It was entitled I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die, and contained a joke about Osama bin Laden’s flatulence bringing down a jet plane.

As such, it was not surprising that on September 11, 2001, the comedian George Carlin decided to shelve the stand-up routine he had recorded the day before.

Now, 15 years after the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, the routine that the late comedian recorded for an HBO special is being made public.

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“I watch television news for one thing only — entertainment,” he said in Jammin’ in New York, his 1992 special. “My favorite thing is accidents and fires. I’m not interested in the budget. You show me a hospital on fire and I’m a happy guy.”

The New York Times said that the recording Carlin, who died in 2008, recorded the day before the 9/11 attacks, is to be broadcast on Sirius XM, and will be available for download or sale at on Amazon and iTunes. The special contains an hour of new jokes, with a ten-minute narrative at its centre which provides the recording’s title.

During the recording, Carlin also told a joke about the Al-Qaeda’s leader’s wind, and how it destroyed an airplane.