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 (apparently modeled after Los Angeles, California) whose format changes approximately every hour at the slightest 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 While these topics already are no longer current, they are twisted and permutated almost beyond recognition in typical Firesign fashion to create a "Weirdly Cool" universe with its own logic that transcends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.
Track listing
1. Unconscious Village: Wake up
2. Eyeballs In The Sky
3. U.S. Plus: Pork
4. The Celebrity Stalker
5. Sports In Your Shorts
6. Ralph Spoilsport's Going Out Of Body Sale
7. The News Drought Continues
8. Goddess Air Presents 'Hullo, Don't Worry!'
9. A Developing Chase Situation
10. Pull My String
11. Princess Goddess Escapes The Celebrazzis
12. Chump Takes Some Hits
13. Polar Pro: Texas Trots
14. Miss Shelob's Feelin' Poorly
15. Unconscious Village: Last Days Sale
16. Mr. Coffee Comes Up Zeros
17. Glacier
18. Gridlock At Homeless Stadium
19. Polar Ice: Party Vertical
20. Going, Going, Gone A La Blonde
21. Sex With My Hat
22. Trippple Rippoff
23. Night Whispers
24. Bebop And Dwayne Feel No Pain
25. Smokin' Joe Says Farewell
26. U.S. Plus: Zeros And Ones
27. Chump Makes A Resolution
28. The Doll Drop
29. Radionow Says Good-By And Hello
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