THE FIRESIGN THEATRE
The Firesign Theatre (also known as The Firesigns) were an American surreal comedy group who first performed live on November 17, 1966 on the Los Angeles radio program Radio Free Oz. They produced thirteen record albums and a 45 rpm single under contract to Columbia Records from 1968 through 1976, and had three nationally syndicated radio programs. They also appeared in front of live audiences, and continued to write, perform, and record on other labels through 2012, occasionally taking sabbaticals during which they wrote or performed solo or in smaller groups. Firesign Theatre material was conceived, written, and performed by its members Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor. The group’s name stems from astrology, because all four were born under the three “fire signs”: Aries (Austin), Leo (Proctor), and Sagittarius (Bergman and Ossman). In 2005, the US Library of Congress added one of the group’s most popular early albums, the 1970 Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, to the National Recording Registry and called the group “The Beatles of comedy”. (More from Wikipedia)
At the beginning of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” by the Lovemasters is a bit of wacky but intriguing dialogue. I found precisely one reference to it on the Internet, a blog post by A. Templeton Goff answering a question about a different skit. He says: “[It is by] the Credibility Gap, the first group that featured Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David Lander (McKean’s partner from Laverne & Shirley). It’s from their album A Great Gift Idea. . . . Pretty hard to come by these days (it’s never been released on tape or CD), but it’s well worth the effort to find. IMHO, it ranks with National Lampoon’s Radio Dinner, Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, and Stan Freberg’s United States of America as one of the all-time great comedy albums.”
As laid out by A. Templeton Goff, the dialogue is taken from a sketch by the Credibility Gap called “Kingpin”, the story of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. if told in a “blaxploitation” film. (Only the first two lines plus the fistfight are actually on the Lovemasters album):
BUS DRIVER: Sorry, fella, you’ll have to get to the back of this bus.
KINGPIN: Listen, you honky-donkey! No one tells Kingpin to get back!
(Sounds of a fistfight)
BUS DRIVER: I . . . I thought you were nonviolent, Kingpin!
KINGPIN: Sure, man. Only when I’m . . . dreamin’!
(March 2016)
