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 album A comedy album is an audio recording of comedic material from a comedian or group of comedians, usually performed either live or in a studio. Comedy albums may feature skits, humorous songs, and/or live recording of stand-up comedy performan ...
made by the Firesign Theatre for
Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...
, released in August 1971 on standard stereo vinyl LP, and
Quadraphonic Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic, also called quadrasonic or by the neologism quadio ortmanteau, formed by analogy with "stereo" sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are po ...
LP and
8-track tape The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, ...
. It was nominated for a
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation The Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is given each year for theatrical films, television episodes, or other dramatized works related to science fiction or fantasy released in the previous calendar year. Originally the award covered both ...
in 1972 by the
World Science Fiction Society Worldcon, officially the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during Wor ...
. The title comes from a line spoken by one of the two main characters, and contains a pun on the term ''
computer bus In computer architecture, a bus (historically also called a data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer or between computers. It encompasses both hardware (e.g., wires, optical ...
'' since the story parodies then-developing computer technology. It also parodies Walt Disney parks.


Plot

This album, like its predecessor '' Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers'', is one complete
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...
that covers both sides of one LP. The first LP side is 20 minutes 51 seconds, and the second side is 18 minutes 7 seconds. Side one starts with an audio segue from the end of ''Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers'': the music box tune played by the ice cream truck chased by George Tirebiter is heard approaching, played this time by a bus announcing a free Future Fair, which it touts as "a fair for all, and no fare to anybody". A trio of computer-generated
hologram Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interf ...
s pop up outside the bus: the Whispering Squash ( Phil Austin), the Lonesome Beet ( David Ossman), and Artie Choke ( Peter Bergman), singing "We're back from the shadows again" to the tune of
Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball team owner, who largely gained fame by singing in a Crooner ...
's "
Back in the Saddle Again "Back in the Saddle Again" was the signature song of American cowboy entertainer Gene Autry. It was co-written by Autry with Ray Whitley and first released in 1939. The song was associated with Autry throughout his career and was used as the n ...
". They encourage the onlookers to attend the fair, which the Beet describes as "technical stimulation" and "government-inflicted simulation". Then they disappear "back to the shadows again". A young man named Clem ( Philip Proctor) boards and takes a seat next to Barney (Austin), an older man who identifies himself as a bozo (A person with a large nose that honks when squeezed. FST later revealed that "bozo" is an acronym for "brotherhood of zips and others," and that a "zip" is the type of person who enjoys doing their own taxes.); he says, "I think we're ''all'' bozos on this bus." After a stewardess tells the passengers to prepare for "a period of simulated exhilaration", broadcaster Floyd Dan (Bergman) tells them they are riding the rim of the
Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...
, the floor of which is five thousand feet below. The "bus" is apparently some sort of hybrid vehicle that can travel on the ground, yet turn into a jet plane which takes off for a "flight to the future". As Clem and Barney disembark at the fair, a public address announcer directs all bozos to report for
cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...
, so Barney leaves Clem. The Lonesome Beet pops up and recommends Clem visit the Wall of Science. He boards a
moving walkway A moving walkway – also known as an autowalk, moving pavement, moving sidewalk, travolator, or travelator – is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across a horizontal or inclined plane, over a short to medium distance. T ...
taking him to the exhibit, which opens with a parody of religious
creation myth A creation myth or cosmogonic myth is a type of cosmogony, a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Cre ...
and segues into a brief overview of history from ancient times to the emergence of mankind, then to the modern scientific era. Two scientific discoveries are reenacted: Fudd's First Law of Opposition ("If you push something hard enough, it will fall over"), and Teslicle's Deviant ("What comes in, must go out"). Then recordings of selected audience members' reactions to the future are played. Next, the Honorable Chester Cadaver (Ossman) addresses the audience, and relates a meeting with Senator Clive Brown (Bergman), who demonstrates a "model government" consisting of a model train-sized automated maze of bureaucracies which terminates with an
animatronic An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...
President as the output bus, whom Brown says everyone asks questions. When Cadaver asks Clem to state his name, he stammers slightly and says "Uh, Clem", and the central computer permanently identifies him throughout the park as "Uh, Clem". As side 1 closes, Clem is directed onto another moving walkway which takes him in to see "the President". Side two opens with the exhibit of "the President" (Austin), who sounds like
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
. Each visitor is asked to speak their name, which is then played back to appear as if the president is addressing them by name. A
black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
welfare Welfare may refer to: Philosophy *Well-being (happiness, prosperity, or flourishing) of a person or group * Utility in utilitarianism * Value in value theory Economics * Utility, a general term for individual well-being in economics and decision ...
recipient named Jim (Bergman) relates his family's harsh urban living conditions and asks the President where he can get a job. The President responds with a vague, positive-sounding reply only remotely related to the question and completely unrelated to Jim's concerns, and Jim is given the "bum's rush". When it is Clem's turn, he puts the President into maintenance mode by saying, "This is Worker speaking. Hello." The computer responds with the length of time that it has been running. Clem then gets access to Doctor Memory (the master control), and attempts to confuse the system with a riddle: "Why does the porridge bird lay his egg in the air?" This causes the President to shut itself down. As Clem leaves, an
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
visitor is heard to say "He broke the President!". Clem meets up with Barney back on the Funway. They encounter sideshows such as astronaut Mark Time (Ossman) recruiting a crew for a trip to the Haunted Space Station, and Hideo Nutt's Bolt-a-drome, where fairgoers are invited to participate in boxing matches with electrical appliances such as water heaters and toasters. Public announcers repeatedly page "Mr. Ah Clem" to come to the "hospitality shelter", and Artie Choke pops up again, programmed to take lost children back to their parents. He says he will send Deputy Dan to take Clem to the hospitality shelter. Clem then uses Artie to create a clone of himself which enters the system for another confrontation with Dr. Memory. He repeats his porridge bird riddle, which the computer struggles with several attempts to parse, finally mangling it into "Why does the poor rich Barney delay laser's edge in the fair?" Clem succeeds in confusing the computer into contradicting itself, causing a total crash which ends the fair with a display of
fireworks Fireworks are Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large numbe ...
. The entire experience is then revealed to be a vision seen in the
crystal ball A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball commonly used in fortune-telling. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying through crystal gazing. Used since Antiquity, crystal balls have had a broad reputation with ...
of a
Gypsy {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...
doctor (Proctor) telling Barney his fortune. After Barney leaves, the Gypsy plots with his partner (Bergman) to make a quick escape after their last client, a sailor.


Portrayal of theme parks and computer technology

The fair rides and exhibits are similar to those at
Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...
and the
1964 New York World's Fair The 1964 New York World's Fair (also known as the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair) was an world's fair, international exposition at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. The fair included exhibitions, activ ...
. Clem is one of the first "
computer hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
s" mentioned in
pop culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art pop_art.html" ;"title="f. pop art">f. pop artor mass art, some ...
, and his dialogue with the fair's computer includes messages found in the DEC
PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especi ...
, a popular mainframe at the time. (Some of the lines are error messages from
MACLISP Maclisp (or MACLISP, sometimes styled MacLisp or MacLISP) is a programming language, a dialect of the language Lisp. It originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Project MAC (from which it derived its prefix) in the late 19 ...
.) An identification followed by the word "hello" initiated an interactive session on contemporary Univac, General Electric, and university timesharing systems. Many of the things the computer said were based on
ELIZA ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program developed from 1964 to 1967 at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a pattern matching and ...
, a computer program which simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist. For example, the phrase Clem used to put The President into maintenance mode, "this is Worker speaking," is based on the fact that the user could type "worker" at Eliza's command prompt, and Eliza would then display the command prompt for the
Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...
software environment in which Eliza ran. And if the user neglected to end a statement or question to Eliza with a punctuation mark, Eliza's parser would fail, displaying the message "Unhappy: MkNam" to indicate that a function called "MkNam" was failing. The President said the same thing, pronouncing it "unhappy macnam."


Award nominations

The album was nominated by the
World Science Fiction Society Worldcon, officially the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during Wor ...
in 1972 for the
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation The Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation is given each year for theatrical films, television episodes, or other dramatized works related to science fiction or fantasy released in the previous calendar year. Originally the award covered both ...
.


Film

This album inspired
Ivan Stang Ivan Stang (born Douglass St. Clair Smith; August 21, 1953) is an American writer, filmmaker and broadcaster, best known as the author and publisher of the first screed of the Church of the SubGenius. He is credited with founding the Church wit ...
's 1973 film
Let's Visit the World of the Future
'.According to the film's end credits, which direct viewers desiring more information to purchase a copy of this album.


Cultural influence

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
's
Siri Siri ( , backronym: Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is a digital assistant purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple Inc., which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating sys ...
used to respond to "This is worker speaking. Hello." with "Hello, Ah-Clem. What function can I perform for you?
LOL LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud, and a popular element of Internet slang, which can be used to indicate amusement, irony, or double meanings. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widesprea ...
."


Issues and reissues

This album was originally released simultaneously on LP, Cassette, SQ Quad LP, and Quad 8-Track. *LP - Columbia C-30737 *Cassette - Columbia CA-30737 *Quad LP - Columbia CQ-30737 *Quad 8 Track - Columbia CAQ - 30737 It has been re-released on CD at least three times: *1989 - Mobile Fidelity MFCD-785 *2001 - CBS/Epic *2001 - Laugh.com LGH1073


See also

*
Futurama (New York World's Fair) Futurama was an exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World's Fair designed by Norman Bel Geddes, which presented a possible model of the world 20 years into the future (1959–1960). The installation was sponsored by the General Motors Corpor ...


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 Fidelity, 1989.
Firesign Media: I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus
*"FIREZINE: Linques!." ''Firesign Theatre FAQ''. 20 Jan. 2006

. *Marsh, Dave, and Greil Marcus. "The Firesign Theatre." ''
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...
''. 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. {{Authority control 1971 albums The Firesign Theatre albums Columbia Records albums CBS Records albums Epic Records albums Science fiction comedy 1970s comedy albums