Category: Barely Home Companion - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion - My Really Big, Fat Greek Wedding (Feb. 2003)

2/18/2022

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...

Forgot about this one. Apparently, the richest girl in the world got married in 2003 and I combined it with My Big, Fat Greek Wedding. Not too much more to it than that. A pop-culture/news sketch was a risky deal with PHC, but I thought the NPR joke at the end might appeal to GK and the gang. It didn't.

My Really Big, Fat Greek Wedding

Barely Home Companion - Road to Miami (Feb. 2003)

2/11/2022

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...

PHC was doing one of its remote shows, setting up shop in Miami. I had driven from NY to Orlando with kids and that seemed like a perfectly logical premise to build a sketch around. So I took a series of jokes and thoughts I had about the long drive and Florida and assembled them into a bit. I thought it was cute and a cool way to open the show, but what do I know. They didn't use it. I later re-worked it as a prose piece and did get it publish in the Staten Island Advance, but I'll be darned if I can find the old link or a copy of it in my scrapbook. Very unnerving. Yet, there it is, up on my header page above. I'm starting to wonder if my memories really exist at this point...

Road to Miami

Barely Home Companion - Near State Insurance (Jan '03)

1/28/2022

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 is just one of those brief bits I wrote, kinda built around a "catch phrase." With insurances companies trying to undersell each other, it seemed ripe for parody. E-insurance companies were becoming a thing that presented themselves as a way to save money since they didn't have the over-head of traditional companies, what with their brick & mortar buildings, phones and desks. They just needed a website and a cubicle full of outsourced operators (they've since been bought up by the brick & mortar companies). Just a silly piece of fun that PHC didn't pick up...

Near State Insurance

Barely Home Companion - New Sound Effects (Jan 2003)

1/21/2022

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...

2003 got off to a late start and there were only two January shows. I went with one of my go-to pieces, sound effects, to mark the new year. I referenced a lot of current events under the W. Bush administration in this short piece, some of which I can't recall. I liked playing around with the sound effects, but I wonder if the show thought I was parodying them and not just playing around with the format. They didn't use the sketch and I had no real way of knowing the reason for the rejection (as per usual). And, again, not a sketch that could be repurposed elsewhere. So, straight from the archives comes...

New Sound Effects

Barely Home Companion - American Plumbing Foundation 2 (Dec. 2002)

12/27/2021

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 one has me baffled. It's a sequel to something, but I thought this was the only plumber association skit I wrote? I scrolled back in the blog and can't find one. I guess this is just what happens at my age, you write sequels to sketches you never wrote. It was something I had kicking around the hard drive and pulled out it out for the holiday season (?). I didn't even bother to mention holiday meals to tie into the season. I totally get why they didn't use this one.

American Plumbing Foundation 2

Barely Home Companion -Letters from Santa (Dec. 2002)

12/20/2021

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...

Yet, I was pulling out material from my Christmas catalogue of comedy. This was originally a prose piece that I posted at Themestream.com and other "pay-per-click" sites, and decided to attempt to adapt it into a radio sketch. It came out okay at best. A lot of topical humor for a PHC bit, with references to Enron energy crook Ken Lay, and PETA while the original had even more of those. There's a couple of double entendres that probably didn't help my cause but it was so short it would be over before you had a chance to get offended. So, it was a pass from PHC. If I ever find the original prose, I'll have to post it around here.

Letters from Santa

Barely Home Companion - The Virginia Monologues (Dec. 2002)

12/13/2021

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...

Remember that play, "The Vagina Monologues?" What if you could turn it into a Christmas sketch? I had written this up in a flurry of Christmas material one holiday season. It was a sketch, a prose piece (a critic's review) and this radio version. It was dicey going in. I mean, these lines are barely double entendres, they are single entendres. But I liked the idea of mixing Christmas with pretentious theatre. Was it rejected because it was too risque or because I wrote "flume" instead of "flue" ? Who knows? But, at least I got it published over at the Big Jewel humor site.

The Virginia Monologues

Barely Home Companion-Guy Noir Saves Christmas (Dec. 02)

12/6/2021

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 sketch is a part of a much larger narrative. I talked about it here, but to recap; while my screenplay "Lost Claus" was kicking around, I decided to adapt it into a sketch for PHC. The sketch is essentially the opening scene from the screenplay and a reworked interview scene at the North Pole with Santa's daughter. Oh, and the confrontation with the villain. And then kind of leapfrogged to the happy ending. I thought it was pretty amazing. PHC passed. Happily, the sketch version went on to some greener pastures. I turned it into a flat out radio script and began submitting it around. It won a contest and was produced (here). It was then later produced by another radio troupe.

In retrospect, it was probably a long shot a best. It was pretty long (Almost 20 pages). I thought I nailed Guy Noir pretty well. It was filled

Guy Noir Saves Christmas

Barely Home Companion: To Grandmother's House We Go (Nov. 2002)

11/25/2021

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...

PHC would do these little musical vignettes from time to time, a series of black-out type scenes alternating with a song. I gathered a series of jokes and opinions I had and cobbled them together using "Grandmother's House We Go" as the thread. I even had to add a few verses of my own to pad it along. Uncle Al's rant I lifted from a prose piece I wrote about the pilgrims. I shoved that in there as well. It did not make the cut. So, here it is, as some Thanksgiving leftovers...

To Grandmother's House We Go

Barely Home Companion: Unbearable (Nov. 2002)

11/25/2021

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...

Okay, this is one of those scripts I totally forgot about. It's like I was reading it for the first time when I pulled it off the hard drive. I'm trying to think back to the time...TV book clubs were starting to become a thing, with Oprah's leading the way. Then there was a big book, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" that was making the rounds, which must have been the inspiration for the title of the skit. And guess I was hitting back at this wave of pretentious writing that was going on at the time. People weren't writing books, they were writing tomes, these very thick and very prestigious works of fiction that were all the rage. I remember an author turning down a chance to be Oprah's pick, but I don't recall if that was before or after my sketch. And there were a book, a memoir, I believe, that was discovered to be a fraud. It was a strange time in the publishing business. And I had to think, "Pretentious books? Garrison Keillor would love to see a sketch about that, I bet!" Turns out, not so much. So, let's drag this bit out of the comedy carbon chamber and post it here...

Unbearable

comedy, writer, Dan Fiorella, Daniel fiorella, screenplay, sketches,radio,computer games, television writer