Customer Reviews

Roller Maidens from Outer Space

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my favorite Firesign Theatre album, though it's nominally a "solo" from Phil Austin, one of the Four or Five Krazee Guys who comprised the group. You get three of the four here, and Austin's razor-sharp wit throughout. This was a perfect product of its time: Nixon in the White House and Ozzie and Harriet reruns on the tube. Austin creates a world where characters can jump from channel to channel on the TV. Dick Privates, Private Dick (memorably portrayed by Dirk Yogurt) needs to solve a mystery a few stops down the dial: puzzling lights are bedeviling Regular Boynklin (of the "Regular and Ethyl Show," a knock-off of Ozzie and Harriet) and Tricky Retardo, hen-pecked husband of Juicy Retardo (of "I Love Juicy"). Can Dick get to the bottom of the case? Is Satan involved? Well, it's no Swiss picnic, but Austin ties it all together in a bizarre collision of politics, religion/mysticism, and popular & classical references to keep your head spinning. And there are songs! By Red Greenback and the Blueboys! You'll love it-- if you're smart enough (are you?).

More than 30 years later, this still makes me giggle like a stoned teenager....

With a maddeningly accurate C&W parody soundtrack and thinly disguised characters from I Love Lucy, Ozzie & Harriet, and even a hard-boiled big city detective amalgam, the real Jesus (or Hay-Soos') returns to earth just in time to fight Satan in all his many forms, and a new danger "the power of Mystic Womanhood" in this amazing production. Although dated by the inclusion of Nixon, "Nick Exxon" as one of Satan's faces, it rings especially true today when the voodoo Christian Right is waiting for and plotting for just such an "End of Days". Makes you wonder "which side they're on."

With the advent of CDs, I was sad not to see this particular installment of the Firesign madness get re-issued. Great job, guys for making this available again. Even though Austin gets the credit, all the others are present and accounted for in this "solo project".

One of their very best, although not well-known

That, and the hilarious take on Nixon, Nick Exxon, still has me in hysterics,almost 34 years later. Phil Austin does wicked satire on changing the TV Channel, with all members of The Firesign contributing to this. Too bad he hasn't done a follow-up on this, although I'm not too sure today's kids can really appreciate this.