The Connection Between Entrenching Tools and Groats: The Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers

In the piece called “High School Madness,” Porgie (along with his friend Mudhead), is caught in a repeating time loop:

Porgie: Aw, gee, Dad, it’s not every day a guy graduates from high school!
Adolph née Fred (his father): How many times have I heard THAT before?!

But this time the problem is that his high school, More Science High, has been stolen! This cliffhanger ends side one of the album, as there are allegedly some technical difficulties at the station. Soon the movie’s back with the resolution to the cliffhanger: More Science High was stolen by the seniors of Commie Martyrs High School. Suddenly, we hear that the picture has gone out, so there’s now a war film on with something going on in Sector N, and Lt. Tirebiter is in charge of a platoon surrounded by Koreans on three sides. But the war movie transforms into a series of advertisements—including those for “Napalmolive” and “Angerdrene”—then a nature documentary, and back to “High School Madness.”

The Firesign Theatre, 2005
Photo © Bob Gersztyn

When Porgie is put on trial for the theft of More Science, Lt. (George Leroy) Tirebiter also shows up in court to be court-martialed—with Adolph/Fred as his father as well as Porgie’s. And right as the film is about to wrap up, the channel changes. Which works, as I don’t think there’s a possible satisfying ending to “High School Madness.”

Though it takes place in a fake future, parts seem oddly prescient, for an album originally recorded in 1970. (“How do you feel?” “Sick.. . . ” “That’s OK, you can AFFORD it now!”) Who’d have expected that we’d actually be somewhat wary of North Korea again? I suppose that’s always the trouble with satire; it sometimes has the nasty habit of becoming real.

Usually the cliché descriptor for an album like this is that it’s “a movie for the ear” or something to that effect, yet that’s not fair. Dwarf is so immaculately crafted FOR a record that to compare it to a movie is wanting—it COULDN’T be made into a movie at all.

My favorite example of this stylistic uniqueness is one of the first bits of the record, when Tirebiter is watching late-night TV and finds a televangelist who’s doing a revival based around handing out food to the faithful. Having just woken up hungry, Tirebiter gets wrapped up in it, and so the televangelist starts talking directly to him. . . and giving him food, which he gratefully eats. There’s no elegant way to handle this in a visual medium, particularly in comparison to the deft way the Firesigns do it; it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to happen, even though it’s a surreal scene with shadows of Buñuel. And don’t even get me started on the various incarnations of Tirebiter, including the trial scene in which the Tirebiter on trial changes from Porgie, to Lt. Tirebiter to Dave Casman and back again. And Casman walks off, but Porgie’s still there.

I’d finish this, but I have to go get an ice cream cone! Hold on, I’ll be back. . .

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