Happy Easter! And here's my addition to your basket, my Easter piece for Cracked magazine, #343, May 2000!
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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...  Here's a goofy sketch bordering on sacrilegious. The idea of Greek Orthodox holidays falling out of sync with the Catholic Church holidays has always fascinated me. And when you're trying to figure out a sketch every week, any idea might be a spark. Again, I wrote it, submitted it, it got rejected (passively) and then I filed it away, forgotten. I've never attempted to resubmit it anywhere, it was just gone from memory. It's brief. It's pretty funny. And it certainly would have stretched the premise of the PHC ad parodies to unseemly lengths.  And who won't want to find a copy of "Novel Concept" in their Easter basket? You can get yours at Amazon, hard copy or digital. It's a wacky, crazy tale of a young author on a quest to write the perfect history of the Pony Express but who then gets seriously sidetracked by stowaways, French heiresses, drug lords, mythical kingdoms and murderous Senators. It's a serious of unfortunate events all in ONE book! Eastern Orthodox Easter 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... Another piece that went through several adaptations, all based on the converging of "politics" and "office politics." with some of that "negative ad" energy that I've used before in Pope sketches, American Idol sketches and Iran sketches. PHC didn't use it (although it would have worked very well as a running bit through one show). I did re-worked for The Big Jewel. Paid Political MessagesFrom 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...  Back in 2000, Heinz decided to get out of the red ketchup business and start hawking other colors. Remember Crystal Pepsi? How about New Coke? The Edsel? Yeah, it was in that category. Now, here's the thing, I had access to a show that regularly featured ketchup--So, what if I wrote a green ketchup sketch? A sketchup, as it were (did I just coin a new comedy term?). So I wrote it up. It was rejected. In retrospect, I think maybe I wrote less a parody of green ketchup and more an actual endorsement. Plus I used the phrase "ketchup technology" twice, which is weak. I may have been too coy by about half. Anyway, it was a very topical bit that couldn't be recycled, so it's sat on the hard drive until now... Ketchup Advisory BoardFrom 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...  Breaking the timeline here to go with the holidays. Easter's coming up and as it turns out, I didn't write a lot of Easter themed material. I guess it never pulled me in the way Christmas and Halloween do. But doing this deep dive into my old work, I brought up this thing that I had written and frankly had forgotten about. That prompted me to do a PC search and I pulled up one or two other bits. Again, I had forgotten this sketch. It's an odd little bit. I see I was doing a PETA parody, though I'm not sure what triggered it. Then I have that very solemn animal speech in the middle. Don't know where that came out of. And I'm guessing I the term "vegan" hadn't been coined yet, based on one line. I may have been inspired by a Looney Tunes cartoon, where Elmer Fudd is hunting the Easter Bunny and the Easter Bunny tricks Bugs Bunny into completing the route. We'll post it under the commercial...  With a holiday coming up, it's time to plug a book! Sure, it's got nothing to do with Easter, but what are you gonna do? It's "Novel Concept" the epic comedy adventure about a young, aspiring author who learns about all the unknowable things when you're writing what you know. Laughs, thrills and adventure all in one book? That's a Novel Concept! It's available on Amazon! Get your copy today! And your friend's copy tomorrow! P.A.U.L.A.Got an article posted over at The Big Jewel, home of Big Comedy and not jewels. I wrote it a few years ago, when I was working on PHC and other radio venues. It started as a piece for our local paper where it began with me kinda bragging about my work in radio. It was a thousand word article, originally, with lots of digressions and odd samples of radio history. I got it down to about 500 words to submit to The Big Jewel and here it is. Screensnap below links to the site...  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...  While sorting through my old files, I came upon this sketch. I didn't remember it. I certainly don't remember doing much in the way of Easter skits, so this was a surprise to me. As I mentioned elsewhere on the blog, I was always watching the calendar while I was writing for PHC, so if their schedule overlapped with any holidays, I would try to tailor something for them. Christmas, naturally, was the easiest. Easter, less so. I've only come across two Easter-themed bits. Being practical, I was always looking to shoehorn something into one of their regular bits; duct tape, ketchup, Guy Noir. Sometimes it worked. More often it didn't. It's a silly little bit that we're saving for the holiday...  Now a quick word from out sponsor, me! "Novel Concept" is one funny book and it has nothing to do with Easter! It's the zany tale (yes, zany) of an author who wants to see the world, so he stows away on a ship to Europe. And that's one of the smarter decisions he makes. From crazy captains to wayward molls and psychic prisoners, Novel Concept has something for everyone! It's got the stench of hilarity! Available at Amazon, just like everything is! DUCT TAPE FOR EASTER
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...  Here's one of those bits that never dies. I present it now because just barely touches on Easter. This started as a prose piece, just a list of recipes written down by Julia Childish. It included a recipe for Easter Egg Salad, which didn't make the jump to sketch form. It was fairly easy to turn it into a radio skit, I just brought in the character of Julia Childish to walk us through the recipes. I must confess that the Julia Childish here is Dan Aykroyd doing Julia Child. I didn't really know the French Chef. After this version, I just went back to submitting the prose version, also without much success. I can see where it didn't get used by PHC (too many Oreos references?) but I thought I caught GK's voice very well and the interplay between the two characters was solid and they had done a Julia Child character before. Oh, well.  And who won't want to find a copy of "Novel Concept" in their Easter basket? You can get yours at Amazon, hard copy or digital. It's a wacky, crazy tale of a young author on a quest to write the perfect history of the Pony Express but who then gets seriously sidetracked by stowaways, French heiresses, drug lords, mythical kingdoms and murderous Senators. It's a serious of unfortunate events all in ONE book! Julia Childish Cooking SegmentFrom 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...  Okay, back to Shakespeare! These skits have been a running theme for me since college. It started with Abbott & Othello and just grew from there. I managed to get The Three Stooges of Verona on its feet but none of the others. So, I pitched them to the gang at PHC. I thought with the success of Abbott & Othello, they might be receptive to another sequel. They weren't. Again, somewhat pop culture, maybe too long, a kinda big cast of characters, perhaps no one could do a decent Dean Martin, who knows? I attempted to break the skit up to follow their production of Abbott & Othello; mouth trumpets, breaking up the skit with GK pronouncements and such, making it a commercial for a show coming up afterward, but it didn't pan out. I was so disappointed that I didn't even bother to write "Here's Another Fine Tempest" that may or may not have played better on radio. The Nutty Merchant of VeniceGot a piece posted over at The Big Jewel, home of Big Comedy and not jewels. Screensnap below links to the site...  |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. 
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