Most comics would get angry at that kind of criticism and mockery, and Carlin was no exception. But rather than railing against his critics about unfair treatment, he took the ridicule as a challenge. “I say to myself, I’m going to make these people pay by getting better and learning how to really be a fucking artist,” Carlin said. “And it gave me an inner resolve to be terrific. To go to a new level. To just fucking show the world what was really inside me.”

And that’s just what Carlin did, reinventing himself with a third act like few stand-ups have ever been able to pull off. His scorched-earth tirades fueled several award-winning HBO specials as he turned his inner anger into righteous comedy. But that didn’t make Moranis any less terrified when he ran into Carlin years after the fact. “I was at an awards show,” Moranis remembers in the Toronto Second City oral history. “Across the aisle was Carlin, sitting there. We looked at each other, and he just said, ‘Brutal. Brutal, man. Brutal.’”

Moranis could only “sort of shrug” and gesture about how much he loved Carlin. The two funny men never got to speak that night, or at any time before Carlin passed away. Later, Moranis was contacted by Carlin’s daughter, Kelly, who wanted to include the SCTV clips in a tribute she was putting together. Moranis assured her: “Look, I want you to understand that, believe it or not, that was really done out of reverence.”

“She said, ‘No, you don’t understand. It had a profound effect on him. He wasn’t aware that he was really being lazy. He was unhappy and wasn’t doing the kind of work that he wanted to be doing. And your impression caused him to change his approach.’”

“God,” says Moranis now, “am I glad I spoke to her.”