Firesign Theatre’s Peter Bergman

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 9th, 2012

According to a FB friend, Peter Bergman of Firesign Theatre has died. There’s nothing on the WWW’s news pages about it and Bergman’s page on the Firesign Theatre site hasn’t been altered to reflect the sad news. His brief entry on Wikipedia has his date of death as today, March 9, 2012.

Of course, if it’s true, it’s sad.

The Male Half was a fan of the Firesign Theatre, spending some hard-earned paper route money on “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus,” the troupe’s 1971 release. And, four years later, as a student at Bowling Green State University, he and a roommate trekked 30 miles north to the campus of Toledo University to see a performance of Proctor & Bergman.

A decade later, The Male Half got to meet the comedy duo in person when they co-hosted and episode of the syndicated standup comedy show Comedy Tonight. (The Male Half appeared twice on the show, hosted by Bill Boggs, which taped at WNEW’s studios in NYC.)

“It was a thrill to meet them and they couldn’t have been nicer,” recalls The Male Half. “And they were extremely charming live performers. We sat on the floor of a small performance space on the TU campus.

“I remember at the time that BGSU’s radio station had a pair of students who somehow convinced the station’s GM to give them a late-night slot on the school’s FM station. They thought that they would do what Firesign Theatre and P & B did. I suspect it was a trend, and that every college campus radio station was plagued by similar aspiring satirists. They underestimated just how creative and, I suspect, how prepared that Firesign Theatre were when they went into the studio or hit the stage. As such it was unlistenable.

“It is a crazy thing about standup comedy. One day, you’ll be watching a comedy idol in a coffehouse on a campus in Ohio, then ten years later, you’ll be taping a television show or sharing a bill with that same act.”

The Female Half, since reading of Bergman’s death reports that she has had “Rat In A Box” stuck in her head all morning. (The Male Half taped the ad parody off of USA Network back in 1983 or so.) She adds that she has had the entire soundtrack from “Mary Poppins” stuck in her head since reading of the passing of comedian Wendy Liebman‘s father-in-law Robert Sherman, who, with his brother, composed such musical gems as “It’s A Small World” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” (Our last two posts have been about death. It happens.)

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