Everything You Know Is Wrong

Firesign Theatre | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 21, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Laugh.com
• ASIN: B00006BNDP
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,534 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Everything You Know Is Wrong, sounds like the blueprint for The X-Files, Church of the Subgenius, and every other conspiracy theory you can think of. Listen to 'Army Training Film' and you will die laughing. Collector's Choice. 2001.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Firesign Boys Greatest Album, July 27, 2002

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Everything You Know Is Wrong (Audio CD)

In my opinion, this album is by far the finest that Firesign Theatre have produced in their long and illustrious career. As far as I am aware, it has never been released on CD in the US, and this import might be the one shot anyone in the US has of owning this essential album. While they have produced other albums that are extraordinarily funny--such as DON'T TOUCH THAT DWARF, HAND ME THE PLIERS and HOW CAN YOU BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE WHEN YOU ARE NOWHERE AT ALL? (aka MARX/LENNON)--in EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG the guys utterly transcended themselves to create the finest comedy album ever released.

The guys were never more creative than they were on this album. From the first seconds of the album, with the scratchy refrains of Strauss's ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA playing over "Happy" Harry Cox's introduction to his latest work, until the very end as everyone marches into the crater created by a meteor (and our missed opportunity at "Contact," in the Carl Sagan sense), this is a flat out laugh riot, as well as a prescient commentary on some of the flakier aspects of the 1970s. It could also be viewed as a critique of New Age thought (or Nude Age, in Firesign parlance). Harry informs us that there are very, very many things that we do not know: Dogs came from Outer Space! Indians can be in two places at once! Our forefathers used drugs! And he has proof! Some of the funniest parts of the album occur when he plays tapes for his fellow seekers (as he puts it at the beginning, "There's a seeker born every minute"). For instance, a tape recording of the Founding Fathers doing drugs (i.e., smoking hemp), which inspires one of them to cry out, "Let's have a revolution!" Mention is also made of Benjamin Franklin, "The only president of the United States, who was never president of the United States." We then manage to hear a very, very rare recording of "Uncle Tom" returning home after the Civil War. Someone tells him, "Uncle Tom, you're free!" To which he replies, "No I'm not. I's expensive."

The album contains an extended parody of both New Age thought and the stunts of Evel Knevel, and the way they anticipate much of the preoccupations of the eighties and nineties in paranormal phenomena is almost creepy. The album ends up not only being funny, but prophetic, too.

There is only one truly awful moment on the album. Harry, in the last seconds of the album, asks if the events he is witnessing is a new beginning, only to answer the question himself, "No . . . it's the end." The only criticism of this marvelous album is that it has to end at all.

Anyone who has enjoyed any of the Firesign Theatre albums absolutely must acquire this one. Anyone unfamiliar with the group could find absolutely no better place to start enjoying their own bizarre form of comedy than with this album. Hopefully, this album will never be out of print again.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Firesign Theatre at its best, September 11, 2002

By 

Kevin O'Conner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everything You Know Is Wrong (Audio CD)

I owned a copy of this LP as a kid; the wordplay and the beer commercial parody alone were enough to keep me and my friends howling with laughter whenever we'd listen.

The Firesign Theatre represents a form of entertainment that has become something of a lost art: what used to be referred to as "theater of the mind". Much like radio plays, Firesign Theatre albums tell a story through characters and dramatization, with each listener's imagination providing the visuals. This kind of experience is hard to beat. (I got to see the Everything You Know Is Wrong video a couple of years ago and was actually a little disappointed by it; the visuals in my head were far more intriguing.)

The review posted below mentions most of the highlights on this album, though my favorite part (other than the opening: "Dogs flew spaceships! The Aztecs invented the vacation! Men and women are the same sex! Our forefathers took drugs! Yes! That's right! Everything you know is WRONG!") was always the Bear Whiz Beer commercial, which perfectly parodied the Olympia Beer commercials of the day (1973).

I've always been a little surprised that Sony didn't include this album when they reissued some of the Firesign Theatre catalog on CD a few years ago. But, leave it to a small label like Laugh.com to step in and fill the void. I'm not sure why this disc is listed as an import, though; the label's fulfillment center is in California. Still worth picking up, though. This will be my first Firesign Theatre CD purchase, that's for sure.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Firesign's best titles, September 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Everything You Know Is Wrong (Audio CD)

This title is one of the best of the Firesign Theatre's canon... and that's saying a lot. It is a satire of New Age beliefs (or what were "New" back in 1974) which, remarkably, has aged very little. It's almost as if the album was so prophetic (as well as hilarious) that it's taken until now for everyone else to catch up to the humor. The troupe - David Ossman, Peter Bergman, Philip Proctor, and Philip Austin - all perform several roles a piece (though the lead character of Dr. "Happy" Harry Cox is handled by Austin) and do so remarkably. As with all Firesign efforts, laugh lines reveal themselves with every new listen, though the surrealism of "Don't Crush That Dwarf" and "How Can You Be..." are dialed down a bit, making this somewhat more accessible to neophytes. If you've never heard of the Firesign Theatre, just imagine the "head" (read: drug) humor of the '60s and '70s being pushed through the minds of four highly educated wits with enormous refence levels and then being performed by an Old Time "Golden Age of Radio" cast and you get a fair idea of what you're in for. The themes of power and TV pop up often in their work (especially one's relation to the other) and their media satires are devastating. And, above all else, they're really, really funny. Robin Williams, George Carlin, Chevy Chase, & John Goodman are fans, if that helps! Brainy, hilarious, and formerly out of print for over a decade, so grab a copy now before it goes into moratorium again!