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Holy Dunkleman! Sometimes it's hard to come up with a decent sketch idea. People mock SNL or Mad-TV for relying on repeating characters and routines, but sometimes that's all you got. I was lucky American Comedy Network (RIP) let me run with these things. So, from the 2008 season of Idol, we proudly post:
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When they cancelled American Idol, who'da thought I'd ever get to pull out these old bits again. Sure, sure, they are very much of the cast of the March 2008 season, but I think they are silly enough to avoid aging, now that the show is back on the air. The biggest problem to these bits was deciding which singer was going to go negative on which other singer. I wasn't following the show that closely, so many of my first drafts were vague, but the guys at ACN, who produced and distributed the sketches filled in a lot of blanks...
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... ![]() Ah, the frustrated song book. Turns out his was a specially of mine, especially before I got into actual song parody. One of the first sketches I wrote was in college for a St. Patrick's Day show where a guy in a leprechaun suit (me) tries to put together a medley of Irish tunes, but can only come up with the jingle for Irish Spring Soap. I don't recall what prompted this skit, I had forgotten about it until I starting going back to all my old stuff, but it's very typical of me. Less so of PHC, which is probably why it wasn't used. GK is very much reduced to a straight man here, just trying to correct the "comic," and growing frustrated by the process. That's a bit out of character for his character. However, the idea that a singer can't come up with the right song when there are dozens of songs about NYC is a pretty solid premise for a sketch. The line "I left my spleen in New Orleans" was a little ditty I'd sing whenever I heard the Tony Bennett standard, developed in a time when I felt I had to put a twist on everything, because that's "what comedy did!" And, there's a bit of topicality here with mentions of Mayor Guilliani, who, thought respected in NYC at the time, was still not thought well of by the NPR liberals, so that line would have gotten a laugh. I'm especially fond of the wrap up and smiled as I re-read the bit while editing it for the blog. Abbott & Costello would have had a fine time with it. Keillior & Co., less so. I SING OF NYC![]()
Like 10 years ago, there was this big hit TV show that was all the rage. It was called "American Idol." It was a singing competition. I wonder what happened to it. Oh, right, it got rebooted last year and is on ABC now. Well, as the newest season approaches, I wanted to pull out some radio bits I wrote 10 years ago.
One of the great running gags I came up with for American Comedy Network was taking the negative political ads and applying it to other venues. I think it was the Iraqi elections that were held after our invasion that I did first, applying typical GOP dirty trick-style ads for an election that had nothing like that going on. Then it was the election for the Pope in 2005. Then Miss America and so on. The radio producers at American Comedy Network saw the logic and repeat-ability of the premise and did a couple without my involvement. That hurt. Again, the life of a freelancer, nobody ever comes back to your and says, "Hey how about doing one of these for the Oscar campaigns or "Dancing with the Stars" voting? They would just do it. But, it was some acknowledgement that I had created a viable radio comedy format that just wasn't a straight up parody of the show itself. Anyway, one of the biggest batches of material I did was these American Idol parodies. I wrote a slew of them. Some of them were re-worked by people who had been following the show more closely than I, but all in all, it was a nice healthy run for myself. Here we attempt to swiftboat Ace back in 2/2008 ![]()
Back in March 2008, I was hitching my comedy wagon to the American Idol juggernaut. I was able to marry my idea of bad political ads with the AI voting. The idea was pretty good, what if the contestants could run ads to get votes instead of just doing Ford commercials? I thought it would go something like this:
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... ![]() I the file I just found for the 1999-2000 season, the earliest item in it is dated March 28, 2000. I have nothing showing from 1999 and the beginning of 2000. They did a show in Scotland in January and I suspect I submitted my Bagpipes sketch, a bit of silliness about the invention of bagpipes. It was an old bit, I did with a theater group, but it was Scottish! It wasn't used. Anyway, the show was in repeats until NY in March. I came up with this bit, talking about springtime in NY and how horrible it used to be. The Old Timer was a rip-off of Dana Carvey's Cranky Old Man ("Things were horrible and we LOVED it!") but the twist was talking something as lovely as spring and making it seem horrible. It came out pretty well. I thought I was writing to GK's voice well now and I was starting to write him as the bemused straight man to the oddballs that wandered on mike. Too bad PHC didn't like it... SPRING IN NYCFrom 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... ![]() This is one of those typical "Don't throw anything out" situations. Me and my writing buddy had written sketches over the years; for college shows, for improv groups, for cable TV shows. They rarely got used. One of the things we often did were commercial parodies, thanks to SNL, they were a big thing to do. We wrote this for a show called "Big B's Travelling Sideshow" which was on the Manhattan Public Access channel. Initially, the product advertised was a stapler. Ouch, right? John and I were trying to write more female-centric skits, both to accommodate the two female cast members of Big B's (Big B being one of them) and just to push against the "boy's comedy club" mentality of the time. We honestly thought these bits could make a difference. Or help us stand out. Big B didn't use it and then went belly up. Fast-forward to 2000: PHC was in NYC during April and I was trying to pull out all the stops, trying to impress them and show my range as the hometown boy. So I pulled this material out. It's an interesting attempt to combine an old sketch with one of PHC's running commercial gags, the Duct Tape Council. Swap out duct tape for stapler and we were good to go. But they didn't use it either. On on hand, the merged rather well, on the other hand I can see where it might be a bit off the standard PHC fare. So, here's my PHC radio adaption of the Rawlins & Fiorella sketch "Fast-o-Matic:" DUCT TAPE DIETFrom 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... ![]() This sketch was a real hybrid of old and new. Since the show was in NYC at this time, I decided to do a Broadway-themed bit which would then allow me to pull out my old Auditions sketch. Garrison Keillor like to tell these tales about a past that didn't exist and I decided he would talk about being a Broadway baby. A couple of NY stereotypes, a few funny voices, and >boom<, you got a segue into my original sketch and it sounded custom made. They didn't use it. But it's not like it was never done... AUDITIONS![]() I've a bit of a "staff writer" on the LA-based comedy show TMI: Hollywood for the past couple of years, and I've had a pretty decent track record for someone on the wrong coast. They're gearing up for their 2019 season with a special taped version of the live show dedicated to the Oscars. Oddly, since they gave themselves so much lead time for this particular show, they decided to list the skits they didn't use on their Facebook page. And since I've been blogging about my skits that didn't get used here, I figured this was a natural to post now. The Oscar show is something the group does every year, and it's tough to come up with some new take on it. They leave the parameters pretty open; sketches about the show itself, nominated movies, red carpet, etc. As I was pondering this, there were two hot topics online that week; the announcement that Kevin Hart had dropped out as host and that some podcaster making a speech to an anti-abortion rally that he wouldn't kill baby Hitler if he had the chance. Now, at first glance, these two things wouldn't seem to come together. At second or third glance, too. But, when you're hard up for a concept, you take what you can get, which is goofy comedy and a hot topic. Pity it wasn't used, but I appreciate the online shout-out about the submission. ETA: I'm updating this post because I just saw the TMI Oscar show posted on Youtube. Turns out their FB shout-outs were leading up to a bit they produced for the show: Cut bit, right? So, for the curious, here's my actual sketch: Baby Hitler Hosts the OscarsFrom 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... ![]() One of the problems with being a freelance writer, far from the production people & having spent a year not knowing what exactly the people in charge are looking for, is that you tend to "try stuff" just to stand out. Now, I knew Garrison Keillor had no real connection with pop culture. I even found a quote stating that in the 6/14, 1998 issue of the Washington Post: Producer Christine Tschida's instructions to freelance writers who hope to get their material on the show: "Garrison does almost everything himself. If he uses a couple of your ideas, you probably won't recognize them. Don't give us anything to do with pop culture because Garrison won't know who you're talking about. The man does not watch TV." So, what would be more logical than to submit a rap song? Hey, I had tried a whole bunch of things, writing to established bits and characters, sequels and follow-ups to sketches of mine that had been produced as well pseudo-intellectual gibberish disguised as monologues. None of it worked. So, coming up to the first show of the 2000-2001 season, I wrote a rap. My entire knowledge of rap comes from the opening credits of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." But the idea of Minnesotans rapping was just too goofy to resist. For me, not the people at PHC. They resisted the bit easily. I just submitted it as a rap, no set-up, no announcement of having a new theme song, just like a cold opening, which the show didn't do. And this is one of those pieces that in no way could be recycled or re-worked for any other venue. This piece has not seen the light of day since it was submitted oh-so-long ago. Probably with good reason... Minnesota Rap |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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