Released 1973 Genre Comedy Label Columbia | Recorded 1973 Length 40:55 | |
Director David Ossman and Steve Gillmor | ||
How Time Flys is a comedy album written by David Ossman and featuring the voice talents of all four members of The Firesign Theatre plus several other contributors. It was originally released by Columbia Records in 1973.
Contents
Side one
NIGHTSIDE – DECEMBER 31, 1999 (24:10)
Side two
DAYSIDE – DECEMBER 31, 1999 (16:45)
Plot synopsis and commentary
The album tells the story of a solo astronaut, "Mark" (David Ossman) (the same "Mark Time" character who appears in other Firesign Theatre albums), who was launched in a rocket from Earth years ago on an exploratory voyage to "Planet X". As the story opens, it is December 31, 1999, and Mark's rocket is approaching Earth to finally complete its mission. Mark is awakened from hibernation by the rocket's computer system, and a light-hearted history video recorded five years earlier is played for him to bring him up-to-date on the events that have taken place on Earth during the latter half of the 20th century while he was away. Although Mark is unable to communicate with his Earth landing site, he lands anyway and is greeted by an aged launch facility and an equally aged robot, "Tweeny" (Philip Proctor), who is the sole inhabitant of what is now the "President's Memorial Space Museum". It seems that Earth society has forgotten all about Mark; there are only holographic recordings (one of which is of a now-deceased President Gazatchorn (Phil Austin) who sounds like Richard Nixon) left to welcome him and congratulate him on accomplishing his mission.
As Mark resigns himself to the end of his space career and the start of his retirement, he is drugged unconscious and kidnapped, along with the holographic recordings he made during his voyage. He awakens to find himself high above the Earth in a Zeppelin, the guest of a "Mr. Motion" (Peter Bergman) who plans to market Mark's recordings as entertainment. Mark protests that his research should be made available to the news media and freely disseminated to the public, but Mr. Motion tells him that Mark's news would be judged as no more important than any of the other newsbites that the news media (where it's "All news, all the time") constantly publishes. Mark still protests that his information is "not entertainment, it's real", to which Mr. Motion counters that Mark simply went on location and took photos: that's entertainment.
Mr. Motion brings the Zeppelin above a theme park, "Panoramaland 2000" (not unlike Las Vegas in 2008) that features full-size holograms of world-famous buildings and monuments, and he begins to show Mark's holograms to the public. Mark's holograms combine with the theme park holograms, and the squid-like creatures of Planet X appear to cavort around the theme park. Mark escapes from the Zeppelin and is interviewed by the media, only to be interrupted by an emergency bulletin that announces that a black hole is approaching the Earth. The emergency announcer, however, portrays the upcoming catastrophe as just another interesting news event, albeit one that may finally provide an answer to "the question of infinity". Mark suddenly finds himself back in his rocketship, approaching Earth again; the black hole has put him into a time loop. It appears he will forever have to re-experience the day's events.
Credits
Issues
LP Contents
The Stereo LP includes a stiff paper insert that can be broken apart and assembled to form a "3-D Diorama" of the album cover art, which shows Mark descending from the Zeppelin over Panoramaland 2000.
The LP insert states that the album was written and produced from March 11, 1973 to June 7, 1973 "in Wally Heider Studios 3 & 4 and on location".