Category: Election Stuff - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Skit Happens: Election Edition - The Sarcastic Party

11/6/2018

This is one of those bits I wrote up that I really, really enjoy but no one else seems to. It's been bumping around awhile. It's not really topical but I've submitted it in one form or another to every venue I've been a party to over the years. It's a deep dive into my sarcastic passive-aggressive side that rarely gets unleashed in my bits but when it comes to watching pandering politicians who promise the moon but are just so insincere about it, I can go there very easily. Very.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

The Sarcastic Party

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Barrack be a Muslim Tonight

11/5/2018

A quickie song parody from 2008. Remember back in the day people had to make up shortcomings about a president? Good times. I actually had a run of these type of songs back there, it was a weird, weird time.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

Barack be a Muslim Tonight

Skit Happens: Election Edition - The First Ladies Club

11/5/2018

Ah, the excitement of of a new administration! The comedy troupe is always looking for female-heavy skits and I try to fill that niche. Sometimes. But the idea of a First Ladies Club seemed an obvious choice. So obvious, SNL did one as well, only more supernatural, with long-gone ladies appearing to Melania. Dated in certain ways, I note Barbara Bush is gone now. I don't know why I didn't have Rosalyn there. But there's stuff beyond the topical which still works. There's some snappy lines in there. The line about being the first lady but not the last is one I came up with for a political comedy play I wrote once. Nice running gags and character moments. It's not a classic, but it would have been a slick bit of comedy of its time...which has passed.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

The First Ladies Club

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Debating Debates

11/4/2018

Remember a time when Clinton and Trump were arguing about when to hold debates? Remember when when Trump looked like an idiot and we all thought Hillary was going to win? Boy, did this skit get dated!
I mean it was bad enough that we were starting to inundate TMI Hollywood with political sketches, since they were mostly dealing with pop culture, but then 2016 was the first pop-culture presidential election. Hillary here is so confident. Trump is flailing. OK, so maybe not all of it dated. The biggest trick in these things is trying to find you're own take on a character and not just do an SNL sketch the way they were defining them. It's hard. I often find myself writing in the voice of the SNL version of the person. But the sketches were now better fleshed out, there was a decent POV and a good closing gag. So, there's that. And now it gets to see the light of day...

And, of course, this whole celebration of fall is to help remind folks that my book, Space Case is available over at Amazon. It sure beats stepping on a rake!

Debating Debates

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Clinton House of Balloons

11/3/2018

A cute little trifle I wrote after the Democratic Convention concluded. It's short, a black out more than a sketch, but it was something everyone noted about the Clinton's and the balloon. The big meme was "Find someone who looks at you the way Bill looks at these balloons." So, a commercial parody. Who knew they would actually have to consider this as a job after November?

So, Space Case, my second Nick Flebber mystery, which just happens to take place in the fall, is available at Amazon. Grab a copy today. I'll be glad you did.

Clinton House of Balloons

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Face the Press

11/2/2018

It's election time, so let's pull out those election sketches. Yes, I have written election sketches. And here's the first to prove it...
It's a weird one and dated as all get out. Apparently, the National Enquirer got some traction during the 2016 primary campaign by reporting that Ted Cruz had had affairs. So, let's toss them into the mix of a standard Sunday morning news panel with all the hot-shot newspapers, right? I sure didn't know that Trump had the Enquirer in his pocket, and that the publisher and he were besties. And, yeah, I treated the Enquirer as if were still publishing the supernatural stories that they had long since transferred to my old employer, The Weekly World News (which I cop to in the sketch). This sketch is very of its day. And typically anti-Bernie, as was my want.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

Face the Press

Skit Happens: Post-Halloween Edition - Post-Holiday Depression

11/1/2018

Okay, here's another bit I stumbled across in my files. It's dated 2007, but that's long after I cease being involved with PHC. But the skit is such a PHC bit, the pacing, the delivery, it had to have been a Ketchup Advisory Board piece originally. It looks like I attempted to update it to two guys talking instead of a MARRIED couple, so it must have went to the radio syndication companies, too. It feels like I just lobed off the standard Ketchup monologue opening and the song and sign-off. I'm just not certain. It certainly is a strange bit for me to attempt to resurrect. But it's one of the few post-Halloween sketches ever written, and it may have been a sequel to my post-Christmas Ketchup sketch that PHC did produce! Happy All Saints Day!

So, to remind people that Halloween WAS coming and I STILL have a Halloween book to sell, here is...

Post-Holiday Depression

Bubble Life

7/12/2018

People keep claiming that, as a New Yorker, I live in a bubble. Let me tell you about my bubble. There are 8 million people in my bubble. My neighbors are like 50 feet from my front door. Every day I have to travel to work by train, boat and subway with thousands of other people. I work in an office with people from around the state, country and planet. And if that’s not enough, my bubble is so special, that people from all over the world travel here just to visit. These people crowd our sidewalks and Burger Kings. Businesses are run from my bubble. Companies erect skyscrapers with their names on them to mark their section of the bubble. International decisions are made here. As well as other decisions; like, for lunch I can choose to get some egg rolls, or pizza, or empanadas, or curry chicken, or a hamburger, or a Philly cheese steak or a hot dog. Or some of each…

My kids went to school with hundreds of other kids. Neighborhood kids. Kids from the other side of the borough. Military kids stationed nearby. Kids with whom they had to work, compete against and share multiple childhood diseases.

It’s a crowded bubble where people have learned to get along. There are rules and laws that the vast majority agree to live by if we are all going to get along and move along. We can have tall buildings that don’t constantly burn down, ferries that don’t capsize regularly and trains that don’t crash and kill hundreds often.

Yet I have to listen to people carry on that where they are is the real America. They tout places that don’t get a lot of visitors until it gets flooded or a twister rips through. They carry on as if somehow they have their fingers on the pulse of what “real Americans” want because their neighbors live “down the road a-piece.”

The whole point of coming together as a nation is that we are stronger together. As a country, we are a mutt, made up of all the people that couldn’t hack it in the old country. They all brought their customs, traditions and foods here. But they’re here because they wanted to be here, not because their parents happen to live here. America was their goal.

They also brought a sense that what’s good for the least of us is good for the greatest of us.

I don’t understand what other people, in their big empty states, are getting so cranky about. They live isolated lives, worried about things that just don’t happen. They hold grudges against others they don’t know because some loud-mouth tells them too. But mostly I don’t get why these salt-of-the-earth, hard-working Americans elected a loud, elitist, lying, crooked business man and pseudo-billionaire from New York City as the face of the nation. If this is what real America should be, I’ll stick to my bubble, thank you.

SKIT HAPPENS 6

4/15/2018

Is there anything that has a shorter shelf life than a topical sketch that isn't selected? Other than that container of sour cream that looks like a science project now. It's rough. You pull together a decent take on today's headlines only to learn they didn't pick your sketch to be in this week's show. Then what? Submit it around to the hundreds of comedy troupes that are looking for sketches from strangers? Turn it into a Kindle ebook? Or, do you just start posting on your own blog because you never know (actually you do, but you do it anyway)? I often delve into political humor and that dates really fast. But some of the stuff I just really enjoyed writing an was really pleased the way it came out. But, the comedy show I submitted it to really doesn't do song parodies, so that was a huge obstacle I built for myself...

Oh, Donald!

New on the Net...

4/26/2017

Got a new bit posted by the gang over at The Higgs Weldon site; President Trump's First 100 Days; an Alternative Look Back!

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