Blog Archives - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

A.I.-Caramba! Bagpipes

12/31/2025

Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution.

This sketch has a history, and I wrote about it here. I wrote bagpipes a long time ago. It seems like a silly, easy to produce sketch, bordering on the absurd. It made the rounds in all medium; TV packets, submitted PHC radio sketch, comedy troupe fodder, but it never made the grade. I decided to create it as an audio file because, frankly, the last sketch I did, Misfit Island, really drained me. It was a lot of work and re-work and by the end, I was rooting around for short cuts. I bit off more than I could chew there. Anyway, it works fine as an audio bit, a throwback to old time radio. It's just nice to see it exist in a form that doesn't have to be read on a blog. It can be listened to on a blog!

Dan Fiorella · The History of Music-Bagpipes

Barely Home Companion - Celebrity Scrooges (Dec. '06)

12/24/2025

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 really don't remember much about this sketch or the circumstances around it. It looks like I was submitting a trio of Christmas bits to them this week. My records show they were all written the same week. I have no memory of doing three at once. Maybe I did a them for the few weeks in December 2006 and mislabeled them. But then looking at the other sketches in the file, I'm about to stop submitting for 4 months. My next submission isn't until April 2007. I must have had my fill at this point.

But the sketch itself is obviously me trying to recapture my "Celebrity Hawaiians" bit, just letting the troupe go through all their favorite impressions. It's a premised they used a lot on the show, just quick one-liners from various celebs. I thought I geared it toward the show's strengths and it was a holiday bit, but it didn't make the cut. Re-reading it now, it's pretty good, says I. Silly, with some clever lines and good contrasts between actor and dialouge.

Celebrity Scrooges

Hashtag, You're It! -#Creepy Christmas Candy

12/24/2025

Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site.

As the holidays close in, WH is trying to keep seasonal while leaning into salacious. The categories are getting looser, no matter what the adjective is, the results are usually just bad puns of the topic. I managed to come up with my usual dozen, but only managed to get 4 into the finals. And, again, getting concerned. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of activity on the hashtag game and the "winners" were the magazine's own and those of some staff members. This on top of a lack of reaction to my last submission is setting this up to be a blue Christmas.

#CreepyChristmasCandy

Barely Home Companion - Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa (Dec. '06)

12/19/2025

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...

When all else fails, do a song parody. I'll admit, this thing had been knocking around inside my brain for a while and with the holidays approaching and needing a submission to submit, I finally put pen to scale and wrote it. Song parodies were tricky. They didn't often do them, as I remember, but I did manage to get one chosen for an earlier Christmastime show. Naturally, there are other holidays kicking around, so why not try to create a song for them? It didn't get selected, probably because I kept spelling it with one "a." But now, thanks to AI, I can create a tune for it that is no "Quando, Quando, Quando" (I'm assuming because I haven't created it yet but will post it here when I do).

Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa, Kwanzaa

Hashtag, You're It! -#Crude Christmas Carols

12/17/2025

Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site.

Now we're sliding into the Christmas holidays, so let's get the puns a'leapin'! I mean, I know it says "carols" but they pretty much mean any Christmas song, really. And to avoid the ones I saw posted already, I googled a list of other popular tunes, to widen my net. It got pretty scatological, however, I scored a six on this week's leaderboard. So Merry Christmas and yay, me!

#CrudeChristmasCarols

A.I.-Caramba! Escape From the Island of Misfit Toys

12/17/2025

Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution. I wrote and re-wrote this sketch multiple times over the years. There was a draft I wrote for the heck of it. That was basically the Jack/Charlie question and segued into the standard “What’s Dolly’s deal?” that the internet has since decided to suck dry. Then I attempted to rework it for Prairie Home Companion during my time there as an audio bit. Then I pulled it out again for my time at TMI: Hollywood, where I actually combined it with a second sketch I had written about the new kind of toys that would be exiled to the island, an idea I had some time later for one of the radio outlets I often submitted to.

I’ve played with AI before, but not to this extend. But this sketch seemed to be a logical one to attempt; all the players are toys, which I can easily reference. Then after thinking about it, I decided to work as much as I could with actual clips from the show. The past projects I created all have the same defect, I can only produce the material in 5-second clips (that’s the default setting for the various AI sites I’ve logged onto) Then trying to make them talk becomes a hassle. First, because they’re “toys” some of the faces aren’t apparent to the AI system and the attempt at generating a video would fail. Sometimes it was just easier to create an AI voice and run it under some original footage. Towards the end, I was tired of caring if the mouth movements matched up. Half the time with AI, it couldn’t match up. Then I maxed out AI’s ability to manipulate characters. You tell AI to have a character exit the scene and it would have a human hand come down and pick it up.

I was able to get the voices I needed from AI. Some sound very good. Others sound like bad actors handling the part. I was able to create variations of the Misfits I needed. Then I had to create some of the “new toys.” That took a couple of attempts. And that's the problem, every attempt costs.

Then came the fun with the editing software. At five minutes, the software was grindingly slow, updates and corrections took forever to make and even the slightest change would send me into buffering hell. I reached the pointed where halfway in, I exported the working video of dozens of clips, audio, stills and music into a single video. Then loaded that into the software to edit and polish and add to it. I had to do it 2 more times for the ending and then music and text. One issue was figuring out the chromakey. I had to create the images. Then I realized I had to create them on a green background. Then I had to deal with the different shades of green that the AI would create.

At least I created some of the clips at the end first, so as I was hitting wall after wall, I had some of the bits already in queue. There was a lot of editing, copying and pasting and altering speeds and playback to get the clips I needed to the audio I had. At some point I’ll have to make a post about my AI outtakes, creations so horribly wrong there was nothing to salvage from them.

I could have tightened it up a bit. When it was written as a stage piece, I had to have the characters introduce themselves to set up the bit and place. But here, using the actual characters and footage, I could have easily begun the sketch with Charlie and Dolly bemoaning another Christmas Eve. Oh, also, the Zimbabwe thing, that was based on actual events about 10 years ago where a dentist caught a lot of online flak for his trophy hunting selfies. So, maybe I could have dropped that, too. It is pretty grim. But, hey, if I don't do it now, the way I wrote it, when will I ever?

As a showcase for my writing, that’s up in the air at the moment. But the fact that I can’t get AI at the level I can afford (which is minimal or “free trial”) to maintain how a dolly looks between clips is something I’m sure the bigwigs at the Hollywood studios are battling with.

But as a hobby? Hobbies are supposed to be fun, no?

Hashtag, You're It! -# Chop A Popular Toy

12/16/2025

Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site.

Falling behind again, this is from 12/3, which I should've posted last week, but here we are.

I mean, it was almost like there were too many toys to choose from. I finally did pull up a list of toys (most popular, hall of famers) and just went pun-happy. They say "chop," but it was pretty much just making a toy sound unpopular. I got 9 picked, so no complaints here

#ChopAPopularToy

Barely Home Companion - It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas (Dec. '06)

12/12/2025

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...

Actually, submitting this song parody in December would be late these days. Back then, this was the verge of all the radio stations starting to go to all-Christmas all-the-time mid-November. Still something that bugs me. Need to start working on Thanksgiving songs. Oh, and I ran the lyrics through AI and it spit out a version of the song, which is posted below, so now it exists somewhere...

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

Barely Home Companion - Abbott & Costello Meet Scrooge (Dec. '06)

12/5/2025

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...

Obviously, December rolled around and I must have felt compelled to do my first Christmas sketch. As I often did with PHC, I circled back to Abbott and Costello. I mean, is it a good idea? Maybe. But that I went right with a "Who's on First" parody about the names of the three ghosts to mimic the names of the three ball players seems weak. But it goes fast and I'm sure it would gets some laughs. I worked it into one of GK's patented "Tonight on most public radio stations" set-ups, and I assumed it stood a chance, but it got passed over, much like the other holiday.

Abbott & Costello Meet Scrooge

Hashtag, You're It! -#Horrific Holiday Sides

12/3/2025

Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site.

It's been a busy start to the holiday rocket sled ride. If WH did a hashtag game on 11/26, I missed it as I was elbow-deep in stuffing prep. Oh, a segue! Here's the game from 11/17 all about side dishes!

#HorrificHolidaySides

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