The Eight Shoes reunited once again in 2002 for a series of short radio comedy sketches airing weekly on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered from Independence Day through New Year’s Eve. Phil Proctor, David Ossman, Phil Austin and Peter Bergman revive such cracked classic characters as private detective Nick Danger and the now-retired General Curtis Goatheart to probe the post-9/11 national psyche through every available orifice.
I’m not your typical Firesign Theatre fan; my friend (and occasional theLogBook.com contributor) Shane Vaughn introduced me to them via 1972’s Dear Friends well over a decade ago, and I was instantly hooked – and then had a slightly hard time realizing that most of the rest of their output simply isn’t in the same vein. Not that it isn’t good, and not that I haven’t learned to love their utterly strange longform projects such as Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, but to me, the Firesigns were always about Dear Friends. When I saw – long after the fact – that the group was releasing their NPR sketches, I was enthusiastic. This was a return to the short-sketch-comedy style that I had fallen in love with.
Having heard it now, it must be said that All Things Firesign is uneven. The war on terrorism is ripe for their unique style of comedy – political but not partisan, reveling in the absurdity coming from both ends of the political spectrum without just relentlessly slamming certain public figures – but they seem to miss the mark as often as they hit it, sort of the comedy equivalent of blowing up a cave three weeks after Osama Bin Laden vacated it. There is good stuff here, though: “It’s Saddam Shame!” pokes fun at the fact that terrorist organizations suddenly have media savvy, “TIPs Hotline” gives us a look at America’s Most Wanted as hosted by John Ashcroft instead of John Walsh, “Bob Heeblehauser’s Tacomasaur!” finds an inventive solution to the energy crisis, and perhaps best of all, “No Jokes About America!” aims squarely at that feeling that was still in effect circa 2002 that we had somehow lost the right in this country to crack a smile about anything.
The media itself has always been a rich vein of material for Firesign Theatre, and All Things Firesign is no exception. In a series of sketches, self-proclaimed “prisoner of the 21st century” Hal Stark drones on, Andy Rooney-style, about everything that’s wrong with the modern world, which turns out to mean everything except Hal Stark. Cooking and hunting shows, cryptic Gulf War v1.0-style military press conferences and even those DVD players that’ll censor movies for you all wind up in the Firesigns’ sights.
This CD even features one sketch that NPR quickly turned down. And admittedly, it’s easy to feel your eyebrows raising higher and higher as the Firesigns almost seem to be trying to find something to offend everyone in “Thanksgiving, or Pass The Indian, Please!” – and I was surprised too, because offending everyone isn’t really what the Firesigns are known for. They turn it around with an almost South Park-style twist at the end (and I don’t use the comparison lightly, for I’ve come to regard South Park as perhaps the Firesign Theatre’s only spiritual successor in any medium), but…yeah, you can see where the NPR producers might have been squirming in their seats on this one.
If you can’t handle anything making sport of the present situation, skip All Things Firesign. Those with no sense or humor, and no ability to see that there is at least a little absurdity in every situation, should steer clear. If you’re up for something that does find the absurdity in our soundbite-driven, slogan-ridden modern world, doesn’t slam the military and has a little well-observed fun at the expense of a few high-profile figures on both sides of the war on terror, this is right up your alley.