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

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion: Brooklyn Air (12/00)

12/18/2019

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...

The show always came into NYC every December. Without telling me. Anyway, so it was always a push to do holiday stuff and New York material. I like to think I did a decent balance of both, finally hitting the sweet spot with my "Yikes, Virginia" sketch. One of the sketches that didn't fly was Brooklyn Airlines (pun intended). Too embedded with stereotypes? Built solely on the use of the work "freakin"? Yes, yes it was. But what it lacks in subtlety is more than makes up for in brevity. But I would have killed to hear Garrison Keillor say that tag line.

Brooklyn Airlines

Barely Home Companion: Winter in NYC (11/00)

11/25/2019

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 liked this bit a lot.

PHC had pitched its tent for its annual visit to New York City, my hometown. I really attempted to create some special bits for this, thinking I had some sort of home field advantage.

I assembled a menagerie of jokes and gags I had created over the years about NYC and winter and cobbled them together in a very (I thought) Keillor-esque manner. I could hear his voice slowly rolling out the lines, then the cast members coming back at him. It was just so...radio. But they didn't do it. I allowed my daily panic to taint all my writing interactions. I never enjoyed when they used something because I was always worried about next week when they might not. So, when they actually didn't, I became more aggravated.

PHC still hasn't used my work, and I thought the NYC snow bit was perfect. What do I know?

As I said, I like this bit. It wasn't really transferable. Although I note in my journal that I would attempt to turn it into a prose piece for a online site that was attempting to create a "pay-per-click" readership (anyone remember ThemeStream? Now that place was a hoot and doomed to failure).

Winter in NYC

Barely Home Companion: Halloween Edition -Frankenstein & Igor (10/00)

10/29/2019

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie 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 an interesting bit (for me). I once read a Woody Allen short story about Dracula. I was so impressed with it. I wanted to write something like it. So I did. He did Dracula, so obviously I would have to do Frankenstein. This was originally a short story. It was published as part of an anthology series years later (which has since gone out of print...which is weird for an ebook). The story was dialog-heavy (as much as my prose is) so I figured I could adapted it as a radio skit for PHC for one of their October shows. It was a pass.

I note in my journal at the end of October, 2000, that I had struck out again with PHC.

Four Halloween bits...Keillor going on and on about how "Americans don't make the most use of it [Halloween]" and proceeds to do practically nil on it . But winter! Don't get him started about winter!

I submitted to other venues after that, but it never got picked. It's my attempt at "racy" and there's one line ("Have you ever discussed politics with him?") that is straight up Woody Allen, although my attempt at making it more "me" (calling him a "feeb" instead of an "imbecile") really undercut it.

I actually took the script and collected together with a couple of my other horror bits and submitted it around as an episode of "The Nether Regions," a "Twilight Zone" type radio anthology show. One group produced another part of the anthology, so this skit has yet to become...ALIVE!

Sooo, Halloween is coming (it's one of my favorite holidays) and I have a Halloween book to sell. It's "Halloweenies," a tale of a boy and his costume...and friends. And family. And cops. And gangsters. It's funny.

Frankenstein & Igor

Barely Home Companion: Pollster (10/00)

10/21/2019

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...

As stated, the election of 2000 was nuts. There were a lot of dirty tricks and rumors and inunedo that was being batted about. And we started to see "push polling" where the supposedly unbiased pollster was pushing some agenda with the questions. I thought I would take it to its logical conclusion. Was I influenced by the Tina Fey sketch of the Census taker in April of that year? Maybe. I can't remember if I wrote this at the time or pulled it out from something earlier. I think it was a fresh idea for PHC. The sketch seems shorter than I remember it but back then I wasn't pushing for length; I was jumping on an idea and presenting it quickly--get in, get out.

Anyway, it wasn't used. It got passed around elsewhere, but didn't see much action. So, here it is...

Pollster

Barely Home Companion: Office Politics 10/00

10/4/2019

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...

The year 2000 was a crazy political year and everyone was getting their licks in. There weren't too many political surprises on a show headed by Garrison "Tax & Spend Liberal" Keillor broadcast on NPR, but still, you just didn't want to hit the low-hanging fruit. You wanted to find a new, unique take on the issues of the day. I don't remember how I came to juxtaposition the idea of office politics with real politics--the debates, the ads, the negative campaigning--but here's how it came out. I broke it into a series of bits leading up to a main sketch. I'm not sure that PHC had ever played around with running gags through a show before and now was not the time for them to start. My journal doesn't say much about the Fall of '00, just mentioning that I submitted items and they didn't get used. Anyway, here's...

Office Politics

Barely Home Companion: Radio Olympics (10/00)

10/4/2019

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie 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...

CI always had to pay attention to the PHC website to see when the show would resume production (not like anyone was going to call me to update me). As the 2000-2001 season approached, I was feeling good about it. They had done a couple of my bits. The checks had cleared. Sure, they passed on most of my submissions, but it was a legitimate credit. And it was good to have a focus again, an actual writing target to hit.

I was forever attempting to work within their templates. The summer's big story had been the Olympics. Lord knows I've written enough Olympic parodies over the years (actually, I would keep re-writing the same old idea and re-submit it every four years) but never for radio. So, naturally, it came out as one of PHC's SFX sketches.

I pulled out my journals from this time and found an entry for this:

"Christina @ PHC loved Radio Olympics...now we see if Keillor goes for it."

He didn't. So, we present here, on my blog, audio humor:

Radio Olympics

Barely Home Companion - 9/11/01 Guys Patriotic Shoes

9/11/2019

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...

After the horrific terror attacks of 9/11/01, the entertainment industry kinda shut down. There was too much to process and too many to mourn to allow ourselves to simply slip back into day-to-day life. But, even in the darkest tragedies, people get antsy for something more. Our basic needs still exist, to eat, to drink, to be among others. And social interaction leads to other things; the need to enjoy. The need to laugh.

In so many ways, all eyes were on New York City. Not just for what had happened, but for what we were. NYC is one of the broadcast centers of the nation. And, slowly, the media began to shake off the darkness. We all know how Letterman, John Steward, SNL and even Howard Stern started up their shows-both trying to acknowledge the change while conceding that some things, like the need to laugh, never change.

I had a small part in all this. Half way across the country, PHC had been on its hiatus with reruns for the summer. Their season opener was set for 10/6/01. Not for nothing, but by that time, my day job had been back up and running in Lower Manhattan for weeks. We were pressing forward, step by step, with the ashes and smoke still drifting out of Ground Zero. Work pushed us forward. But, try writing comedy.

The one thing the show had going for it was that over the summer Keillor had undergone heart surgery. He opened with that (which also was written by me). Then he went into one of his Wobegon monologues (which was usually done toward the end). He was going to get back into their routine as quickly as possible.

Anyway, it was time to write something to submit. The heart surgery was a quick bit I had done weeks earlier after I first read the news. But something new? That was proving tricky. One thing that was kind of annoying to me at this time was the sudden rush of patriotic commercials that were hitting the air. Everyone was trying to acknowledge the tragedy while still selling their wares. And some of the connections were really weak. So, that's how I decided to handle it...

Acme Floor Covering

Sketchy Tales: Buy-agra

7/17/2019

It's a Prairie Home Companion sketch story with a happy ending. I wrote up this piece back in December of 2000 and they passed on it. Too heavy on the double-entendres? Maybe. But I kept it handy afterward.

By December of 2004, I had started freelancing for American Comedy Network, which produced comedy pieces which were then syndicated to radio stations all over the country that subscribed to their service.

Much of the more generic, less topical material that I created for PHC got routed over to ACN (in addition to new stuff). I had a pretty good success rate with them. Coming up on Christmas, Buy-agra was a perfect shopping season sketch that could play off-season as well. Malls were still a thing back then, you have to realize and Black Fridays were the Hunger Games of retail. So, here's the PHC version followed by the ACN production, with a shout out to my old pharmaceutical company, Ulti-med.

Buy-agra

Barely Home Companion: Catsup Ad (11/00)

7/15/2019

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...

Again, I was always trying to find a way to get the gang at PHC to notice my stuff. I would try to submit to their running jokes but with a twist of my own to make it stand out. It rarely worked.
I don't know if it goes on today, but there was a time ketchup was also sold under the name catsup. Today, my spell check won't acknowledge the word. Anyway, it seemed like a goofy take to insert into PHC's Ketchup commercials. So, naturally, I wrote a song parody. The thing is, PHC didn't do a lot of song parodies. Sometimes I'm my worse enemy. But with having to come up with something each week to show them I was still alive, I couldn't afford to be too precious about what I was creating. If it was a solid idea and I could type it out, I would.

But it didn't get picked.

Catsup Advisory Board

Barely Home Companion: Outback Home Companion - 10/00

5/6/2019

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...

So, with one season under my belt and a summer off, I was ready to begin submitting for the new season in the fall of 2000. If I only knew when to. Would my submissions be welcomed? Would they be required? Who knows? No on contacted me. No one let me in on a schedule or even told when the new season began (October 7th). I kept checking the website until they posted the info and started gearing up on my own. I was a bit annoyed. And my writing started to reflect it. Some of my submissions began to parody PHC. I think this was the first. There was always a fascination with Australia, and summer 2000 they had hosted the Olympics, so it seemed to be a really hot topic. My take was to see what their version of PHC would be like. It's a short bit and could have got a lot bigger, but I tried to slide the parody by them. To an extent. It starts out as a goof on the Aussies, but then segues into a deconstruction of PHC.

Weirdly, it wasn't selected for broadcast! And it's certainly not a sketch that can be applied anywhere else, so it was back to the hard drive for this one. Until today! Join us now as we meet The:

Outback Home Companion

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