George Carlin

George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine got him arrested in 1972, and the resulting case — FCC v. Pacifica Foundation — went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1978, where it became the ruling that still shapes what broadcast television can and can't say. That's an unusual legacy for a comedy bit: most jokes don't get cited in law school. He also delivered the first-ever HBO stand-up special, in 1977, and won the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize in 2008. What made him great wasn't the controversy so much as the precision underneath it — he took language apart word by word until the absurdity was undeniable.