I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
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I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus is the fourth comedy recording made by The Firesign Theatre for Columbia. It was released in 1971 and is the last of a tetralogy, comprising their first four albums, that is generally considered their most important body of work.
Contents |
Tracks
Side one
Side .001 - 20:55
Side two
Side .002 - 18:15
Detailed Track Information and Commentary
This album, like it's predecessor Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, is one complete narrative that covers both sides of one LP.
The piece opens as a special bus appears, carrying a group of tourists along a typical suburban street. When the bus stops, vegetable-shaped holograms appear out of thin air and begin singing to entice more people to board the bus. At this point, the main character, Clem (played by Philip Proctor), boards the bus and takes an open seat next to one of many bozos on the bus. The bus soon resumes its journey and proceeds to its final destination, a World's Fair-like exhibit comparing the past and future.
Once there, Clem joins other tourists in visiting the President of the United States (played by Phil Austin), which is a computer given a voice reminiscent of then-President Richard Nixon. When Clem reaches the front of the line, he turns out to know the right things to say to the computer to break through its defenses and ask questions it can't answer ("He broke the President!"). When this attack fails to bring down the Fair's computer system, Clem creates a holographic image of himself and sends it in to electronically confront the master computer, Dr. Memory.
Many have also noted the clown-clone parallels ("Clem-clone") and Bozo (meaning clown and clone) as a satirical reference to the mindless conformists (clones) of mainstream culture at the time.
Trivia
While the slang word "bozo" already had been around for decades, the release of this album renewed its popularity, and many if not most uses of the word throughout the 1970s likely occurred with the Firesign Theatre at least partly in mind.
The advanced user interface for the "future fair" is thought to have displayed some rather unusual and far-reaching technological insight for the day, as the computer industry was still firmly in the punch-card era when the album was recorded. Concepts such as lifelike hologram interfaces and programmable speech generation used by the "Mr. President" interface were not part of the Information Technology mainstream and would not be for many years.
This album begins whith the same sound effects that ended the group's previous album, Dwarf.
In the liner notes to the Mobile Fidelity re-release, definitions are listed for both "bozo" and "bus." "Bus," rather than being the anticipated "school bus" type of definition, is defined as "a circuit in a mixing board which carries signals from one or more inputs to any output or set of outputs." These Bozos were not travelling in a motorized vehicle from one physical location to another, but rather, were traveling via the medium of electronically recorded sound.
This album was released both as a "Quadraphonic" LP and "Quadraphonic" 8-Track.
Noteworthy quotes
A creation myth recited as a part of an exhibit at the Future Fair:
"Before the beginning, there was this turtle. And the turtle was alone. And he looked around, and he saw his neighbor, which was his mother. And he lay down upon his neighbor, and behold! she bore him in tears an oak tree, which grew all day and then fell over -- like a bridge. And lo! underneath this bridge there came a catfish. And he was very big. And he was walking. And he was the biggest he had seen. And so were the fiery balls of this fish, one of which was the sun, and the other, they called the moon."
Issues and Reissues
This album was originally released simultaneously on LP, Cassette, Quadrophonic LP, and Quadrophonic 8-Track.
- LP - Columbia C-30737
- Cassette - Columbia CA-30737
- Quadrophonic LP - Columbia CQ-30737
- Quadrophonic 8 Track - Columbia CAQ - 30737
It has been re-released on CD at least twice
- 1989 - Mobile Fidelity MFCD-785
- 2001 - CBS/Epic
- 2001 - Laugh.com LGH1073
References
- Firesign Theatre. I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus. Columbia Records, 1971.
- Firesign Theatre. I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus. Mobile Fideilty, 1989.
- Firesign Theatre. Firesign Theatre. 19 Jan. 2006 <http://www.firesigntheatre.com/>.
- "FIREZINE: Linques!." Firesign Theatre FAQ. 20 Jan. 2006 <http://firezine.net/faq/>.
- Marsh, Dave, and Greil Marcus. "The Firesign Theatre." The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Ed. Dave Marsh and John Swenson. New York: Random House, 1983. 175-176.
- Smith, Ronald L. The Goldmine Comedy Record Price Guide. Iola: Krause, 1996.