"Everything You Know Is Wrong" is Firesign Theatre's GREATEST album EVER. So THERE.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I'm a fan, and I saw them at Stanford in the mid-70s in a tiny little hall (it was like Jack the Ripper's London, this huge, slowly-moving, dense cloud of weed smoke that started five minutes after they took the stage and didn't let up for the entire night).

I know many people love "Don't Crush That Dwarf" and "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once"...but "Everything You Know" is amazing, and it gets better every time I listen to it (that's probably been several hundred times since its release).

I'm also a big fan of Bob & Ray, and this is probably their single greatest homage to the duo...it plays like a stoned Bob & Ray bit.



Characters (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Sheriff Luger Axehandle — Heater County, California law enforcement officer and witness to an apparent extraterrestrial sighting.
Lem Ashhauler — Editor of the Hellmouth Heater-Democrat newspaper, who presents an archival report of an extraterrestrial visitor in Curio, Arizona in 1897.
Nino Savatt, the Mind-Boggler (Philip Proctor) — A parody of Uri Geller, the psychic spoon-bender.
Daredemon Reebus Caneebus (Austin) {pronounced "ca-NEE-bus"} — A parody of daredevil Evel Knievel.
Don Brouhaha — A Native American shaman with a knowledge of natural psychoactive drugs — a parody of Carlos Castaneda's character Don Juan Matus, a shaman.
Gary the Seeker — A well-meaning if annoying member of a group of New Age experimentalists who travel on what Gary describes as "The Heavenly Bus".
Doctor Firesign — Presented in a cameo appearance, selling "Inca Hell-Oil Tonic" in his medicine show. Cox plays a wire recording containing part of an adventure in which Dr. Firesign encounters Don Brouhaha.
Art Wholeflaffer — Caretaker and groundskeeper at the trailer park where Harry Cox lives.
Buzz and Bunny Crumbhunger — A married couple who recorded their abduction, murder and resurrection by extraterrestrials on their home movie camera (They narrate the footage on a seemingly normal travelogue TV show).
Pat Hat — A parody of sportscaster Howard Cosell
Harold Hiphugger and Ray Hamburger (pronounced "om-bur-ZHER") — The "Where It's Happy" television news team of Channel Six, "The Hot One for the High Desert". Their style of reporting news largely by talking between themselves, rather than directly to the audience, parodies the Happy talk television news format which came into fashion about this time, as well as emulating the comedy team Bob and Ray.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Know_Is_Wrong

:toast:

[solara]

1. I agree, they were ( are) brilliant

Haven't heard them in years. I think I will seek out their albums

Any idea where to get them?


"A mighty hot dog is our Lord"

I still remember a few random lines

Which album had Nick Danger? I think I heard that one the most

Thanks for the reminder

[6000eliot]

3. They are on iTunes, I believe.

I love Don't Crush That Dwarf, myself. And yes, a mighty hotdog IS our Lord.

[solara]

4. lol

Thanks

[Frank Cannon]

5. Don't Crush That Dwarf is my favorite.

Yeah, I love those guys. You can listen to their records 500 times and "get" something you never did before.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

8. ALL of the "hard to find, out of print" stuff is on Laugh.com

"Everything You Know Is Wrong: is $14.99. Other places, like Amazon, are selling these same CDs for 150 bucks and up. Caveat Emptor.

http://laughstore.stores.yahoo.net/firtheatsket.html

:toast:

[Joe Fields]

11. I loved Nick Danger

Also, I'm not sure, but did they do a parody of Star Trek, called Star Drek?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

16. Do you have...or have you heard..."Box of Danger?" It's 4-1/2 hours of Danger-ous fun.

http://firesigntheatre.com/boxofdanger.html

Available from Laugh.com via FIRESALE: http://firesigntheatre.com/firesale/firesale.php?audio#bod

From All Music:

When counterculture vintage radio show fans Phil Proctor, Peter Bergman, Phil Austin, and David Ossman -- aka the Firesign Theater -- introduced the amazing and charming wiseacre detective Nick Danger, Third Eye on their 1969 album How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All, they had no idea that they were creating a mythical institution. (Garrison Keillor's Guy Noir character would not exist if it weren't for the whacked-out adventures of Nick Danger -- and he's nowhere near as funny because of his reliance on the upper middle class for his bread and butter.) But that first episode, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger (Cut 'Em Off at the Past)," was as well loved in those heady days of weed, acid, antiwar demonstrations, and Eastern mysticism as the subversive Firesigns themselves. Since that time there have been three entire albums devoted to this character, he's made countless appearances with the Firesigns on the radio and with Austin on the Daily Feed radio program, and he even starred in a film -- Nick Danger and the Case of the Missing Yolks, produced by former Monkees guitarist Mike Nesmith. In other words, he's a hero, not just from the 1960s, but an authentic mythical presence in the folklore of America itself from the last third of the 20th century.

Box of Danger: The Complete Nick Danger Casebook, compiled by the Firesigns and released with brilliant artwork and annotation by Shout Factory, is the definitive document thus far. It contains 29 episodes of varying lengths recorded between 1969 and June of 2008 -- three months before this box set was released. The comedy and radio theater here cannot be described except that it is far from the obviousness of The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and is sometimes so subtle that one can hear these skits and sketches many times before being able to get all the jokes. Nick Danger may be inept as a Third Eye detective, but he's one hell of a humorist. Shout Factory has done a superb job in offering this material with very clean sound and an excellent presentation with intro essays by the various characters associated with Danger in one form or another, including Danger himself, Rocky Rococo, and others. If you are heretofore unacquainted with Nick Danger and interested in humor, in particular classy subversive humor that spoofs everything associated with American culture, you have no idea how much this is for you. Those well versed in both the Firesigns and Danger are already smiling at the thought of such a document.

Tracklisting

DISC 1:
1. The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger
2. Young Guy Motor Detective
3. School For Actors

DISC 2:
1. The Case Of The Missing Shoe:Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Frame Me Pretty: Part 1: Straighten Up
7. Part 2: With A Twist
8. Part 3: On The Rocks
9. The Case Of The Missing General
10. Nick Danger Meets E.T.

DISC 3:
1. The Three Faces Of Al: Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Back From The Shadows Part 1: He Walks Again By Night
4. Part 2: The Old Same Place
5. Part 3: Hold It Right There!
6. Shack Out On The Alien Highway Part 1: Nick Begins The Case
7. Part 2: The Case Continues
8. Part 3: The Suspects Segue

DISC 4:
1. Shack Out On The Alien Highway Part 4: Shack-Out
2. Part 5: Shack-In
3. Part 6: Six Months Later
4. Part 7: Where Were We Now?
5. All Things Firesign: Lucky Liability
6. A St. Nick Dangerous Christmas Eve
7. Snakehead Symphony
8. Scaled Down Danger

[Joe Fields]

18. No, I haven't, but now it's DEFINITELY on my "get" list...

Thanks for that.:toast:

[SwampG8r]

2. didnt they have something to do with

national lampoons radio dinner?
i have every album you named on original vinyl

[Amerigo Vespucci]

9. No, they weren't involved with National Lampoon...

...and I "used to" own every one of their albums on vinyl, too, before I sold my vinyl collection.

:toast:

[blogslut]

6. I haven't heard it

My favorite involves squeezing the wheeze because you know you want to. :hi:

[Enthusiast]

7. I have to go with

I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus. "You broke the president!"

[livetohike]

10. That's my favorite too

:-)

[peekaloo]

20. Same here! A salute to the OP for his shout out to Bob & Ray!

:bounce:

[kentauros]

12. I have a hard time picking any one album as best/favorite.

Lately, I've been thinking of "Fort Stinkin' Desert" what with the drought going on here :P

Usually, Nick Danger, Third Eye, is my favorite :)

But I also love Proctor and Bergman's "J-Men Forever" :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPR3KrZV3Tk


"And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut. Those are the headlines, now the rumors behind the news."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

13. There's just stuff in "Everything" that is 100% my kind of humor...

The training film on aliens:

"Avoid eye contact"

"If no eyes, avoid ALL contact"

:rofl:

:toast:

One of my favorite BITS, from "Dear Friends," is the "Deputy Dan Coloring Book."

And Austin's solo album "Roller Maidens From Outer Space" is beyond amazing.

Not a fan of the Proctor & Bergman albums (they just weren't funny, to my ears) or "Not Insane."

Overall, I probably like between 75% - 80% of their entire catalog. Used to have a VHS copy of J-Men, too.

:toast:

[kentauros]

14. "Men? Two flying saucers have just landed on my plate."

"Well, turn away sir, I'll eat them!" :P

I do need to listen to it again, though, what with how it ends ;)

I used to have a VHS copy of J-Men, too, recorded off of the old "Night Flight" show. Now, I have a DVD copy, and it's a much nicer print. Then again, I saw the thing I don't know how many times as a midnight movie back when the distributor renamed it to "The Day the World Ended and I Became A Rock'n'Roll Idol" in order to get the stoner crowd. They never got it, and often walked out of the theater less than half an hour into the movie. Oil well, their loss :D

[Amerigo Vespucci]

15. Mine came from Night Flight too!

That was must-see TV for me, back in the day.

:toast:

[kentauros]

17. I know!

Plenty of experimental music videos got aired on it, such as some music by Philip Glass, Japanese rockabilly, and Adrian Belew's "Big Electric Cat" in what was then state of the art video effects :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_kk8mGqBj8&ob=av2e

:toast:

[Doc_Technical]

19. There is this sketch on "Dear Friends"...

Mark Time and his sidekick Bob Bunny were captured
by Prince Arcturus and held prisoner while
mutants and just plain joes are ready to do battle
and an old and stupid man (who's name excapes me at the moment)
tries to get his rocket ship repaired.