But no really the reason I like Carlin so much is I enjoy crude observational humor. Like George rarely had a punch line or where the story was ending up was the "really funny part." Plus as much as he thought people in general were stupid, dumbass, wastes of space... he thought he was the biggest one of them all. He was really self loathing but introspective which I always liked. Plus his stuff works very well in book format and his books over the years have been some of my favorite shitter readers.
Anyways he's not even my favorite but definitely top 5, maybe 3, I'd have to think of that. Pryor, Hedberg and probably (old) Murphy would round out my 3. Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, Steven Wright, Chris Rock and (old) Richard Lewis are probably with the aforementioned in my top 10 favorites.
Also Louis CK is decent standup but Louie the show fucking rules.
Think my top 5 favorite comedians gotta be Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope, Louis CK, Bill Burr, and Dave Chappelle. Honorable mentions to George Carlin, Chris Rock, Mitch Hedberg, Greg Giraldo, and Patrice O'Neal.