found in that version.
Following Carlin’s death in 2008, cassette tapes containing the audio from Carlin’s 2001 Vegas performances were discovered in his archives. Hamza and Carlin’s daughter, Kelly, subsequently released a posthumous album using the recordings in 2016, finally using the title Carlin had been planning to run with prior to the terrorist attacks. In addition to the Vegas stuff, the album opens with a rare 1957 home recording of Carlin ranting about police and firemen.
The physical release also includes liner notes by Lewis Black, whose 2006 album, The Carnegie Hall Performance, won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album over Life Is Worth Losing at the 2007 ceremony.
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