| Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large |
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 Another song parody, one of those titles I'm shocked hadn't been done when I wrote this in 2011. Maybe it has been done since, but not by me. And it's not like there's a ton of New Year's song parodies around, either. But my radio peeps declined it, so here it is... We present this holiday comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the post-holiday rush! New Year, New Year
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 This was a straight-up sound effects bit written for PHC. Weirdly, the file I have saved is incomplete, so I had to pull up a re-written version. Just substitute "GK" for "ANNOUNCER." It's from 2005, as my "use by" date was rapidly approaching. They last used a bit of mine in 2004, and this is for 2005 going on 2006, so it's definitely the tail end of my career there. But it's pure PHC, a gathering of sound effects for their SFX guy to go to town with. Tom Keith was as much a member of the show's cast as anyone else. They could be fun bits and I wanted to belong to the crew, too, so I'd churn these kinds of bits out thinking it would give be a head's up. It never did. Or even writing a New Year's sketch. How many of them are kicking around? We present this holiday comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush! New Year’s Noisemakers
Yeah, I don't often do it, but every so often a skit is triggered by family things. A phrase, a word said, a point of view on some topic will give me an idea. My daughter was complaining how she had joined a gym that wasn't nearby and she didn't go often but they were still charging her the monthly fee. We told her to cancel, but it was a pain, she didn't feel like going over there to do it in person, maybe she might start going, etc., etc. That's all it took, and this commercial parody was born. And the gang over at ACN bought it, just in time for New Year's! So, we include it here as a holiday-healthy treat!
We present this comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So, get a jump on next year's shopping today!
 So, Penny Marshall passed away last week. I have no personal experiences other than the fact that I, like so many others, enjoyed her performances and films. And she was such a pop icon that I felt perfectly comfortable doing a parody of her show, Laverne & Shirley. This is a very old sketch, my only copy was the original typed version, which I scanned and ran through MS Word to post. It was one of my usual mash-up sketches where the title simply presented itself to me. I was a fan of the show and I was very into Sherlock Holmes stories at the time. I think I blended the two worlds very well, although DeFazio does stand around a lot without anything to say. And it was back in the days where my sketches were long, wringing every last drop out of the premise. It's very 70s oriented, with references to Plato's Retreat and such. It's one of the few times I used a cuss word in a sketch, just because the actual expression had to be used for the joke to work. Anyway... RIP, Penny Marshall. Laverne & Sherlock
You know what's a really hard niche to fill? The Post-Christmas time. I mean, technically, you've entered the Twelve Days of Christmas, but face, nobody is going to be singing that song after Christmas day. But there was chance to address the post-holiday blues. I lifted some lines from my script "Christmas Carol" and merged it into the standard Prairie Home Companion template. I was always happy when one of my PHC bits got selected, I felt like I had cracked the code somehow and was now able to be part of the Minnesota Mafia. I wasn't; the next week it was like I was starting from scratch all over again. But, there were enough moments like this that kept me going...
This edition of Skit Happens is brought to you by "Lost Claus" the snappy comedy mystery! Leaping Yule Logs, Santa's missing! And only one man can find him, Nick Flebber, PI. Get your copy today atAmazon!
 There were a couple of New Year's Eves where people were worried that it would be the last. 2013, for instance, where the Mayan calendar ended it's configurations, so, naturally, everyone assumed time was up, because ancient civilizations could really be counted on for that type of information. I was deep into my "list" phase, where all my prose material came out as lists of something or other. I wrote up this bit and sent it to The Big Jewel, optimistically in 2012, figuring "what are the odds of the world actually ending?" I post it here, it links back to The Big Jewel. We present this holiday comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, "Lost Claus" is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the mid-holiday rush!   Do I have any business writing a Kwanzaa song parody? See a need, fill a need. I saw a lacking of graduation songs, so I wrote a couple. And did we really need a bunch of new Christmas song parodies? Not really, but I did them anyway! Sure, maybe trying to merge Kwanzaa with an old Englebert Humperdink bassa nova song was an iffy idea at best, but now that the holiday is here and I have a blog to fill, we'll post it! Ha! This edition of Skit Happens is brought to you by "Lost Claus" the snappy Christmas comedy mystery! It's a Chris-mystery! Leaping Yule Logs, Santa's missing! And only one man can find him, Nick Flebber, PI. Get your copy today at Amazon! Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa (to "Quando, Quando, Quando") So, it's not just Christmas time Happy Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa Getting presents is just fine Not just Angola currency Got no tree or holly wreath Happy Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa No mistletoe to stand beneath But we got all our first fruits. Celebrate for eight days Every day just has a theme Let me show you my maize Or give you a brand new book. Seven principals so bright Happy Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa Seven days of candle light But it's not like Hanukkah! 
This is a special bit for me. As I've described elsewhere, Lost Claus was a labor of love for me. And it was often in my thoughts. It was a screenplay and a book. I created a radio play of it and submitted it as a Guy Noir audio play. The parallels were very strong between my Nick Flebber and Guy Noir, since they were both broader takes on the typical Hollywood private eye. Anyway, PHC passed. I salvaged that and converted it back into a radio adaption to submit to radio troupes that I found online. One group ran a contest and I entered and finished in the money, which meant they performed my piece as part of their show. I got a copy and preserved it here. It starts out all "Lost Claus" but the ending I hijacked off of something else I had written many years before, a comic book that I made to goof on my days at K-mart, which I passed around to my co-workers. That's where the character Ebeneezer J. Grinch was born, as a stingy store manager trying to lock down Christmas.
And, of course, Skit Happens is brought to you by "Lost Claus," the hilarious tale of abduction, blackmail and elves. What happens when Santa goes missing? Find out in "Lost Claus" available at Amazon!
 This is a sweet little sketch I wrote many moons ago. Naturally, I submitted it around to everyone and received a lot of rejections. I actually wrote a summer sequel to it anyway, "Mid-Summer Crisis." Then I stumbled across a Craig's Listing from the Charles Stewart Howard Playhouse for an annual Christmas show they did. It was an evening of "short plays, 10 minute maximum" which to me means "sketch." I pulled out several of my bits and sent them out. This one got in and was performed. The only record of the night were photos they posted online, which I grabbed. If you liked this holiday bit, you'll love my book, Lost Claus, the story of a tough PI and an elf who have to save Christmas. It's over at Amazon. Buy a copy today! Yule be glad you did! Christmas Eve Crisis Well, the "Red Christmas" is very recent, written earlier this month for TMI: Hollywood. I just saw it as a quick little cold opening number; sing while the photos were displayed. I submitted it with the note telling them I couldn't decide to send it then, because it was the big news story (for about an hour) or wait until the following week for the TMI Christmas show because it was Christmas. I would let them decide. As far as I know, neither happened. Since then, there's been a ton of "Red Christmas" parodies, so I just want to get mine out there. "Dissing" is an older bit that went out to the radio people without a hit, so we present it here... This edition of Skit Happens is brought to you by "Lost Claus" the snappy comedy mystery! Leaping Yule Logs, Santa's missing! And only one man can find him, Nick Flebber, PI. Get your copy today at Amazon! Red Christmas I Saw Mommy Dissing Santa Claus |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. 
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