George Carlin, the first-ever host of Saturday Night Live and the second-best stand-up comedian of all time (after Richard Pryor) according to Comedy Central, has died.
He was 71.
U.S. media networks are reporting that Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California yesterday afternoon.
He died of heart failure around 9 p.m. Ontario time.
Carlin played Mister Conductor on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station.
He was also well known to television viewers as the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman.
His Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television routine went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Carlin appeared at a sold-out performance earlier this year at Kewadin Casino in the Michigan Soo.
To read coverage of that event (warning: it contains Carlinesque language) please click here.
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