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study guide for superdomain03b ["Creating reality"]
Wikipedia (N.D.). "The Firesign Theater."
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1. Know whether or not [FST] first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program Radio Free Oz. Know whether or not The Firesign Theatre was the brainchild of Peter Bergman. Know whether or not the group's name stems from astrology, because all four were born under the three “fire signs.” Know whether or not Peter Bergman and Philip Proctor met while attending Yale University. Know whether or not Bergman struck up a friendship with [British comedy legend] Spike Milligan. Know whether or not Bergman had to drop “Oz” from the name after legal threats from Disney and MGM.
2. Know whether or not the Firesigns initially chose an improvisational style and carried it to a level which revolutionized radio comedy. Know whether or not the Firesigns were strongly influenced by the British Goon Show. Know whether or not Bergman coined the term "love-in" in 1967, and he promoted the first Los Angeles Love-In, attended by 40,000 in Elysian Park, on his program. Know whether or not [according to Bergman] everything was communally written, and if one person didn't agree about something, no matter how strongly the other three felt about it, it didn't go in.
3. Know whether or not the Firesigns almost lost their recording contract after their first album. Know whether or not The Further Adventures of Nick Danger is a parody of 1940s radio, about a hard-boiled detective (Austin) who became possibly the Firesigns' most famous character. Know whether or not Dwarf marked a high point in the Firesigns’ use of blue comedy. Know whether or not Dwarf was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1971 by the World Science Fiction Society, Know whether or not Dwarf brought a level of success to the Firesigns that started to spoil them.
4. Know whether or not FST’s fourth album, I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus (1971), is a single play. Know whether or not the Not Insane album performed poorly, and the Firesigns later claimed to be disappointed with it. Know whether or not the four FST members decided to take a break from the group in 1973 to work in separate directions. Know whether or not the Firesigns made use of inside humor. Know whether or not the Firesigns created their own inside jokes by referring to their own previously released material.
5. Know whether or not Everything You Know Is Wrong satirized the developing New Age movement. Know whether or not, according to Ossman, there was something about the Eighties--the anti-surrealist politics of the Eighties--that was wrong for the Firesign Theatre. Know whether or not, In 1996, Bergman revived Radio Free Oz as an Internet-based radio station, www.rfo.net, calling it "the Internet's funny bone." Know whether or not FST’s penultimate album was the 2010 Duke of Madness Motors…a combination book and data DVD comprising a complete compilation.
6. Know whether or not FST can claim to be the longest surviving group from the "classic rock" era to still be intact with the original members (45 years). Know whether or not, according to Austin, the remaining three Firesigns' April 21, 2012 memorial for Bergman was their last live performance. Know whether or not Philip Proctor…was a boy soprano in a children's choir and studied acting at Yale. Know whether or not Phil Austin was an accomplished lead guitarist, and that he was responsible for adding much of the music to Firesign works. Know whether or not David Ossman, the oldest Firesign, was known as the intellectual of the group.
7. Know whether or not the Firesigns visited the first Rocky Rococo Pizza when on tour in Madison in 1975 and reacted with good humor, joking around with the owners. Know whether or not Steve Jobs paid homage to the Firesigns' I Think We're All Bozos album by programming an "Easter egg" in Apple's Siri intelligent personal assistant. Know whether or not Ossman and his second wife Judith Walcutt…created an annual "Mark Time Award" for best radio science fiction, named after Ossman's astronaut character.
"As Below, So Above"
