# Peter Bergman passes away **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 9, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299 "2012-03-09T18:20:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/21 "2012-03-10T16:55:27Z")
I applaud adventurous comic creativity of any stripe and the world is the poorer when it leaves us. But as a child of the post-psychedelic era, I have to say FT pegs my You Had To Be There meter to the point of overload. Is there _anything_ to their stuff that can be appreciated without first having heard it in a small crowded cannabis-infused room? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/22 "2012-03-10T17:06:13Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > I applaud adventurous comic creativity of any stripe and the world is the poorer when it leaves us. But as a child of the post-psychedelic era, I have to say FT pegs my You Had To Be There meter to the point of overload. Is there _anything_ to their stuff that can be appreciated without first having heard it in a small crowded cannabis-infused room? their stuff was inspired by old time radio. true theater of the mind stuff. the stuff was also massively layered with sounds, words, situations or images. much the same as done now on the Simpsons in the same manner including visually (things in the background visually that you might notice when you see it for the 6th time). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/23 "2012-03-10T20:45:43Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > I applaud adventurous comic creativity of any stripe and the world is the poorer when it leaves us. But as a child of the post-psychedelic era, I have to say FT pegs my You Had To Be There meter to the point of overload. Is there _anything_ to their stuff that can be appreciated without first having heard it in a small crowded cannabis-infused room? I never touched the stuff (though I was there) and it didn’t affect my appreciation of it at all. The obit in the Times quotes him as saying that the albums were meant to be listened to lots of times - and we all did. Dwarves, which I would vote for greatest comedy album ever made, works the first time you hear it but is so complex that it also works the 20th time. In fact I learned stuff when I read the script. This is no movie, this is real. Which reel? The last reel of this vintage motion picture … One could write volumes on that alone. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/24 "2012-03-10T22:35:15Z")
Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air? That question broke the President. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/25 "2012-03-10T23:14:33Z")
Peter’s parting words from the last Radio Free Oz podcast, March 6. > [@](#): > > Take heart, dear friends. We are passing through the darkening of the light. We’re going to make it and we’re going to make it together. Don’t get ground down by cynicism. Don’t let depression darken the glass through which you look. This is a garden we live in. A garden seeded with unconditional love. And the tears of the oppressed, and the tears of the frustrated, and the tears of the good will spring those seeds. > > The flag has been waved. It says occupy. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy the banks. Occupy the nursing homes. Occupy Congress. Occupy the big law offices. Occupy the lobbyists. Occupy…yourself. Because that’s where it all comes together. I pledge to you, from this moment on, whatever it means, I’m going to occupy myself. I love you. See you tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/26 "2012-03-11T21:48:59Z")
First Davy Jones and now Peter Bergman. Two of the groups that symbolize the 60s for me now fading into that long oblivion. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/27 "2012-03-11T22:54:22Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > I applaud adventurous comic creativity of any stripe and the world is the poorer when it leaves us. But as a child of the post-psychedelic era, I have to say FT pegs my You Had To Be There meter to the point of overload. Is there _anything_ to their stuff that can be appreciated without first having heard it in a small crowded cannabis-infused room? I never was stoned, nor had I even tried pot when I first heard it. People use this as a snarky putdown of anything that goes over their heads. The Firesign Theater had a depth of humor that no one has ever matched. You can hear them over and over again and discover something new; just about every line was a joke, and they showed a layer of sophistication that no one under the influence of drugs would even notice. The mainreason they are lesser known is that much of their comedy was topical and referenced popular culture of the time. But their work was completely original, mostly because no one can touch the amount of bizarre humor they could put into an album. They burned out relatively early and their later work never came together. But their first three albums are major achievements in the world of comedy. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/28 "2012-03-12T02:34:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I never was stoned, nor had I even tried pot when I first heard it. Same here. Pot made you more inclined to sit still and listen, which is absolutely necessary to get FST. It was even difficult in the coke-driven 80s to get people to appreciate them. I prided myself in being the only one of my friends who’d ever heard of Firestone Circle Theatre, which their name riffs on. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/29 "2012-03-12T03:11:38Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I never was stoned, nor had I even tried pot when I first heard it. People use this as a snarky putdown of anything that goes over their heads. > > The Firesign Theater had a depth of humor that no one has ever matched. You can hear them over and over again and discover something new; just about every line was a joke, and they showed a layer of sophistication that no one under the influence of drugs would even notice. Exactly. They were the very opposite of pot humor. You had to listen, to think, to understand the entirety of popular culture, and to make the associations that they had. You can make analogies is to the Broadway plays written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind for the Marx Brothers, the Goons, and Monty Python, all of whom similarly included dozens of cultural references and wove gags and general insanity into a shambles of a plot. Nobody ever thought of that as drug humor. Or as I said in this [earlier thread about them](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=303480): > [@Recommend me a Firesign Theater album](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-a-firesign-theater-album/291130/15): > > I still remember the day in college when my roommate and I were listening to Don’t Crush That Dwarf… for the umpteenth time, came to the bit about having “an argument with my co-pilot” and shouted out simultaneously, “God is My Co-Pilot!” Layers under layers. There’s still a need for the Annotated Firesign Theatre. That’s a good thread for a beginner to read, because people talk about what the best albums are and lots of other useful info. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/30 "2012-03-12T03:22:35Z")
I love the Marxes. I love Python. Always have. Anything I didn’t get because I wasn’t British or didn’t live in the '20s, I would keep in the back of my mind and by and by I’d figure it out. It usually wasn’t crucial to the laugh. The Goons start to get a little (something) for me. The laughs aren’t in quite the same place, nor are there quite so many per minute. What’s different? More narrative? More conceptual? FT is probably further along that scale of (something). The question is: what _is_ that (something)? FWIW, I was something of a Duck’s Breath fan during their '80s heyday. Not on the same level of intellectualism as FT, but they did have some of the same feeling of “we’re telling a story, and you need to pay attention, because the story is where the laughs are.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299/31 "2012-03-12T16:09:22Z")
It all goes back to Shakespeare. (Doesn’t everything?) Only scholars understand how studded the plays are with contemporary references that mean nothing to later audiences, not to mention all the puns that worked with the language of his day that have vanished with the original meaning. If Shakespeare clicks with contemporary audiences, it can only be because the basics of plot, characterization, and and insight anchor the plays with the wordplay as delicious frosting. And even so, many people just don’t get Shakespeare at all and a quick search can bring up 200 years of famous writers saying how awful he is. I have to admit I’m not a big fan. For me, the Goons are equally a problem. I know enough about humor and joke writing to hear a punchline just from the inflections and rhythm. And the audience is laughing like crazy. It’s just that the actual words mean nothing to me, because they are so obviously a contemporary reference. You can hear this in the Pythons when they say something like “Reginald Mauldling?” Just using the name is obviously a joke. Why is a mystery. Fortunately, there’s so much cake that I don’t mind some of the frosting being missing. Firesign often went back in time to use a common history of popular culture for their references, so that the more you see the more you get. There are loads of references, allusions, quotes, and implications but underneath, for me, is a solid layer cake of good structured humor. Maybe that’s the problem with the later albums. They’re more frosting than cake. For example, I really like Fighting Clowns, which is an all-song album on contemporary politics. I was around so I get it, plus they’re some of the few political songs that are actually funny, although it’s basically all frosting. Did you know that Jeff Baxter played guitar on the songs? And that Phil Hartman designed the cover art? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peter-bergman-passes-away/615299.md?page=1)