Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but first the editor suggested I do the "Letter and Answer" format for their Dear Abby-style advice column, except that their "expert," Dottie, was a bitch. I struggled with the format, kinda of recycling various jokes and bits I had over the years into a letter format with a snotty answer.
Tangent: Years after I worked on the WWN, I was talking to my friends college-age son. I happened to mention that I wrote for WWN and the kid's eyes popped out. He didn't know I was a writer, so he certainly had no idea I wrote for the WWN. But he was actually impressed. Back when he in was in college, the 2000's, the magazine was a big read on campus. They loved it. So, for a brief, shiny moment I had some cred.
Man, a lot of old bits of mine in this one. Tattoo confidential, from a script. The cell phone guy is a sequel to my turning signal guy and their fight against "the man." The last letter I copped from a PHC ketchup sketch I wrote. The communion one is pretty much how we feel about those A&E-style First Holy Communion parties we see every year. I kind of liked the confidentials, they were like a prose version of a Bob Newhart bit. You can to do the set-up and punchline together, wording it just right to figure out what the letter was about.
Man, a lot of old bits of mine in this one. Tattoo confidential, from a script. The cell phone guy is a sequel to my turning signal guy and their fight against "the man." The last letter I copped from a PHC ketchup sketch I wrote. The communion one is pretty much how we feel about those A&E-style First Holy Communion parties we see every year. I kind of liked the confidentials, they were like a prose version of a Bob Newhart bit. You can to do the set-up and punchline together, wording it just right to figure out what the letter was about.
