Everything You Know Is Wrong
Encyclopedia
Everything You Know Is Wrong is a comedy
album
by the Firesign Theatre released in October 1974 on Columbia Records
.
skits that make satiric
comments on contemporary culture. This album addresses and parodies pseudoscientific
beliefs of the mid-1970s. The skits are connected to, or occurring in, "Nude Age Enterprises", the recording studio inside the trailer home of "Happy" Harry Cox in the fictional town of Hellmouth, California. Cox (played by Phil Austin
) records seminars and assorted reports, similar to books by such authors as Erich von Daniken
, which he calls his "mind-breaking records", to promote the "New Age
" and other counterculture
beliefs ("Dogs flew spaceships! The Aztec
s invented the vacation! Men and women are the same sex! Our forefathers took drugs! Your brain is not the boss! Yes! That's right! Everything you know is wrong!").
Other notable characters include:
version was made, with the group lip-syncing
to the album. The cinematographer
for this was Allen Daviau
, who later filmed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
. The film was released on a VHS
format videotape in 1993 by The Firesign Theatre. (UPC barcode 735885 100131. Currently available from the Lodestone Catalog / SKU# MSUG001.) The group showed the film at Stanford University
and took questions and answers.
uprising" is a parody of, among other things: General Curtis LeMay
's statement that the Communists of North Vietnam
should be "bombed back to the stone age
". LeMay is also noteworthy for having furiously informed Barry Goldwater
that he was not permitted to access rumored secret UFO information supposedly being kept at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
The travelogue TV show interview with Buzz and Bunny Crumhunger is a parody of an early 60s series called The Golden Voyage, hosted by travelogue film producer Jack Douglashttp://www.classicthemes.com/50sTVThemes/themePages/goldenVoyage.htmlhttp://myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=John_Fowler_06http://books.google.com/books?id=UxkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=%22The+Golden+Voyage%22+%2B+travelogue+%2BJack+Douglas&source=bl&ots=I7gtHSklru&sig=hdvwWCOnf9KZuWJ3-iVnVabJoAg&hl=en&ei=NtQ7TIe7JYT78AbszeWmBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false. The show featured couples narrating 8mm
silent home movies of their vacations in exotic locations.
, 8 Track, Quadrophonic LP, and quadrophonic 8 track cartridge.
It has been re-released on CD at least once
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by the Firesign Theatre released in October 1974 on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
.
Detailed track information and commentary
Like the group's other albums, Everything You Know Is Wrong is made up of a series of surrealSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
skits that make satiric
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
comments on contemporary culture. This album addresses and parodies pseudoscientific
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
beliefs of the mid-1970s. The skits are connected to, or occurring in, "Nude Age Enterprises", the recording studio inside the trailer home of "Happy" Harry Cox in the fictional town of Hellmouth, California. Cox (played by Phil Austin
Phil Austin
Phil Austin is a comedian and writer. He was born in Denver, Colorado and later grew up in Fresno, California, attending Fresno High School...
) records seminars and assorted reports, similar to books by such authors as Erich von Daniken
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author best known for his controversial claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968...
, which he calls his "mind-breaking records", to promote the "New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
" and other counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
beliefs ("Dogs flew spaceships! The Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
s invented the vacation! Men and women are the same sex! Our forefathers took drugs! Your brain is not the boss! Yes! That's right! Everything you know is wrong!").
Other notable characters include:
- Sheriff Luger Axehandle — Heater County, California law enforcement officer and witness to an apparent extraterrestrial sighting.
- Lem Ashhauler — Editor of the Hellmouth Heater-Democrat newspaper, who presents an archival report of an extraterrestrial visitor in Curio, Arizona in 1897.
- Nino Savatt, the Mind-Boggler (Philip ProctorPhilip ProctorPhilip Proctor is an American actor, voice actor and a member of The Firesign Theatre. He plays Rocky Rococo and Nancy in the Nick Danger series. He is from Goshen, Indiana...
) — A parodyParodyA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Uri GellerUri GellerUri Geller is a self-proclaimed psychic known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other supposed psychic effects. Throughout the years, Geller has been accused of using simple conjuring tricks to achieve the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy...
, the psychicParapsychologyThe term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
spoon-bender. - Daredemon Reebus CaneebusCannabis (drug)Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
(Austin) {pronounced "ca-NEE-bus"} — A parody of daredevilStunt performerA stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...
Evel KnievelEvel KnievelEvel Knievel , born Robert Craig Knievel, was an American daredevil and entertainer. In his career he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket...
. - Don Brouhaha — A Native AmericanNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
shamanShamanismShamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
with a knowledge of natural psychoactivePsychoactive drugA psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
drugs — a parody of Carlos CastanedaCarlos CastanedaCarlos Castaneda was a Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author....
's character Don Juan MatusDon Juan MatusDon Juan Matus is a major figure in the series of books on Nagual 'Sorcery' by Carlos Castaneda.Matus is described as a Yaqui Indian to whom Castaneda was first introduced at a bus depot in Yuma, Arizona in the early 1960s. He turns out to be a 'Man of Knowledge' who imparts much of his wisdom and...
, a shaman. - Gary the Seeker — A well-meaning if annoying member of a group of New AgeNew AgeThe New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
experimentalists who travel on what Gary describes as "The Heavenly Bus". - Doctor Firesign — Presented in a cameo appearance, selling "Don Brouhaha's Inca Hell-Oil Tonic" and "Chief Dancing Knockout's Pyramid Pushover Paste" in his medicine showMedicine showMedicine shows were traveling horse and wagon teams which peddled "miracle cure" medications and other products between various entertainment acts. Their precise origins unknown, medicine shows were common in the 19th century United States...
. Cox plays a wire recording containing part of an adventure in which Dr. Firesign encounters Don Brouhaha. - Art Wholeflaffer — Caretaker and groundskeeper at the trailer park where Harry Cox lives.
- Buzz and Bunny Crumbhunger — A married couple who recorded their abductionKidnappingIn criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
, murderMurderMurder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and resurrectionResurrectionResurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...
by extraterrestrials on their home movie camera (They narrate the footage on a seemingly normal travelogueTravel literatureTravel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
TV show). - Pat Hat — A parody of sportscaster Howard CosellHoward CosellHoward William Cosell was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these...
- Harold Hiphugger and Ray Hamburger — The "Where It's Happy" television news team of Channel Six, "The Hot One for the High Desert". Their style of reporting news largely by talking between themselves, rather than directly to the audience, parodies the Happy talkHappy talkHappy talk, also called banter, is the additional and often meaningless commentary interspersed into news programs by news anchors and others on set. It may consist of simple jokes or simply a modified wording in asking a question of another reporter...
television news format which came into fashion about this time, as well as emulating the comedy team Bob and RayBob and RayBob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...
.
Video
After it was recorded, a movieFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
version was made, with the group lip-syncing
Lip sync
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals...
to the album. The cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
for this was Allen Daviau
Allen Daviau
Allen Daviau, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer.-Selected filmography:*Amblin *Close Encounters of the Third Kind *E.T...
, who later filmed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
. The film was released on a VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
format videotape in 1993 by The Firesign Theatre. (UPC barcode 735885 100131. Currently available from the Lodestone Catalog / SKU# MSUG001.) The group showed the film at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and took questions and answers.
Cultural references
The "Official stolen government training film of the secret plan to deal with an alienExtraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
uprising" is a parody of, among other things: General Curtis LeMay
Curtis LeMay
Curtis Emerson LeMay was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968....
's statement that the Communists of North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
should be "bombed back to the stone age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
". LeMay is also noteworthy for having furiously informed Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
that he was not permitted to access rumored secret UFO information supposedly being kept at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
The travelogue TV show interview with Buzz and Bunny Crumhunger is a parody of an early 60s series called The Golden Voyage, hosted by travelogue film producer Jack Douglashttp://www.classicthemes.com/50sTVThemes/themePages/goldenVoyage.htmlhttp://myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=John_Fowler_06http://books.google.com/books?id=UxkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=%22The+Golden+Voyage%22+%2B+travelogue+%2BJack+Douglas&source=bl&ots=I7gtHSklru&sig=hdvwWCOnf9KZuWJ3-iVnVabJoAg&hl=en&ei=NtQ7TIe7JYT78AbszeWmBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false. The show featured couples narrating 8mm
8 mm film
8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or Double 8 mm, and Super 8...
silent home movies of their vacations in exotic locations.
Issues and reissues
This album was originally released simultaneously on LPLP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, 8 Track, Quadrophonic LP, and quadrophonic 8 track cartridge.
- LP - KC-33141
- 8 Track - CA-33141
- Quadrophonic LP - CQ-33141
- Quadrophonic 8 track cartridge -
It has been re-released on CD at least once
- 2001 - Laugh.com LGH1077