Another thought about George Carlin.

The day of the news of George Carlin's death, I posted a video of one of my favorite of his routines about religion. I thought about how funny and incisive he was, and how he was so fucking good at swearing, and how I'll miss knowing he's around thinking these things and performing them.

I can't believe I neglected to mention the one aspect of his work that has been most present in my life in recent years: George Carlin narrated some of the older Thomas the Tank Engine stories for video. When I first heard them I thought, huh, that's George Carlin, go figure. But over years of listening to these stories, narrated by him and others (Ringo Starr is my other favorite), I came to appreciate how truly great he was at it. As silly as this may sound, Carlin nailed the Thomas and Friends characters. His voices, his timing, his hitting certain words, were all precisely right. Carlin was much better at Thomas than the guy that does the more recent ones, and miles, I mean miles better than that pompous asshole Alec Baldwin.

Another reason to miss him.

This is Henry and the Elephant. No need to watch the whole thing (almost 5 min.); you'll get the idea early on.