- “The morals of these stories were never jammed down the kid's throat, they weren't blatant. They weren't in capital letters. They were gently massaged into the framework of the show.”
- ― George Carlin on Shining Time Station and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends[1]
George Denis Patrick Carlin (12th May 1937 - 22nd June 2008) was a five-time Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor, and author. He was known for his dark comedic humor, his commentary on the American political issues and satirizing the American culture.
He was the second narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, narrating from the first to the fourth series and played Mr. Conductor from series two to three on Shining Time Station and in the spin-off series Mr Conductor's Thomas Tales, after Ringo Starr left the series to focus on his music career. His third series narrations were also used for New Zealand VHS releases. After narrating the fourth series, Carlin left the series to do several explicit comedy specials and pursued other projects.
On June 22, 2008, a short while after David Mitton's death, Carlin died of heart failure at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 71. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered off the Spofford Lake waters and countless New York City nightclubs without any religious ceremonies, as he wished. Following his death, Britt Allcroft and Rick Siggelkow (the co-producer of Shining Time Station) wrote tributes to him.
Carlin was known to insult most of the shows he worked on due to issues on set (such as his time on his own series The George Carlin Show), but often spoke very fondly of both Shining Time Station and Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, even in some of his stand-up comedy routines. In an interview on "TV Legends" conducted shortly before his death, he explained that he signed on to both shows so that people could see a different side of him from his profanity-laden persona.
Filmography
Film
Television
HBO specials
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Discography
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Books
- "Sometimes a Little Brain Damage can Help" (1984)
- "Brain Droppings" (1997)
- "Napalm and Silly Putty" (2001)
- "When will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" (2004)
- "Watch my Language" (2007)
Major awards and nominations
- WON: Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording, 1972, for "FM and AM"
- WON: Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album, 1993, for "Jammin' in New York"
- WON: Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album, 2001, for "Brain Droppings"
- WON: Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album, 2002, for "Napalm and Silly Putty"
- WON: Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording, 2008, for "It's Bad For Ya"
- Nominated - Daytime Emmy Awards - Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series, 1992 and 1994 for "Shining Time Station"
Trivia
- He was a proponent of the choice by Kenn Viselman.
- He was good friends with Russell Means, who played Billy Twofeathers in Thomas and the Magic Railroad.
- He was originally intended to reprise his role of Mr. Conductor for Thomas and the Magic Railroad.[2]
- Despite him being a North American narrator, his narrations for the third series were released on VHS in New Zealand, as were a few for the fourth series on the Australian Take Along Sampler DVDs. He was also credited as a narrator on the covers of all Series 1-2 DVD releases in the Philippines, the opening credits of the Danish DVD Time for Trouble and Other Stories, early Norwegian broadcasts of the first half of the third series, the Taiwan Mandarin dub of the fourth series.
- In technicality, George Carlin was the first official American Thomas narrator after Ringo Starr left Shining Time Station for his music career. This is likely the reason why on most home media releases, episodes from the first two series were narrated by George Carlin instead of Ringo Starr.
- Carlin stated in an interview that when he worked on Shining Time Station, he would tell children when they came up to see if he was Mr. Conductor, because he was tall, "I'm not on the Island of Sodor today, I'm not working, but I am Mr. Conductor".
- The first Railway Series book, The Three Railway Engines, was published on his eighth birthday in 1945.
- Carlin was always regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comics of all time, being dubbed as "the dean of counterculture comedians".
- Carlin sometimes referred to himself as the "anti-Pete Best" with regards to his replacing Ringo Starr on Shining Time Station; this was a nod to the original drummer for The Beatles whom Ringo Starr famously replaced.
- According to Britt Allcroft, on his first day of recording narration for the series, Carlin expressed nervousness at the fact he had no audience to deliver the story to in the booth. As bringing an actual child in was not an option, Britt had a teddy bear delivered to the studio, which became Carlin's audience for all of the voiceover sessions. At the end of George's run, he gifted Britt with her own teddy bear named Teddy Carlin, which sits on her piano to this day.
Gallery
