Although he attended Bowdoin, Fresno State and UCLA, he staunchly refused to be awarded a diploma, no matter how indifferent these institutions were to thrust one upon him. In the early 1960's, he found himself in Los Angeles working as part of the first crop of apprentices at the Center Theatre Group. He was concurrently holding down a job as director of drama and literature at KPFK radio in Los Angeles. It was at that station he met the three men who would change his life, and incidentally also met David Ossman, Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, with whom he would form the Firesign Theatre.

The Firesign Theatre is probably best described, if it can be described at all, as an audio-based production group specializing in unique, multi-media form of non-linear comedy. The troupe has undertaken film-making, book-writing, television, radio and stage productions. Some twenty-plus record albums, three films, three television specials, two books and innumerable radio programs have been the result.

In them, Austin is probably best known for his portrayal of the man who reads his name on the glass of his office door "REGNAD KCIN." The rest of us know him as Nick Danger, a bizarre detective, and one of Firesign's most enduring creations. Austin is the occasional voice of television commercials, ranging from Pizza (Pizza Hut) to Autos (Nissan) to banks, shoes and computers (Wachovia, Nike and Apple Macintosh, respectively). His lovely bride, Oona, is a leading food stylist for television, making the likes of Taco Bell and Kellogg's cereals look like actual delicacies.

In the early nineties, Austin wrote the screenplay called "The Dead Sell Out" for Eward Pressman films, with the actual members of the Grateful Dead as consultants. He also worked during that ERA for Lormar Telepictures, where he developed television comedies for Ringo Starr and others. The Nick Danger character resurface in an adventure called "Down Under Danger," with was broadcast on Public Radio, and a collection of his short stories, "Tales of the Old Detective and Other big Fat Lies" was published in 1995. The latter did not feature, but was informed by, his experience as a fictional detective with the Firesign Theatre.