All the above was planned to come together for the 2001 Christmas season and theoretically designed to secure a bright future for the group and a new wider audience. However all the plans of mice and comedians don't always work out.

The Bride of Firesign was released just days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Even it's Grammy nomination failed to spark much attention under those circumstances.

The XM broadcasts started in October 2001. However there was a major distribution problem with the $300 home receiving sets and the $10/month subscriptions were not pouring in as expected. The shows were very good however as Firesign was right in their proper element. Too bad the majority of their fans weren't able to tune in.

The Philadelphia Weirdly Cool showing was on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2001 with just three Firesign members in the studio, Austin stayed home. This show was taped and used for the feed for most of the other stations. The PBS stations that picked it up opted for a one time broadcast late Saturday or Sunday night. During the breaks the guys looked old and tired from their trip, forgot to mention their website and new Firesign Record releases and spent more time talking up the Sony reissues offered as premiums only referring to The Bride of Firesign once in the broadcast. The Weirdly Cool DVD/VHS premium was prominently touted and the show itself was well performed but failed to bring in the expected pledges. Had the show been repeated as most pledge programming, the results would have been far greater.

Unbeknownst to Firesign members, Laugh.com acquired the CD rights to the classic Columbia albums produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Re-issues of Waiting For The Electrician, How Can You Be . . ., Don't Crush That Dwarf, I Think We're All Bozos, Not Insane, The Giant Rat of Sumatra, Everything You Know Is Wrong and In The Next World You're On Your Own were released by year's end.

Not to be outdone by any upstart comedy record companies, Sony, learning of the Weirdly Cool broadcast, rushed into production budget-line versions of Waiting For The Electrician with an extra track, How Can You Be . . ., Don't Crush That Dwarf and I Think We're All Bozos and released them (4 December 2001) right after the scheduled broadcasts.

When Firesign fans hit the stores, most opted for the vastly available Sony re-issues of their long out-of-print favorite albums. Internet shoppers went for the laugh.com releases. The Rhino issues were hit or miss in the stores. Lost in the shuffle were the over-priced poorly distributed Firesign Records releases that most fans already had in one form or another. Firesign's biggest sales competition turned out to be themselves.