The Firesign Theatre was an American surreal comedy group that first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on Radio Free Oz on station KPFK FM in Los Angeles. In their career, they produced fifteen record albums and one single and had three nationally syndicated radio programs, The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, Dear Friends and Let's Eat!
Created by Peter Bergman, all of their material was conceived, written and performed by Bergman, Philip Proctor, Phil Austin and David Ossman. They have the name as all four were born under the three fire signs of astrology, with Austin being an Aries, Proctor a Leo and Bergman and Ossman both Sagittarius.
The comedy of the group was based on fooling people. Proctor said, "We each independently created our own material and characters and brought them together, not knowing what the others were going to pull. And it was all based on put-ons; that is, we were assuming characters that were assumed to be real by the listeners. No matter how far out we would carry a premise, if we were tied to the phones we discovered the audience would go far ahead of us. We could be as outrageous as we wanted to be and they believed us-which was astonishingly funny and interesting and terrifying to us, because it showed the power of the medium and the gullibility and vulnerability of most people."
With titles like How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All and Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, their concept albums could be about nothing. Or also about people growing old as they watched TV. They were unlike anything else at the time or since, to be perfectly truthful.
After a break in 1973, the group reformed and went after new targets. Everything You Know Is Wrong attacked the New Age before some people even knew what it was. Ossman referred to it as a "complicated and cinematic record, we were trying to write a radio movie." Working with Allen Daviau, who would later be the cinematographer of so many Spielberg movies, they used the album as a soundtrack for a film that was released in 1993.
For most of the 70s, the Firesigns were quiet. Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin's Tandem Productions bought the rights to their character Nick Danger for a TV series that would star George Hamilton and New Line wanted to make a movie from the same stories with Chevy Chase. The group did make five episodes of a show called Nick Danger: The Case of the Missing Shoe for radio, which was pretty much a dying format, and when it wasn't sold, they released it on an EP.
Proctor and Bergman made J-Men Forever and then Austin and Bergman finally reunited to start performing again. However, when Reagan was in office, the political waters were not safe for the group. They faded, only to reappear later in the 80s. As Bergman said, "I dreamed it back. Sure enough, when we kicked the fascists out of office it was time for the Firesign Theatre to come back." They lasted until the 2010s and claimed to be the longest surviving group from the classic rock era to still be intact with the original members. Sadly, Bergman would die in 2012 and his memorial would be their last performance. Austin died in 2015.
As for the movies that they worked on, the Western musical Zachariah is one. They were also involved with Tunnel Vision, Americathon and Nick Danger in The Case of the Missing Yolk, which was an interactive video game that became a movie and was shown - just like J-Men Forever - on USA's Night Flight.
Just like the aforementioned - twice - J-Men Forever, this is a series of old movie serials redubbed into entirely new stories by the Firesigns. Daughters of the Canadian Mounties becomes The Mounties Catch Herpes. Panther Girls of the Congo transforms into Claws II. Spy Smasher presents a world where no one lights up anymore in Revenge of the Non-Smokers. Sperm Bank Hold-Up is The Black Widow. Nazi Diet Doctors is Darkest Africa. Toy Wars has turned into Manhunt of Mystery Island. Olympic Confidential transforms into Undersea Kingdom. The Last Handgun On Earth is Radar Men from the Moon. Heaven Is Hell is dubbed and turned into She Demons.
Luckily, we live in a world where you can find this on the internet. The humor is silly but you can see that Mystery Science Theater 3000 was influenced by how the Firesigns dubbed these movies. As someone who loves both serials and stupidity, I loved every moment of this.
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