Fearless, insightful and wickedly funny, George Carlin helped define what stand-up comedy could be both in terms of what performers could say about the world and how they said it. Indeed, Carlin’s frankness when it came to what he called the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” made him a game-changer, one who brought the renegade sensibility of heroes like Lenny Bruce into the mainstream via landmark appearances on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. Born in New York in 1937, Carlin was known from TV and film appearances like the Bill & Ted movies, but the main focus of his energies was the sometimes incendiary material that fuelled his stage shows and albums, as well as the run of HBO specials that began in 1977 and lasted until his death in 2008. No subject was too taboo for a performer and social critic whose reliably caustic sensibility belied the empathy and sensitivity that lay beneath.