Personal Favorites

After starring in a dozen or so HBO Special Presentations, comedian George Carlin has amassed a substantial body of work in the cable channel's vaults. Personal Favorites is a greatest-hits package, a selection of some of Carlin's best moments on HBO from 1977 to 1998 and, not coincidentally, some of his most enduring comic routines from any medium. Among the highlights is the satirist's classic "A Place for My Stuff" ("Your house is a pile of stuff with a cover on it"), stupid rules for kids ("The first sign of a dumb rule is 'Because I said so'"), and updating sports rules for fun and profit ("Let the Red Cross pick up the injured"). If some of the bits aren't quite up to par ("Earrings"), others border on folk wisdom (Carlin's brilliant "Baseball vs. Football" monologue) and political rage ("This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free"). All in all, this is a very fine anthology of Carlin's two decades of life on cable.