Okay, I’ve heard about them for years, but I think I’m going to take the plunge and start getting into Firesign Theatre. Where do I start? Are individual routines recommended, or do I need to hear the entire album to give a framing reference?
Any and all thoughts and recommendations(positive and negative) are/will be appreciated
Chris W
Nick Danger…Third Eye of course. FST at their best. IMHO of course.
“That’s easy for you to say…you have a script!”
I should tell you it’s on the “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once (When You’re Not Anywhere At All)” album.
far and away my favorite and a great appetizer for a newbie.
I’d say the best started is “Everything you know is wrong.” That’s the most linear and easiest to understand album of theirs. "The Giant Rat of Sumatra is another one at about that level.
When you begin to get their humor, most importantly being able to recognize exactly what they’re doing “How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all” is a great one. The B-side is “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, 3rd Eye.” It’s tied with the next one for my most favorite/
The one to save for last and most difficult to really get, what with the heavy accents, is “Shakespeare’s Lost Comedie.”
I wouldn’t say their latest works are bad. Not at all. Just not quite as looney as their early works. “Boom Dot Bust” and “Give me Immortality or Give me Death” are both fine and funny, just not as great as their stuff from their height.
It’s too bad CDs are so small, they’ve had some really great covers to their albums.
If you really love Nick Danger you should check out “Nick Danger in The Case of the Missing Yolk”. Although when I tried to get my fellow college students to watch it in 1992 they totally didn’t get it.
I have a 2 disc, best of, called “Shoes for Industry” that is good. Includes some of the popular skits.
Their best album is Don’t Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.
Nick Danger is their funniest routine; you’ll find yourself quoting whole stretches by heart.
Those two are the pinnacle of Firesign.
I wouldn’t recommend Bozos to any beginner. It’s not that good and much too bizarre. Later work tended to be inferior to the original three albums, but still had some good moments.
I concur with How Can You Be in Two Places at Once and Don’t Crush That Dwarf as being the best Firesign Albums. I also have the 2 CD set Shoes For Industry. It’s an excellent Firesign primer.
“I didn’t see him come in, but my nostrils flared at the smell of his perfume. Pyramid Patchouli - there was only one joker in L.A. sensitive enough to wear that scent, and I had to find out who he was!
‘Good afternoon, Mister Danger. I’m Rocky Rococo.’
‘Thanks, half-pint. You just saved me a lot of investigative work!’”
Gotta love Firesign!
Porgie Tirebiter, he’s a spy and a girl delighter…
Follow the rubber line…
Porgie!!! Coming Mother!!!
“How can you be in two places at once” is a better start, and easier to follow for those only versed in linear thought. I’m a friend of Devon Ossman, David’d son, and he often said that they were trying to achieve with comedy, what Pink Floyd was doing with music.
Add me to the growing consensus that How Can You Be In Two Places At Once is the best place to start and that Don’t Crush That Dwarf is the masterpiece. There never has been anything like it at all, before or since.
Read me Dr. Memory?
I had a client that was on the other end of a conference call and, in the middle of a serious discussion we heard: “Oh, sorry. We have to leave to take care of an emergency. Could you keep talking for fifteen minutes?” “About what?” “Anything. Nonsense. We just need speaking so our voice-activated software doesn’t shut down.”
Well the “suits” around the table were flustered, and silent. So I grabbed the mike and, though I hadn’t heard Nick Danger since '76, started in:
"Los Angeles. He walks again by night. Relentlessly. Ruthlessly. I wonder where Ruth is… Doggedly. “Arf, arf, arf”… "
I kept it up until the clients got back. I’m sure I skipped a few lines, but no one noticed (and I must humbly admit I had the voices down pat, esp. Catherwood and Nancy). The assembled Vice-Presidents were either staring in numbed confusion or giggling uncontrollably. especailly at such OldeRadio cliches as “Come in out of the cornstarch and dry your muk-luks by the cellophane.” and bad puns like “We’re going to Greece!” “And swim the English Channel?”
Thanks, Nick.
riserius1, it looks like it’s time for you to play, “Beat The Reaper!”, and listen to some “Gas Music From Jupiter”.
I think that, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once and Don’t Crush That Dwarf are probably the very best, but I also like Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him and Bozos, too. Really, they’re all good. I also have Shoes For Industry, but I prefer the individual albums rather than the collage.
If you have a twisted sense of humor you’ll love these guys.
I had a co-worker a few years ago who was surprised and appalled that I had never heard the Firesign Theater, so he set about correcting that. He insisted that I listen to the first four albums in order. (He had the CD re-issues from several years ago, apparently they’re quite rare.) He pointed out some of the intracacies that exist across the albums, like the music that trails off at the end of one album picks up again at the beginning of the next. If you’re really willing to take the plunge, the canonical four are: (I hope I’ve got this right)
Waiting for the Electrician (or Someone Like Him)
How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All
Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus
(I was listening to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR a couple years ago. They were asking the call-in contestant questions about events of the past week, including a popular children’s TV host who taped his final show, and the caller just didn’t know who it was. They gave him a few hints, like they always do, (“His name is used for not-very-bright people.”) but he just wasn’t getting it. Finally Charlie said “I think we’re all this guy on a bus.” That did it.)
As Robot Arm says, you’re not a true acolyte until you know all the first three albums. (Bozos is optional.) It’s not until you realize that the other end of the one-sided phone call on Dwarf is Nick Danger’s one-sided phone call that you truly understand how brilliant and perfectly constructed these albums were.
That’s a good one. I’ll also point out Eat or be Eaten from around the same time. Computer gamers (especially adventure game players) should try to find the CD of the same name (which has nothing to do with the movie).
“At the corner of Fifth and Main, he turns into a great, brownstone building! Bump! Ow!”
“I was reading my name on the inside of my office door. ‘regnad kcin’…”
I heard it said once that the Firesign Theatre were the “Grateful Dead of Comedy”. Very pithy.
“I don’t know why you’re all so excited, it’s just this little chromium switch here…”
…"He’s ready for action <rinnnng>, he’s ready for adventure <rinnnng>, he’s ready for anything, he’s <ri–“Nick Danger, Third Eye.”
*"Yeah, I'd like to order a pizza to go, with, uhh, no anchovies."*
“No anchovies? You’ve got the wrong man. I spell my name Danger!”
<slams down phone>
*"What?"*
doo doo doo doo The makers of Loosner’s Castor Oil Flakes…
“Ma Rainy’s wholesome moleskin cookies. Eat 'em. Wipe 'em off. Eat 'em again. Your first bag will be your last!”
Gawd, those guys were so &*%#ing funny! Haven’t heard them in years. Can you get the albums on CD?