Everything You Know Is Wrong! The Declassified Firesign Theatre, 1968-1975

There’s likely no way for anyone who was not young and in the thrall of the Firesign Theatre during the period covered by these DVDs, 1968-1975, to fully appreciate this amazing treasure trove of audio and video.If you are only lately come to FST please prove me wrong and buy this set in droves. Anything that puts coin into the remaining three Firesigns is a worthy endeavor indeed. They never achieved the commercial success they deserved, for they were truly, the Beatles of Comedy for that generation. Don’t believe me? It was the Library of Congress that said that.Sadly, they were compensated as if they were The Archies of Comedy, an American fictional garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper.If you know and love FST you’ve already ordered this. If you don’t know their work, I’d suggest getting the CD of “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.” If you groove on that, you should then order everything else in their catalog, including this DVD set.You’ll get a recreation of their very first improv together, reprising the Oz Film Festival from 1966 on an edition of “The Les Crane Show” in 1968. Audio only.The infamous Jack Poet Volkswagon TV ads that ultimately led to Mr. Poet losing his franchise.“The Bob Sideburn News” and a, more or less, straight group interview from the “About a Week” show on CBS, 1971.A TV commercial produced for their label Columbia Records, 1972, pitching their albums as if they were used cars.“Martian Space Party,” a 27 minute concert film from 1972, previously only available as a VHS tape.A 41 minute movie of “Everything You Know is Wrong,” lip-synched to the album.A 63 minute B&W video of their stage show “Questions & Answers,” Live at UCSC, May 9, 1975, previously only available as an audio recording.Plus commentary tracks, picture galleries and a whole DVD of home movies shot by FST, Annalee Austin and Tiny Ossman shot between 1969 and 1975. And let’s not forget the amazing cover art by William Stout!

Disc 1 is brilliant stuff. I loved seeing Martian Space Party after only hearing the audio over th3 years. Disc 2 is exactly as described: home movies. No dialogue, Not at all funny. Even as a life-long fan I didn’t see the point. But disc 1 is worth the price of admission.

Arguably the FST most interesting video release, a bit pricey though.

For Firesign Theatre fans, there is some material not on the vinyl albums.

The end of an era.

Great stuff

A+++!!!

This is a good collection for fans, but it is sadly lacking in an abundance of great material and should have been produced as a Blu Ray to make more room for the material they didn't put on here. For instance, there is there truly great Eat or Be Eaten Video that is still available on VHS. Also the absolutely essential dubs they did for weird old movies collected as Hot Shorts on VHS. There is also the amazing Proctor and Bergman Video, J Men Forever. None of these have been produced for Blu ray and many of them are only VHS. This collection, as good as it is, missed some very essential material that would have been an absolute joy to have on high quality video at long last!!!!!!