Anyway, it was great to see my piece, "In the Pocket of Big Pitchfork," be performed.
So, I grabbed the pictures they posted and edited my one sketch out of the show and posted them all below.
Dan Fiorella
| Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large |
|
|||
I'm always looking to find new homes for my orphan sketches. Apparently, if you call them "short plays" or "10-minute plays," people will look at them. I've been pretty lucky sending stuff out. Sometimes I even get proof of execution, like from the good folks at The Sidekick Troupe. They present a Summerween (it's a thing) Radio Play Festival. I submitted my little parody of old horror movies and they accepted it into the festival! It was the first time it's been up on its feet anywhere and they did a great job. They staged it as a radio play, which is a smart idea; some minor costuming, enough mics and everyone can read the scripts. Anyway, it was great to see my piece, "In the Pocket of Big Pitchfork," be performed. I wish I remembered how the idea came up. It's a fairly recent piece, I think I wrote it for the TMI: Hollywood group and it was a good mash-up of my love of Universal Monster movies and all the "Big Pharm" and "Big Tech" conspiracies that were making the rounds a few years back. I mean, who hasn't watched "Bride of Frankenstein" and wondered, "How much did those torches set them back?" or "Man, I wish I had the pitchfork concession there." I like this so much because they are two ideas that seems so distant from each other, yet, they dovetailed so nicely.
So, I grabbed the pictures they posted and edited my one sketch out of the show and posted them all below.
0 Comments
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. Last week's game was the last heading into Halloween, and I thought it was going to be a tough one; I mean how many synonyms for "zombie" are there? And how many superheroes? It took a little bit for the gears to start meshing, but then the puns started to flow. I mean, I submitted almost 20 bits, and got nine in, so that's a pretty decent showing. I did look up the Top 100 superhero movies and that also opened a door...they considered things like "The Mask" and James Bond superhero movies, so that opened up the opportunities for humor. So, for a last whiff of Halloween, check out:
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 actually one of my favorite audio pieces. I really thought PHC would go for this. A Halloween tale. SFX. Giving GK some narration story telling. I told it was a great twist on the type of sound effects bits they've done so often. But they didn't go for it. I rewrote it a number of times to submit to different venues, including a stage version. But actual productions would always fall short, until a couple of years ago, when I was able to include it as an audio streaming program, "Spooky Time Theater." The Tell Tale SFXHalloween was on its way, and because of various issues at home, it's been sort of on the backburner here. Yeah, I finally put up some window decorations, but didn't pull out the figures or the lights. I've barely watched any real Halloween-related shows or movies, but I've seen the promos for all the Fright Festivals, including the slasher movies, like "Friday the 13th." And the 14th. And the 15th. And the 16th...Finally, an idea popped to mind and I wrote it up and sent it to Weekly Humorist. And they liked it. So let's head on over to Camp Lake Crystal and see how they're holding up:
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 another of those submissions I knew from the start wasn't going to get picked. It's totally silly and off beat, but, deep down, I knew PHC wasn't going to go for it. But as I said elsewhere, I was really threaten by the idea of missing a "deadline." I was submitting in a vacuum, kind of fed up with the lack of attention paid and was traveling beyond the point of caring, frankly. But, it was Halloween, so it seemed worth a try... The Attack of the Headless Zombies
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...
Naturally, as Halloween approaches, it was time to roll out my Halloween sketches. From the Halloween slush pile. I don't know why I even bothered submitting these. Song parodies of rock and disco? What was I thinking? There was no way this would be in GK's wheelhouse but the idea of me missing a submission really drove me still. Sure, maybe he didn't like my stuff, but he knew it would be there.
Just for fun, I ran the lyrics through AI to create a song out of them, posted below. Musical Double Feature My short play, "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Sobriety" will be part of the Hudson Classical Theater Company's WAGG short play festival March 22 & 23 at the 102nd Street Field House. It's a free event, but you need to reserve a seat at Eventbrite here. 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 can't help but notice that no matter the adject used in front of the game's theme, the entries all wind up devolving into simply things that are gross or disgusting. Ask for scary, or bad, or wrong something and eventually the posts veer away from the usual definition. Forget about defining what a "snack" even is here. Anyway, I submitted by usual dozen or so entries and got 5 in, so that's good. I tried to keep scary as in "Halloween scary," but I veered off to into gross and one of them got picked. Then again, different things scare different people. Check out the scary (or gross) fun at:
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 autumn approaches, my mind goes all Halloweeny. It's a favorite holiday of mine (as many of my posts attest to). No one I know actually likes candy corn. In fact, many people I know actively despise it. Personally, I don't mind it, but it's not chocolate, so that's a big strike against it. But it's part of the season. And like so many other products, I'm sure the candy corn companies are trying to expand their markets. I borrowed one of PHC's favorite tropes and created the Candy Corn Council that has some plans for that. I've used candy corn puns in my work in Cracked and The Staten Island Advance, so the concept for this bit was always bumping around in my head. Marrying it to a PHC council seemed like a natural thing to do. And I liked trying to make additional uses for candy corn kinda sound practical (British tea time?). Also the fact of the ridiculousness of advertising candy corn as "fat-free" (which I've seen) makes it a perfect target. I forget how the Christo gag came about, but I think the sketch was built around it, from wherever it developed. I like it. Christo had some of his draping cloth exhibits in the news around this time, but it probably doesn't make as much sense now, but google Christo to understand the fat joke. Candy Corn Council 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, for Halloween, I did a copy and paste; a bunch of quick ideas that were kicking around or used for prose, I pulled together for this series of brief commercials featuring lessor known horror movies. I worked them into other things, and heck, I may again, because these could be really spooky tales! They passed, so here it is: Halloween Horrors |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
August 2026
Categories
All
Blog Roll |