Critic Ralph J. Gleason (1917–1975) wrote that Lenny Bruce’s humor “is the seminal influence of his generation.” Bruce (1925–1966) and the comedians he influenced, such as Dick Gregory (b. 1932), Richard Pryor (1940–2005), and George Carlin (1937–2008), employed satire to reveal hypocrisies underlying conventional ways of life. Bruce professed that the “world is sick and I’m the doctor. I’m a surgeon with a scalpel for false values.” Bruce’s sketches satirizing racial, religious, and sexual mores, provoked more outrage than those of his contemporaries.