All Categories - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Hashtag, You're It! - #Icky Action Movies

5/21/2025

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.

They made me nervous this week. I submitted a lot but when they posted it, I was scrolling down not seeing any. They the last bunch were mind. I got 7 in this week. They get kind of gross, but that's the nature of these things, especially with the work "icky" shoved in there. Anyway, check them out:

#IckyActionMovies

All the News Fit to Fake- Car Magnets (10/31/05)

5/21/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company that owned the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor (the long time editor of WWN), in an attempt to give the Cracked writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get my footing but soon I was working on some straight-forward fake news stories.

Another WWN quickie. I was the first to uncover the risks of auto magnets. But people still put them on, even more so now. Whether it's now your smart kid's school pride or your pet's breed announcement these things are dangerous! Also, GPS was just coming out and that was all but useless.

A Major Award! - The Pyro PlayFest

5/20/2025

Thrilled to learn that my short play, "Lost Shakespeare: Abbott & Othello" received the Audience Choice Award Winner for their 10th Annual Pyro PlayFest 2026! This is very cool and I get a plaque!

On the Town: St. George Theatre-A Celebration of Musical Legends

5/15/2025

The St. George Theater on Staten Island is an amazing place. It was built in 1929 as a film and vaudeville venue. It’s the second largest standing theater in New York City (after Radio City Music Hall). Through the years, the theater has had its up and downs, but was rescued in 2004 as non-profit showcase. Since it’s reopening then, it has hosted a wide and diverse number of acts.
Then there was April 17, 2025.

We got some free tickets to attend a live show, “A Celebration of Musical Legends” featuring people we hadn’t heard of. I figured it was one of those tribute shows like we saw in Atlantic City; someone comes out as Elvis, someone does Sinatra, someone does Diana Ross. A fun, entertaining night out. Just not the fun night out we were expecting. Although them pitching the fact that a soccer player as a "surprise guest" should have made us suspicious.

How can I describe this band? Let’s let the theatre’s website set this up:

This New York City debut is more than a concert—it's a celebration of musical legends where past and present collide in perfect harmony, featuring Monti Beton’s passion for timeless melodies and the surprise presence of European football icon Johann Krankl, making it an unforgettable experience.

Yeah, first off; it’s totally a concert.

The show begins…not with a full house. About 5/8 of the theater is occupied. With the balcony closed. But people seem to be very excited to see the NYC debut of this band. Then the realizations begin to pile up.

It’s an Austrian band. Not Australian, Austrian. Which maybe explains the name of the show; It probably sounded better in the original Austrian. The lead singer, Monti Beton, looks like the American actor Robert Webber. The surprise presence of European football (soccer) icon Johann Krankl is a big surprise because we’ve never heard of him. And he played in the 80s. Apparently he had a hit song in Europe after his soccer career and now fronts this band.

It’s going to be a trip through American’s song book, except they lost the book. They kick it off with Elvis and that rockin’ number, “King Creole.” Who opens up with “King Creole?” Then, to change things up, one of Dean Martin’s Italian songs. No, not “That’s Amore.” A full song in Italian. It seems the band is big in Italy, because they did like four more Italian songs. Some Neil Simon, some Supremes, some Kinks. Actually, a lot of The Kinks. Krankl is a huge Kinks’ fan. They tossed in a couple of Beatle songs late in the game (causing an audience member to blurt out loudly, “About time!”—like, what was she expecting??) Basically I felt like I was watching Austria’s greatest wedding band in action.

They had some of the crowd up on their feet. A couple of ladies in front of me seemed to be watching the whole thing ironically, live-posting the whole show.

The band featured their two female back-up singers. Their female percussionist sang lead a couple of times. When the soccer player got a solo, the lead singer would dash around the band, joining in wherever he could. And all the between song patter was heavily accented.

It was a bizarre show. Like a Will Ferrell sketch, only sketchier. They finished with the Beatles “All You Need is Love” and exited. But the lights didn’t could up. They then did a 3 song encore. They took a band selfie with us in the background.

We left the show with goofy grins, all trying to sort out what we had just scene. I mean, they weren’t awful, but they weren’t great. And the tickets were free, which makes me wonder how many comps they had to hand out to semi-fill the house. Not that I’d tell anyone to watch out for their show, but they apparently headed back home to Europe after this show. I hope they left the plane running.

Hashtag, You're It! - #Bargain Boardgames

5/14/2025

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.

Weekly Humorist seems to be going through some things. They used to post the "winners" of the hashtag games Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Then they started delaying it. I thought they were releasing it the day before the latest game, to keep things hopping. Now, they went back to a quicker release, but I got busy and couldn't address that. But I'll sit on it until Tuesday anyway.

It was a cute topic. But again, WH posted a lot of them and really forced we minions to hustle to create new ones. A couple of jokes popped right up. Then I did some via research. And then when I thought I was done, a couple more popped up and I posted them late in the day. It kind of devolved into a more general "bad" boardgames, as did mine. But there were some very funny ones. Check it out!

#BargainBoardgames

All the News Fit to Fake- Secondhand Cholesterol (10/24/05)

5/14/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company that owned the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor (the long time editor of WWN), in an attempt to give the Cracked writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get my footing but soon I was working on some straight-forward fake news stories.

This is actually one of my favorite stories. Before people were claiming vaccine recipients were "shedding" corona virus, I had people shedding cholesterol! When I was a shoddy teenager, I complained about my uncles smoking. He countered by complaining about me biting my nails. I responded, "Yeah, but I'm not blowing my fingernails in you face." I don't know how I got away with that. Anyway, the idea of a personal bad habit effecting people around you stuck with me. There were all these stories about secondhand smoke affecting non-smokers and the big focus at the time about cholesterol levels. Combining them seemed a natural. Plus I got to mock the wearing of lapel ribbons for causes. Always fun.

All the News Fit to Fake- Bad Inventions (10/3/05)

5/7/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

This one I can't believe got used. This is one of my older premises, bad inventions. I did variations of it for Cracked, The Plague, and The Staten Island Advance and this blog. Similar bits were rejected by all the regulars. But here it is. This always happens. I never throw anything out, and when I get stuck for material, I resurrect something from my dead file. Sometimes it works. Other times, I'm so busy trying to remember stuff, I forget to think up new stuff. But when you are chasing a paycheck, it's an easy trap to fall into. I simply had to pad out my bad idea with some factoids to accompany it. At Cracked, the name of the thing was usually enough, with art. But for WWN, it had to be a well-researched presentation.

Hashtag, You're It! - #Sitcom A Restaurant

5/6/2025

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.

I almost missed this one. I kept getting interrupted while attempting to play this hashtag game. But it was a good topic. Except that WH grabbed all the low-hanging fruit. And posted all their tweets. Once I finally got into the groove, I did okay. My biggest problem was I went too far back in sit-com history to come up with puns (Make Room for Daddy, The Phil Silvers Show). But I entered a bunch, got a number of likes and got 6 of them included. Check them out:

#SitcomARestaurant

Leave it to the Prose: Son of Hollywood Memo I.P. Daily Newsletter

5/5/2025

I've circled back to my roots here, creating a hodgepodge of jokes and gags, then coming up with a premise to contain them all. It started out with a couple of "content creator" type bits that I thought up, but don't have a way to produce. One of them was Abbott & Costello Elementary, which I created and posted online. Then a Shrek joke presented itself. Then, from there, I decided to write out the ideas and figured to put them into a sequel to my first I.P. Daily Newsletter article. It started out random, but then I started to chase the news a bit, and worked them together. It came out quite well. I backed up and reworked the A&C bit into a political joke, but I forgot to do the same to the Shrek idea. I could have turned it into a Hunter Biden laptop joke easily enough. Weekly Humorist like the article and posted it today! So, check it out:

Barely Home Companion - TOME TIME (Apr. '06)

5/2/2025

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...

All righty, I have NO recollection of this sketch; where it came from, what inspired it, how I put it together. It's like I'm reading it for the first time. And I like it. Was there some big plagiarism scandal going at the time? A quick google search says yes there was. A Harvard student, Kaavya Viswanathan confessed to cribbing parts of a book for something called How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. I have no recollection of this either. Oh, well. Anyway, I ran with it and turned it up to 11 with some nice bits of cross talk in it. Sort of Pythonish, but not really.

TOME TIME

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