The six-or-eight pizza joke was already running as unsigned filler in American newspapers in June 1965, credited within months to several different tellers. The only documented link to George Carlin is a 1 November 1968 newspaper advertisement previewing Parade’s “Favorite Jokes of George Carlin” — which presents it as a joke he liked, three years after it was already in print.
“Do You Want Six or Eight Slices of Pizza?” Not George Carlin. The six-or-eight pizza joke was unsigned newspaper filler by 12 June 1965 and was credited to several different tellers that year; Parade linked it to Carlin only in 1968, as one of his favorite jokes, and Yogi Berra picked it up by 1970. No author has ever been identified. — Quotle.info · Verbatim: “You better cut it into six pieces for I don't think I could eat eight!”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Carlin. Use the credit shown above instead.
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? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of wisdom, simplicity and doubt. Theme: "Do You Want Six or Eight Slices of Pizza?". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Do You Want Six or Eight Slices of Pizza?". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the joke actually starts
Earliest documented printing
“Breezes,” The News Herald (Franklin and Oil City, Pa.), 12 June 1965 — an overheard exchange, no name attached
First printed in a quotations column
Sports Illustrated, “They Said It,” 20 September 1965 — credited to Milwaukee pitcher Dan Osinski
The Carlin link
1 November 1968 advertisement previewing Parade’s “Favorite Jokes of George Carlin”
Credited to
Several tellers in 1965; George Carlin from 1968; Yogi Berra from 1970 onward
Ken Thompson stopped in at Dick McDaniels’ Pizza Palace the other night and ordered a pizza. When it was ready, Dick asked Ken if he wanted it cut in six or eight pieces. Ken thought a while, and then said, “Better make it six pieces. I could never eat eight.”
Six, not eight
The Weyauwega (Wis.) Chronicle item as reprinted in the Milwaukee Journal on 13 June 1965 (Barry Popik) and in the Omaha World Herald on 17 June 1965 — the latter the earliest instance Quote Investigator located. Note that “Do you want six or eight slices of pizza?” is the setup, not the punchline; the quotable half is the reply.
12 June 1965 — the joke appears as unsigned filler in the “Breezes” column of The News Herald (Franklin and Oil City, Pa.): a man in a local pizza shop, asked whether he wants six or eight pieces, thinks it over and picks six. This is the earliest instance documented by Barry Popik ↗.
20 September 1965 — Sports Illustrated prints the punchline as a real quotation from Milwaukee pitcher Dan Osinski: “Better make it six, I can’t eat eight.” The issue is readable in full at the Internet Archive ↗.
1 November 1968 — a newspaper advertisement previewing Parade’s “Favorite Jokes of George Carlin” runs the gag as a gem from Carlin’s favourites, per Quote Investigator ↗. That is the whole of the Carlin evidence.
24 November 1970 — the Fresno Bee quotes Mickey Mantle telling the story with Yogi Berra delivering the line, in a four-or-eight version; from here the joke belongs to Berra in popular memory (Barry Popik ↗).
No authored work contains this line: the earliest documented instances are unsigned newspaper filler from June 1965, and no originator has ever been identified. Whether any individual 1965 newspaper issue is in the public domain turns on notice and renewal facts we have not verified, so no rights status is asserted here.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Everyone who has been credited with it
This gag has been handed to at least half a dozen people in sixty years, and the documentary trail shows each of them receiving it rather than inventing it.
✕
The credit on modern repostsGeorge Carlin Retold, not written
The only documented tie is a 1 November 1968 newspaper advertisement previewing Parade’s “Favorite Jokes of George Carlin,” which introduces it with “From the Favorite Jokes of George Carlin comes this gem” — a joke he liked, published three years after the joke was already in newspapers (Quote Investigator ↗).
~
The most common credit overallYogi Berra Later drift
Berra enters the story late. Mickey Mantle was quoted telling a Berra version in the Fresno Bee of 24 November 1970, and by then the joke had mutated from six-or-eight to four-or-eight (Barry Popik ↗).
✕
The 1965 claimantsDan Osinski, Bobby Bragan’s unnamed pitcher, Muriel Vernick’s overheard diner, Andy Wimpfheimer, Ken Thompson Same joke, five tellers, one year
Between June and November 1965 the identical gag was printed about a Wisconsin pizza customer, a New York Mets player, a stranger in a Chicago restaurant, a pitcher and a snack-bar patron in Bennett Cerf’s column — each presented as something that really happened (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓No one has been shown to have invented it. The earliest instances are unsigned newspaper filler from June 1965, and Quote Investigator’s own conclusion notes that some of these tellings “were constructed to entertain and were fictional” (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
A joke that goes looking for a famous mouth
The line handed round as George Carlin’s is not really a quotation at all — it is a joke, and the wording “Do you want six or eight slices of pizza?” is the setup, the waitress’s question. The punchline is the answer: six, because I could never eat eight. In the earliest printings nobody famous says it. A man in a Pennsylvania pizza shop says it, overheard, in a column of local chatter on 12 June 1965.
What happened next is the standard life cycle of a good gag. Within five months of that first sighting it had been retold about a Wisconsin pizza customer, an unnamed New York Mets player, a stranger overheard in a Chicago restaurant, Milwaukee pitcher Dan Osinski and a snack-bar patron in Bennett Cerf’s syndicated column. Sports Illustrated printed it as a real quotation in September 1965. Carlin picked it up by 1968; by 1970 Mickey Mantle was telling it about Yogi Berra, and Berra has carried it ever since.
The joke did not come from a famous person. It went to them.
Why the credit keeps moving
The joke needs a teller who is plausibly guileless, so it attaches to whoever currently plays that role in public. In 1965 that was a string of anonymous customers and journeyman ballplayers. Carlin, a rising comic building an act out of ordinary American absurdity, was a natural next stop. Berra, whose whole public persona was the deadpan logic-scrambler, was the final one — and the version that stuck to him swapped six-or-eight for four-or-eight.
Berra himself was blunt about this pattern. The line most often quoted back at him on the subject is his own: “I really didn’t say everything I said.”
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1937–2008 · American comedian, satirist and social critic
George Carlin was one of the most quoted comedians in America, and like Twain and Einstein before him he became a name that loose jokes drift toward. His one documented connection to this gag is a 1 November 1968 newspaper advertisement previewing Parade’s “Favorite Jokes of George Carlin,” which framed it as a joke he enjoyed — not one he wrote. By the time that ran, the same joke had been circulating in newspapers for three years, pinned to a Wisconsin pizza customer, a Milwaukee pitcher and several other people.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented printing
“Breezes,” The News Herald (Franklin and Oil City, Pa.), June 12, 1965, p. 7 — the earliest instance documented by Barry Popik. See also Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Do You Want Six or Eight Slices of Pizza?” (July 22, 2014), whose earliest located citation is the Omaha World Herald, June 17, 1965, reprinting the Weyauwega (Wis.) Chronicle.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Do You Want Six or Eight Slices of Pizza?’?” Last verified 1 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/do-you-want-six-or-eight-slices-of-pizza/