With their education, artfulness, attention to detail, and full use of the newly emerging multitrack technologies, the four members of The Firesign Theatre—Peter Bergman (1939—), David Ossman (1936), Phil Proctor (1940—), and Phil Austin (1947)—were the Beatles of recorded comedy. Writing and performing their own material, they created multi-layered surrealist satires out of the very stuff of popular culture: television shows, the Golden Age of Radio, old movies, commercials, literature, music, etc. At a time when the Who was pioneering the rock concept album, Firesign was pioneering the comedy concept album. Their humor reflected the times; complaints about their occasional drug references may be misplaced, since it would be difficult to represent southern California in the 1960s and 1970s without mentioning drugs. But their comedy was much more than an amalgam of cultural references. One 40-minute album might be as tightly structured as a one-act play, achieve real...