Carl was born in Ohio, and he started his comedy career traveling with a variety of circuses during his teenage years.

In time, Carl became internationally famous as a clown and visual comedian. Johnny Carson, a fan of Carl's, invited him to appear on The Tonight Show on March 21, 1985, when Carl was 69. His appearance was so well received that he was asked back within weeks for a second appearance which also received raves from viewers. He appeared again on May 27, 1986, doing essentially his same act and received great laughter from an obviously appreciative audience.

With hardly any props, except for a microphone, a mic stand, his hat, and sometimes a harmonica, Carl would seemingly accidentally become tangled up in the mic cord, get his thumb stuck in the microphone stand and, through a flurry of silent bits, wind up accomplishing nothing at all in the time spent onstage.

At the age of 79, Carl made his screen debut in the 1995 film Funny Bones starring Jerry Lewis.

He played an old music-hall comedian, one of the Parker brothers, who never spoke until a scene in which his character explains the reason performers perform: "Our suffering is special. The pain we feel is worse than anyone else. But the sunrise we see is more beautiful than anyone else. The Parkers is ... like the moon. There's one side forever dark. Invisible. As it should be. But remember, the dark moon draws the tides also."

Mark Evanier, noted comic book author, artist and blogger wrote this tribute to George.

“I am in awe of folks who do things so well that their skill approaches the level of magic. I don't mean they merely do it well…but they do it so flawlessly that even others who do it well (whatever it is), stand around with their jaws open, wondering if they even belong in the same business.

It goes beyond sheer ability. Years ago, when Sandy Koufax was pitching for the Dodgers, they used to say, "He's pitching in another league." There were others around who sometimes matched his E.R.A. — some who won more games — but their capabilities were earthbound and understandable. Koufax's talent seemed to come from a whole other place. With him, a strikeout was more than one-third of the end of the inning; it was an act of poetry. (So was Vin Scully's description of it, up in the booth.)

There is just something beautiful about someone doing something — anything — to perfection. Somewhere out there, there's got to be a chicken flicker who flicks his chickens so expertly that other chicken flickers stand about and go, "How does he do that?" I've seen great cartoonists say this about other great cartoonists.

Sometimes, it's a matter of inexplicable, ingrained talent. Other times, it's a little of that honed by thousands of hours of rehearsal. One of the reasons I love Vegas-style entertainment is that you see a lot of acts who have trained to a flawless sheen. It can be Lance Burton plucking doves from nowhere at the Monte Carlo…or Charlie Frye juggling Indian Clubs at the Tropicana…or the Flying Cavarettas trapezing their way through the rafters of Circus Circus.

It needn't even be a feat of dexterity. He seems to be retired now but, years ago in Vegas, I loved to go see George Carl do a comedy act that Johnny Carson (no stranger to great comedy acts) called "The funniest 20 minutes in show business." It basically consisted of Mr. Carl getting tangled in the microphone cord. For 20 minutes.

Ostensibly, he was there to play a harmonica solo…but before he got the first note out, he dropped the mike and then he had trouble with the mike stand. And then he knocked over a tray with his harmonicas on it. And then he somehow got the mike down his pants…and the more he tried to undo things, the more tangled and snarled and hopeless and hysterical things got.

I don't know how many times he performed it. I'm guessing 3 shows a night, 6 nights a week for 40 years. Those are very conservative numbers and it still totals out to 37,440 performances. Long before I saw him — near the end of a very long career — he had every second of the act perfected. Every movement, every gesture, every expression, he'd polished the way Nijinsky honed each step of Afternoon of a Faun. If there was a way to get a laugh in any given second of his performance, Carl had found it.

That is an art. It takes talent to do something badly and do it that well.”