
And it's not even like PHC was in Hollywood, so I don't even know what prompted me to submit this sketch. I guess the lack of effort show because it wasn't used.
Dan Fiorella
Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large |
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![]() 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 must have been battling quite the writer's block back then, because this bit is a lazily re-worked essay from my college days. I was going through a severe Woody Allen phase back in college and wrote a number of essays mimicking his style. It was a diary-style article, that was inspired by a class where we discussed the transition in film from silent movies to sound. My memories are vague on this, but I seem to recall the opening paragraph referencing "Singing in the Rain" so it must have been a film class. And it's not even like PHC was in Hollywood, so I don't even know what prompted me to submit this sketch. I guess the lack of effort show because it wasn't used. Silents is Golden
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Here's something I was bicycling around to the few sites I have a relationship with.... DisneyWorld Announces New Post-Virus Attractions![]() Yes, a lot of vacation plans went awry when the Disney theme parks closed in the face of the Coronavirus. It was the right decision to make, but disappointed us. But, like everyone else, Disney is making plans for its reopening. To that end, they’ve just release a list of the new attractions that the Disney Imagineers are re-theming for their post-quarantine openings: Small World So Wear a Mask Personal Space Mountain Spinning Quarantea Cups SARS Tours Transmission to Mars Hot Zone Tower of Terror Infected Mansion Peter Pandemic River Hospital Boats EPCOUGH The Hall of Pestilence Ventilators of the Caribbean Country Bear Quarantinee Shelter-In-Happy Place The Carousel of Virus ![]() Here's a topical piece and I lost my site that took topical pieces. Maybe I'll turn it into a sketch, but these days with the news cycles, no one will remember...
![]() Here's a two-fer for today, a couple of song parodies. I'm not even sure when or for whom I wrote these. Cracked Magazine certainly did song parody lyrics, I night have submitted them there. Prairie Home Companion occassionally would to pop song parodies and I'm pretty certain I sent them out to them. The file I found these in was dated 2006, so I must have pitched them to ACN and All Star Radio to boot. I might have included them in an early draft of my script, "Halloweenies." It's all very fuzzy, like a lollipop at the bottom of a trick-or-treat bag. The song titles are easy to see, but the songs themselves were trickier to scan. So, to remind people that Halloween is coming and I have a Halloween book to sell, here is... Sing-Along![]() October 2004. This was a weird bit. It was a prose bit, the kind I was churning out for no particular reason-a "listicle" as they are called now. An amusing or punny title with a brief gag to follow. I'd done them for the Staten Island Advance, the NY Post, Cracked; come up with a parody theme (movies, TV shows, candy) and riff on them until I had 9-12 items to type up. Even my sketch "Abbott & Othello" begat a list of "Lesser-Known" Shakespeare plays. Anyway, I got it into my head to extract some and turn them into a radio bit for Prairie Home Companion. They passed, but the bit never died. Some titles went off to become actual sketches, some were just folded into other bits, just comic Flotsam and jetsam washing up on humor's shore. Anyway, all in good fun and here to remind you to get a copy of Halloweenies today! Halloween HorrorsOct 2017; CBS was pushing prequels to Star Trek and Big Bang Theory, and with Young Sheldon and the Star Trek: Discovery being hits, what else could they try? How about a sit-com about a young, nerdy vampire? The mash-ups of genres is fun because it lets you play one against the other and putting a horror tale as a family comedy allows you to follow the rhythms and beats of the show while still goofing on it. 11So, to remind people that Halloween is coming and I have a Halloween book to sell, here is... Young Dracula![]() October 2014, with a comedy troupe in sight, I did start trying to turn out season-specific sketches when the whole "Hollywood Current Events" premise didn't interest me. They did do an annual Halloween show, and I know I over-submitted the first year I dealt with him, writing new and resurrecting old bits. This was one of the new bits, a mash-up of two popular reality show tropes; paranormal shows and practical joke shows. As well as goofing on the idea that the SYFY channel was drifting away from its Sci-Fi roots. It's a commercial parody, which means I was still writing sketches that were too brief and needed to work on that. So, to remind people that Halloween is coming and I have a Halloween book to sell, here is... Ghost Punkers![]() QUnlike topical sketches, holiday sketches have a shot at being utilized the next year. Or the one after that. Or maybe... You get the idea, a holiday could have a longer shelf life, but, like most sketches in the world, it'll never see the light of day. And, as you may have guess, I'm kinda a nut about Halloween. So, if I had a venue, I would inevitably start churning out new Halloween skits or recycle some off the hard drive. To mixed results. As I stated with the TMI: Hollywood group, I was still feeling my way, still churning out the shorter skits, but come September, I would begin handing in Halloween bits. Like this one from 2014. Somehow the name popped into my head; of course zombies were all the rage, so eventually a skit followed. The formatting is off for a stage piece. Did I think they would do it as a video? Or did I just automatically fall into a movie template. Who knows? Anyway, I present it here as part of my Halloween themed promo for my book, Halloweenies. Aberzombie & Finch![]() Is there anything that has a shorter shelf life than a topical sketch that isn't selected? Besides 1-ply toilet paper? It's rough. You pull together a decent take on today's pop culture news 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? Save them for that reboot of "Fridays"? Or, do you just start posting on your own blog because you never know (actually you do, but you do it anyway)? Remember when Russia was trying to influence us via social media and the NRA? I decided to ramp it up to the next, logical level: NyetFlix![]() Is there anything that has a shorter shelf life than a topical sketch that isn't selected? Besides fruit from Top Tomato? It's rough. You pull together a decent take on today's pop culture news 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? Submit them as Craig List samples? Or, do you just start posting on your own blog because you never know (actually you do, but you do it anyway)? Remember that awful season of "The Walking Dead" when Negan arrived? No character development, no classic build-up, just the appearance of a crazy man who projected all his bad behavior on Rick. It was rough enough dealing with the election of 2016, but to have to watch snide Negan in action really sucked the fun out of the show. And had me rooting for the zombies. Anyway, I needed to vent, so I wrote up a TWD parody that undermined that maddening episode. Then there was that weird thing they did by having Negan beat the camera, so we didn't know who got beat for the summer. So that gets a nod, too. I have no idea how that would have played on stage. Maybe attack the guy filming the stage show. Negan At the Bat |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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