Darrell Vickers – George Carlin: Part One – He Hired Who?

     In 1973, George Carlin was an absolute filthy sensation. “FM & AM”, “Class Clown” and “Occupation: Foole” had taken an easily scandalized world by storm. Who knew mentioning “cocksucker, motherfucker and tits” (which sounds like Jimmy Swaggart’s room service order at a Baptist convention) could be so uproarious? I can recall precisely where I was the first time I laid my tender ears upon “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” A shindig was being thrown for the young and swingin’ volunteers of the local, government-mandated Cable Access station. We, the young and unpaid, sat around that north Oshawa living room in stitches while Bill Ridell, the government-mandated station manager, mimed along with the shockingly brilliant piece.

Darrell Vickers – Thicke of the Night Part III – Dark Fantasy

Very few enterprises begin their days with as much jocundity and hubris as Thicke of the Night at its inchoation. Fred Silverman’s latest blockbuster proclaimed itself to be a new and bold spring morning that would lead moribund late-night entertainment out of its dark and dreary winter. The talk show format had become stale and uninteresting. A pallid and tiresome visitor in the sexless bedrooms of America.

Darrell Vickers: How I Went from a Suite at the Four Seasons to a Shitty, Bug Infested Apartment on Avenue Road in Three Easy Steps.

Andrew and I had died on gone to showbiz heaven. We’d somehow been hired to come in and help George Carlin put together a pilot he was writing and starring in for HBO. This was about as likely as John McCain quitting the Senate to teach Anger Management seminars.