The comedy act Robin Williams called the best ever: “Nothing was as layered or as funny”
Robin Williams died more than ten years ago, yet people will always remember him as one of the best comedians ever. He possessed the unusual ability to be both wildly frenetic onscreen and quietly empathetic. As a public figure, he wasn’t just everyone’s favourite comedian but, by all accounts, a genuinely kind person behind the scenes.
During his lifetime, he was one of the most talented and famous stand-ups of his generation, an Oscar-winning dramatic actor, and, the rarest and probably most challenging feat of all, Robert De Niro’s greatest friend. According to Monty Python member Eric Idle, he was also uncommonly normal and respectful towards members of the public, taking time to shake their hands when they approached him on the street and share a short conversation with them. That isn’t a prerequisite for being the greatest comedian of all time, but it does ensure that his legacy would stand apart from all the others in contention for that superlative.
Not surprisingly, Williams wasn’t out there proclaiming himself to be the best there ever was. In fact, he was more than happy to sing the praises of those who came before him. In a 2002 conversation with Edward Norton for Interview, Williams acknowledged one of the greatest British comedy groups of all time, but left aside special praise for a little-known American troupe from the 1960s. “The Goon Show. That was one of the best,” he said, adding, “But for me, the best comedy albums were [of The] Firesign Theatre. Nothing was as layered or as funny as their stuff.”
Founded in California in the mid-’60s by comedian Peter Bergman with Philip Proctor, Phil Austin, and David Ossman, The Firesign Theatre was very much of its time, as evidenced by its name, which was taken from the astrological signs of its four members (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, for those keeping track). They specialised in the kind of surreal comedy that had emerged in the UK a decade before, and it was no coincidence. Bergman had worked for the BBC satirical programme Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life and had befriended comedy surrealist pioneer Spike Milligan.
Milligan was the driving force behind The Goon Show in the 1950s, and he is still one of the most respected comedians of all time, especially among other comics. This friendship, along with going to a Beatles concert, inspired Bergman to start a four-man comedy troupe in the USA. Firesign Theatre might not be as famous today as Monty Python or the Goons, but they were just as revolutionary. During their stint on the radio, they used improv to interview guests and, when there were no guests, interviewed each other playing wildly successful fictional guests.
By the late 1960s, they were releasing comedy albums, starting with 1968’s Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him. They parodied old-fashioned radio programmes, dove into contemporary politics, quoted Beatles lyrics, invented characters on the fly, and embarked on stream-of-consciousness odysseys that caught the attention of a future non-sequitur specialist, Robin Williams.
“They’re just so layered with weird references, and they were the first people to do that multiple tracking on comedy albums—where you hear background noises—and their albums all connect to the next, to the next, to the next,” he said, “Where one album ends, the other begins.” That might have been a stumbling block for potential fans of the troupe, as Firesign regularly referenced themselves, which made their albums pretty impenetrable to the uninitiated. The group eventually split in the 1970s, much like their heroes, The Beatles.
Five decades later, they aren’t the iconic comedians that they should be, though Williams did his part to boost their profile.
