''The Three Faces of Al'' is a 1984 comedy album by the group

Firesign Theatre The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns) was an American surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program ''Radio Free Oz'' on station KPFK FM. They continued ap ...

. It features the group members reprising their most popular characters from earlier collaborations, notably

hard-boiled detective Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence ...

Nick Danger and his nemesis, Lieutenant Bradshaw. In earlier albums, the characters refer to the " Anselmo pederasty" case. Even though this album occurs years later than the other albums, it is about that case, but Anselmo Von Pederazzi is a

mob boss A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, Don, gang lord, gang boss, mob boss, kingpin, godfather, crime mentor or criminal mastermind, is a person in charge of a criminal organization. Description A crime boss typically has absolute or near ...

, and the case is not actually about

pederasty Pederasty or paederasty ( or ) is a sexual relationship between an adult man and a pubescent or adolescent boy. The term ''pederasty'' is primarily used to refer to historical practices of certain cultures, particularly ancient Greece and an ...

David Ossman David Ossman (born December 6, 1936 in Santa Monica) is an American writer and comedian, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre and screenwriter of such films as '' Zachariah''. Early life Ossman attended Pomona College, where he starr ...

] does not appear on the album, having left the group to work as a radio producer, producer for

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

. Ossman would return in 1998, on the album '' Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death''. The initial release on

Rhino Records A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...

was at the dawn of

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

s, and was among or possibly the first comedy CD issued by any record company. The CD wasn't produced in very large quantities, however, and after it went out of print it became something of a collector's item for many years. The album was finally reissued on CD in 2008 as part of The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger box set, '' Box of Danger'' on the Shout! Factory label.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Three Faces of Al The Firesign Theatre albums 1984 albums Rhino Records albums 1980s comedy albums