Los Angeles, 1966 ... Peter Bergman's pioneering talk show “Radio Free Oz” airs on Pacifica Network's KPFK. He would often invite some of his colleagues to come on the air and pretend to be a variety of interesting guests.
November 17 ... Bergman invited three friends – Philip Austin, the show's producer; David Ossman, the station's former dramatic director; and Philip Proctor, an actor – to join him as the four of them pretended to be the panel of an imaginary “Oz Film Festival”. Bergman played film critic Peter Volta, who was writing a history of world cinema one frame at a time. Ossman played Raul Saez, maker of short but exciting “thrown camera” films, who had just won a grant to shoot a movie by rolling a 70mm camera down the Andes. Austin played Jack Love, son of a leatherworker, who was making movies for the Living Room Theatre like 'The Nun' and 'Blondie Pays the Rent'. And Phil Proctor played Jean-Claude Jean-Claude, creator of the Nouvelle Nouvelle Vague Vague movement and director of the documentary 'Two Weeks With Fred,' which took two weeks to watch. This performance of "Radio Free Oz" marked the beginning of The Firesign Theatre's unparalleled career in comedy.