Blog Archives - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

TMI: Daily-Week of Feb. 22, 2021

2/28/2021

Writing is such a weird life. I thought it was going to be a lean week. I had one joke in Monday. Then nothing on Tuesday or Wednesday. I have to admit that my jokes were pretty weak those days, and the creative juices felt dried up. Then I got 4 jokes in Thursday, and another 2 on Friday, so, all in all, a very respectable week for my material. The I liked the cocaine joke, or the performance of it. As a joke it's okay and pretty obvious, but I ginning it up by taking the obvious line "They're great" and going overboard with the repetition, which Tonya sold BIG TIME. I like how the Ted Cruz joke played out as well.

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time). And here's my contributions for last week:

Barely Home Companion - CREDIT SHORTAGE (2/02)

2/25/2021

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 had forgotten about this sketch, kinda. It was sequel to another sketch I submitted earlier in the season (The Digital Shortage) which wasn't used. But while I was looking something else up in my journal, I actually mentioned this sketch a couple of times before I submitted it. I have vague recollections about being annoyed by the lack of on air credit and recognition I was receiving on the show, and a phrase or two must have popped into my head and I wrote it up as another crisis where there wasn't enough credit to go around. It's not exactly hard hitting but between PHC and other credit problems I was having, I was me venting in a round about way. As a sequel to a sketch they rejected. In the end, they passed, so no credit for me!

CREDIT SHORTAGE

Barely Home Companion - GOSSIP (2/02)

2/22/2021

From 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...

Man, I have had no idea what generated this sketch idea. I mean, I reference something called "Words Can Heal" but where would have I heard about that? It sounds like it was some kind of "Be Best" thing of the 'naughts. Reading the sketch, most of it is still applicable. Oh, the hunter/gather bit? I had been working that gag into everything for a while. Finally got it into Cracked as a "Prehistoric Web Page" gag. I still use it ("Oh, he's a hunter, but he identifies as a gatherer." See, still works.) It didn't get picked, though. It's not a bad little bit, but it is very much of the PHC template, so there was never an attempt to re-purpose it elsewhere.

GOSSIP

TMI: Daily-Week of Feb. 15, 2021

2/20/2021

It was a solid week for me and my jokes. But again, things that could have been reworked better weren't ("They secede" should have been "Texas secedes.") and punchlines that were fine were extended (adding "Deutsche Bank" or "for no reason." Or reworking the donut gag from "I'm starting to understand why they think Trump won" to "who wants to bet she thinks 74 million votes beats 81 million." It's the same internal joke logic, but repainted. The Atlantic City punchline is a line I've been using constantly has the news reported over the last four years how different buildings were removing the Trump name. The Prince Phillip line had "Script changes" added for something I thought was implied my my version. As for the FEMA joke, I'm expecting to here the topper, "2021, am I right?" be pushed into catchphrase territory for any "Biden is doing the actual job" related jokes. And using the actual Spanish pronunciation of "nada" kinda screws up the whole Wanda/Nada wordplay I'm so fonda. But, as I said, a pretty solid week of jokes.

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time). And here's my contributions for last week:

TMI: Daily-Week of Feb. 8, 2021

2/15/2021

No two ways about it, it was a tough week for me on TMI. Only two jokes last week. Maybe they used a couple of my topics, but the punchlines weren't even close to my take, so I'm not going to include them. I've been devoting a hour a day to this (from my day job), so I can't be all prescious about it and I really am just pounding out items. I will admit that I'm adding in my tweets, but, frankly, I've been using Twitter as a joke-creation system, using the topics that come up there as a spark for something. I do now write many of my tweets with an eye toward recycling them on TMI...so if you want to get a sneak preview, go check out @DanFiorella on Twitter. Couldn't hurt.

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time). And here's my contributions for last week:

Barely Home Companion - PIT STOP (2/02)

2/15/2021

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...

This here is pure silliness. I have a habit of occasionally dropping all pretense of sophisticated comedy and will write absolute goofball stuff. Things like Us Guys , Comic Con and this sketch. It was President's weekend coming which meant the Dayton 500 was happening. Now, is there an overlap between NPR listeners and NASCAR fans? I dunno. But once the idea of a goofy trio stepping in for a missing pit crew, it was a classic comedy premise along with topical humor, political jabs, silly names and, as mentioned earlier, goofiness. Unsurprisingly, it didn't make the cut. Maybe because of the goofiness. This is one of those bits I should be able to recycle somewhere. Maybe next year when sketch comedy makes a comeback post-COVID.

PIT STOP

Screamwriting Film Festival

2/14/2021

I've just been informed that my horror-comedy screenplay, "Death by Shakespeare" has been selected for the Screamwriting Festival, so fingers crossed!
ETA: I lost.

Barely Home Companion - Radio Olympics(2/02)

2/11/2021

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...

This was the second piece I submitted for their first week back in Feb. 2002. The Winter Olympics had been held, so it seemed like a perfect time to re-work and submit the winter version of the radio Olympics. The show often went off on nonsensical SFX adventures, just playing with the medium of radio, but I never got to a place where they would use one of my takes on it. I really tried to go beyond just a series of sound effects and give the bit some surreal basis to exist and then marry silly events to justify the various sound effects Tom Keith (the SFX guy) had in his repertoire. It's a fun, silly, quick-paced piece that didn't make the cut. Oh, well..

Radio Olympics

Barely Home Companion - The John Romain Show (2/02)

2/8/2021

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...

The show was back from it's winter break and broadcasting again in February 2002. And there were gearing up for an anniversary. It seemed like a decent premise to base a skit on. The show had done "alternate histories" of itself over the years, and I thought it fit along with the various "later tonight on your local public radio" commercial bits the show. I had forgotten about this sketch and it's just a remarkable goofy routine. It parodies radio, it parodies the Today Show, it parodies the Tomorrow Show (which was a pretty obscure target even back in 2002), it parodies Rush Limbaugh (which I often tried to slip in) and then it falls into one of my signature bits, where many people have the same name. I like to think of it as Pythonesque, because it's a ridiculous conceit, but I'm all in and follow it to a logical conclusion. But the show didn't think so. And it's really a bit that I felt couldn't be reworked for one of my other outlets back then. Now, maybe I could salvage it for the stage troupe. Which reminds me, I have a gameshow with all Jacks sitting on my hard drive that needs to be finished. Until then, I present:

The John Romain Show

TMI: Daily-Week of Feb. 1, 2021

2/6/2021

I had a pretty solid week for jokes as February kicked off. And I know they took a couple of my set-ups, but rewrote the punchlines to, as well. I'm really not following the same news sites to get my ideas from, so I like to think I'm throwing in a wider net for topics.

Now here's a lesson in joke construction. The Nobel Prize joke; they used every word I wrote for the joke but, they added a bit to the set-up altering the bridge to the punchline. But, that's on me; I was going for the unspoken irony that BLM got the nomination for the award Trump covets and that Trump HATES BLM. But I shouldn't have assumed everyone would get that. I needed to spell that out a bit. While I often bemoan the fact that TMI sometimes over-writes the set-up of the joke, sometimes context really is needed. As a joke writer, I've become much more sparse in my verbiage. If I can get a retort down to a couple of words, I'm delighted. The flip side is, watching SNL vintage, if they show an older Weekend Update and make a brief reference to what must have been a big story that week, I have no idea what they are talking about. The reference is lost.

So, the team added the bit about all the police violence it took for the whole BLM to be acknowledged, so THAT became the irony. Mine was a softer joke, they gave it some bite.

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time). And here's my contributions for last week:

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