Fighting Clowns of Hollywood

 David Ossman’s memoir of The Firesign Theatre’s rapid response to the on-coming Reagan Era recounts the quartet’s uneasy transformation from writer-performer-producers of in-studio comic audio masterpieces to theatrical hopefuls and Movieland script-writers.  Firesign goes Hollywood with a million $$ MGM movie deal and a string of big stage shows, featuring all-new hot comedy material, performed at the Roxy, premiere rock-club on the Sunset Strip. Here are Firesign’s new sketches from the “Owl & Octopus Show,” all the words to the full-frontal musical revue “Fighting Clowns,” and the one-act play, “Joey’s House.”  Nick Danger, “America’s only detective,” re-appears in three confusing episodes and Old Time Radio fans will also dig “The History of the Art of Radio,” and “The American Pageant,” both of which turn American history over in its grave.