Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death
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Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death is a comedy album by The Firesign Theatre that was released in 1998 on Rhino Records. It represented an important comeback for the legendary troupe and was widely praised as a complete return to form.
Like many of their best works, it can be rather inscrutable on first listening but becomes clear over time, rewarding patience with a rich comic experience.
It takes the form of a fictional radio broadcast on the night of December 31, 1999. Radio Now is a radio station in FunFunTown whose format changes approximately every hour at the slighest whims of overzealous market researchers and focus groups. The album chronicles Radio Now's attempt to operate normally on the final day before the year 2000, a day riddled with apocalyptic omens, rampant computer errors, and dangerous doomsayers. The station is populated by DJ Bebop Loco (Phil Austin), Dwayne, his producer (Peter Bergman), news anchors Harold Hiphugger (David Ossman) and Ray Hamberger (Philip Proctor), sports commentator Chump Threads (Bergman), and self-help guru O'Nann Winquedinque (Austin). Also reporting from outside the station are celebrity stalker Danny Vanilla (Ossman) and helicopter-bound traffic reporter Col. Happy Panditt (Proctor).
Given specific focus on this album is the Y2K bug. The album, made in 1998, thoroughly lampoons the various world-threatening results which were being predicted from the widespread software defect at that time. Aside from Y2K, topics given satirical treatment include the Y2K bug, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Joe Camel controversy, and the Art Bell radio show. While these topics already are no longer current, they are twisted and permutated almost beyond recognition in typical Firesign fashion to create a "Weirdly Cool" universe with its own logic that transcends time.
A running gag involves eyeballs, which at one moment represent binary digits (the digit 1 resembles the letter I, a homophone of eye, while the digit 0 is in the shape of a ball) and at other times seem to be an allusion to The Residents ("Guyz in Eyeball Hats").
The ambitious project consists almost entirely of new ideas, the only significant nods to the past being a reappearance of Proctor's Ralph Spoilsport character (well known to fans since their second album), whose monologue nevertheless is fresh and contemporary, the presence of Harold Hiphugger and Ray Hamberger (who originally appeared on Everything You Know Is Wrong), a telephone conversation with Caroline Presskey who "Sold Out" on Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers and an ad for Polar Pro Beer which mentions the beer being made with bear urine, much like an earlier advertisement for Bear Whiz Beer ("It's in the water. That's why it's yellow.")
Before the fictional future date actually arrived, the group would follow up this album with the almost equally successful Boom Dot Bust.
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| Performers |
| Phil Austin • Peter Bergman • David Ossman • Philip Proctor |
| Albums |
| Commercial |
| Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him • How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All • Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers • I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus • Dear Friends • Not Insane or Anything You Want To • The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra • Everything You Know Is Wrong • In the Next World, You're on Your Own • Forward into the Past • Just Folks . . . A Firesign Chat • Nick Danger: The Case of the Missing Shoe • Fighting Clowns • Lawyer's Hospital • Shakespeare's Lost Comedie • The Three Faces of Al • Eat or Be Eaten • Shoes for Industry: The Best of Firesign Theatre • Anythynge You Want To • Back from the Shadows • Pink Hotel Burns Down • Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death • Boom Dot Bust • Bride of Firesign • Radio Now Live! • Papoon For President • All Things Firesign |
| Non-commercial |
| Dear Friends - Syndicated Radio Program • A Firesign Chat with Papoon • Let’s Eat - Syndicated Radio Program • The Proctor-Bergman Report • The Cassette Chronichles |
| Related to Firesign Theatre |
| TV or not TV • How Time Flys • Roller Maidens From Outer Space • What This Country Needs • Give Us A Break • Daily Feed 1988 Newsreel - The Daily Feed • The George Tirebiter Story Chapter 1: Another Christmas Carol • George Tirebiter's Radiodaze • The George Tirebiter Story Pt.2 Mexican Overdrive / Radiodaze • A Capital Decade Daily Feed 1989 Newsreel - The Daily Feed • The George Tirebiter Story Pt.3 The Ronald Reagan Murder Case • Down Under Danger • Tales Of The Old Detective And Other Big Fat Lies • David Ossman's Time Capsules |
| Bibliography |
| The Firesign Theatre's Big Book Of Plays • The Firesign Theatre's Big Mystery Joke Book • The Apocalypse Papers, a Fiction by The Firesign Theatre • Backwards Into The Future: The Recorded History of the Firesign Theatre |
