The Comedian Who Changed My Life is George Carlin

The Comedian Who Changed My Life is a new series where comics talk about, you guessed it, the comedian who changed their life.

This is Michael Ian Black and I can not only tell you the comic that changed my life—I can tell you the specific line that changed my life. The comic is George Carlin, who I’m sure a lot of people have cited. But the line was—I was driving across country with my friend—and we were listening to a George Carlin tape. And he was talking about God and how powerful God is. And in his George Carlin sort of character voice, he goes, “God can do anything. He can throw a boat over a hedge.”

And that line…just crystalized something in my head that I had never really thought about before. The kind of specificity that you can do. And sort of plucking of two just absurd images, and putting them together really changed the way I think about comedy.

Michael Ian Black is a comedian and actor.  Watch his new show, “Duck Quacks Don’t Echo” which premiers on NatGeo Monday January 13th at 10pm eastern.  You can also follow Michael on twitter @MichaelIanBlack and visit MichaelIanBlack.com for touring dates.