The big three, in my mind, were always Carlin, Pryor and Cosby.  I grew up listening to Bill Cosby records often enough to memorize not just the routines but the cadence, the pauses, everything.  Pryor came later, when my mother took me to the movies to watch Live on Sunset Strip.  I couldn't have memorized his routines had I tried, because... well, there are some things a young white kid just can't pull off.

The first Carlin routine I ever heard was the famous football vs. baseball bit, and I was sold from that point forward.  I was older then, and no longer interested in playing the same bit over and over until I had it memorized.  I was also old enough to fully appreciate what he brought to the game, so that worked out pretty well.

In his prime George Carlin was probably the most intelligent commentator on modern American life in the world.  While often pithy, his best bits said more about our culture than any sociologist could manage in a lifetime.  The simplest and best example is the seven words you can't say on television, which I won't bother to link to because by now at least ten people have already sent you a link.  It's a funny bit, but it was an important one too.  It was the next stage in the career of Lenny Bruce, or would have been had Lenny not overdosed.  Carlin, not coincidentally, was in the crowd the night Bruce was arrested for indecency, just as Carlin was later for his seven words routine.  I digress.

These are just words, was his point.  And if he'd come out and just said that, or said "we're ignoring the big things because we're so hung up on the little things" nobody would have heard him.  His particular genius was in finding a way to take a big issue and making it palatable enough that people would listen.

It would have been nice to have him around for at least a little bit longer.