George Carlin Watched Lenny Bruce Die. Then He Understood (1966)

In 1966, Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose, broken by years of obscenity arrests and legal harassment. George Carlin was at the funeral. He was 29 years old, still wearing suits, still doing safe television comedy. What he saw at that funeral — what the weight of that death meant — took six years to fully surface. When it did, it changed everything.