Judd Apatow on Documenting the Legacy (and Fart Jokes) of George Carlin

Photograph: Alberto Eastward. Rodriguez/Getty Images

If Judd Apatow had just released one new feature this year (The Chimera) and put out one new book (Sicker in the Head), then, as people say at Passover Seder, dayenu — information technology would have been more than than enough. But before the pandemic, the writer, managing director, and human of a bunch of other titles had already started working on another project that is at present seeing the light of solar day. The release of the docuseries George Carlin's American Dream couldn't exist more timely — because the multiple conversations on the state of stand-up comedy in America. From discussions of freedom of speech to comedians getting attacked onstage, it is hard to figure out where Carlin would fit in today's comedy landscape or how he'd approach it.

Dissimilar in his last doc on a comedian, 2018's The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, Apatow — a person who knows the one-act globe from just near every possible point — lets Carlin'south words and stand up-upwards bits do nigh of the talking. While there are appearances past modern comedians like Due west. Kamau Bell and Jon Stewart also as Carlin'southward girl, Kelly, that assist make full in some blanks, Apatow mostly lets the late comedian's work and actions tell the story. He simply put the pieces in identify in a way that offers a compelling, full picture of a person whose legacy can be both misunderstood and misrepresented.

Apatow discussed what drew him to that legacy on a rainy twenty-four hours in his native New York Urban center; he was in a good mood, because he'd fabricated it to a Mets game the 24-hour interval before.

Certain filmmakers seem intent on documenting the civilization they love and trying to proceed it alive. I'g thinking of Scorsese with his Film Foundation or Truffaut interviewing Hitchcock. You've been interviewing comedians for years and doing these documentaries lately — which I know isn't what pays your bills, but you still do information technology. Where does your need to document come from?
You know, I'g not sure, because I was always interested in how things get made and who the people were who made them. When I was in sixth grade, I wrote this thirty-page report nigh the Marx Brothers, but it wasn't an assignment for school. I merely did information technology for myself. Looking back, that seems similar a really strange affair for a young person to do. I paid my friend to write it in, because he had better handwriting than me. [Laughs.]

I'yard a bit of a hoarder. I similar organizing all of the material and finding a way to tell the story of somebody's life. It makes me sad to remember of these experiences and performances disappearing down the digital black pigsty. I'm sure on many levels, by examining people'south work — but more chiefly their life choices and their evolution — I'chiliad trying to figure out how I'm supposed to behave in the world.

Something that popped out to me was Carlin talking about how doing acrid changed the way he did comedy. Information technology made me think of your Garry Shandling md, considering so much of it is about Shandling working on himself and meditation — and meditation and psychedelics are similar in that they're both about expanding consciousness. How else exercise yous think Shandling and Carlin are similar?
Both of them seem to exist in their own worlds. They were both part of the tribe of comedians, just they blazed their own paths. You didn't see George at the clubs; he wasn't hanging effectually. He was very nice to comedians, simply he wasn't function of the social world of information technology. Garry was someone who created his own shows and invented a type of career that not many people had upwardly until that point. They both had overbearing mother figures that affected how they moved through the world. They liked to be alone, but George loved beingness on the route. And coming from a business firm where his mom divorced her husband because he was beating upwardly Carlin's brother (when his brother was between the ages of 2 and 6) — I'thou sure it changes how you wait at reality when yous're hiding from the beginning of your life. Garry lost his brother to cystic fibrosis. And so it certainly makes for very sensitive, thoughtful people who are looking at the world suspiciously.

They definitely were critical thinkers, and at the cease of their lives, both of them came to a identify of thinking that we're all connected in some way. They weren't classically religious. They weren't people who believed in heaven and hell. They were people who believed that nosotros are all in this together.

Something I was happy to see was that you made room to talk well-nigh Carlin'due south fart jokes.
The only attribute of his career that I probably didn't spend enough time on was his silly, muddy, puerile material. He would spend an enormous amount of time on farts and boogers and pooping your pants, and frequently that was the get-go one-half of his set. And so he had more than thoughtful political and philosophical ideas in the second function. Then he had an approach to pleasing an audience and doing a lot of dissimilar styles of comedy within one prepare. That's what is actually amazing well-nigh him: He succeeded at loftier comedy and low comedy.

You spend some time in the documentary exploring the idea of the stand-upwardly as a mod-day philosopher with Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld weighing in. Where practice you stand up on the idea of looking to comedians for guidance?
When I did my book Sicker in the Caput, I interviewed Samantha Bee and she said that she didn't think that her prove changed anyone'south mind, merely it was a way of telling people that they're not crazy — showing that they're understood. I've e'er believed that for immature people, if you lot're between 10 and 25 and you're watching a lot of the current political comics, it might help y'all form your philosophies right after that. Probably you're not going to suddenly think women should accept the right to choose if you're a fifty-twelvemonth-erstwhile. I wish people listened to George Carlin in 1970 when he warned u.s.a. about what was happening to our environment.

Are there comedians you meet carrying on his legacy?
There are people who practice brilliant work. Trevor Noah could not have been better at the Correspondents' Dinner. What Seth Meyers does is a really remarkable feat. John Oliver. Bill Maher. Samantha Bee. Jimmy Kimmel. But people don't scout tv in the same fashion, so it'south non like 10 million people are watching it. It's not like when the entire world was watching Johnny Carson, and if he seemed to be leaning a certain mode on an issue, information technology afflicted people. I wish that more people would listen, considering comedians are finding a way to express a lot of concerns that we all have about the direction of the country and how corrupt so much of our regime and political life has become.

It feels like Carlin has the same problem as George Orwell when information technology comes to people trying to claim his legacy. People he'd totally disagree with seem to misinterpret his work.
His positions on most of the major issues are articulate. He was certainly for gun control and a woman's right to choose. He was very concerned nearly the behavior of the military and our interventions around the world. He thought there was something immoral nigh the drug war.

Sometimes the right wing tries to claim him, because he had such a distrust for the government. He talked a lot about how it was all a grift. But his principal point of view was that nosotros should all be taking care of each other. He felt that the earth was a great gift — and the opportunity that we have here with each other on this planet was something that people weren't handling correctly. He seemed to be distraught about the behavior of people.

With everything going on, from conversations most freedom of voice communication to Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle getting attacked onstage, what do y'all think Carlin would make of this moment in stand-up one-act?
I think he would dearest what people are doing. In that location'due south an enormous amount of incredible stand-upwardly happening, and comedians are selling out a lot of tickets in enormous places and challenging themselves. He was always for punching up, not punching downward, but he besides believed comedians were allowed to make mistakes. He said, "My job is to find the line, have you over it, and make you glad you did."

You famously used to cold-call a lot of comedians when yous were growing upward. Did you ever phone call him upwards?
I interviewed him in one case for Canadian television when I was 21, simply that was the one interview I couldn't find.

Oh wow!
That actually depressed me, although I'm sure I did a terrible task. [Laughs.] And the other interviews I constitute were much better. It's lost to history.

If he were alive today and you were interviewing him, what's the commencement question you'd inquire him?
Everybody debates if he got also dark. I always thought his hope was that by watching him in this comedic stance of someone who was rooting for the destruction of people and humanity, it was a comic mode of pushing people toward the light. He said that if you scratch the cynic, yous'd find a disappointed idealist, and that's how I e'er took his darkest material. He was definitely disappointed that people weren't taking care of each other and the planet better, and by beingness so exaggerated in his anger, he was challenging people to live differently. So I probably would inquire him if I'thousand right or wrong about that.

Totally off topic: In that location are legions of people who say, "I wish Freaks and Geeks had another season" or "I want Superbad 2," but is in that location i matter people ask you for more than any other projects — regardless of whether it could happen?
I get asked a lot about making This Is 50. That movie seems to have gotten a much larger audition, because everyone who turns xl watches it. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to brand that. The only problem is Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd don't expect like they've anile. It might look like This Is 41, and we may have to apply reverse-Irishman technology to brand them look older.

I'm all for it. Since you were a writer on The Critic , do y'all retrieve we could get that dorsum? I experience like it would do nifty today.
I follow an Instagram account that just posted some clips from The Critic, which I'g and so happy to see, because I thought that show was so funny. The commencement jobs I got on scripted shows were The Larry Sanders Show and The Critic. I was doing half a week on each bear witness in 1993 and '94. I learned so much from Mike Reiss, Al Jean, and James L. Brooks with how they approached that show. Then the other days, I was with Garry — learning his way of writing comedy. That was really the most determinative yr of my career. There was nix funnier than watching Jon Lovitz in a table read.

Anything else?
The Bubble is withal upward on Netflix. It will be there for the rest of people'due south lives.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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