Category: Halloweenies - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion: Costumes (Oct. 2003)

10/14/2022

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...

And now we enter my favorite time of year, Halloween. I so desperately wanted to get a Halloween sketch on air. But I never managed it. This piece is a little bit of plagiarism. I lifted the dialogue from my screenplay called "Halloweenies." Just some stuff with kids discussing the pros and cons of costumes. I thought I turned it into a sweet little sketch about the importance of the right costume.

I later adapted the screenplay into a novella called, oddly enough, Halloweenies. It's the adventures of a 10-year old trying to get the perfect costume. You should totally check it out.

The song is a little ditty we used to sing as kids. I think it was written by the same guy who did "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells." The show had done a version of the song years prior, which was included in the CD set PHC sent me when I first became a writer for the show. Anyway, it didn't get selected for the show. But the spirit lives on...

Costumes

Halloween in July Sale!

7/9/2020

It's #HalloweenInJuly! Ok, not a thing, but my book "Halloweenies" is #free! on #Kindle this week! Beat the #Halloween rush and get your copy today! Halloweenies, the story of a kid’s quest for the perfect costume and everything that gets in his way! Here's the link: Halloweenies

And since #ChristmasInJuly is a thing, let's do this, too! We need a little #Christmas! Nick Flebber's first adventure, "Lost Claus" is now on sale for 99 cents on #Kindle! Leaping Yule logs! Santa's missing! Now what? Find out in "Lost Claus!"

Ghosts of Halloween Decorations Past - Et. Al.

10/27/2019

I have been decorating my front door for Halloween for a couple of decades. I talked about it previously here. This year, however I won't be doing it up much. The reason? The premiere party for the movie I worked on. I co-wrote a horror/comedy short a couple of years ago a the request of an actress. And, dang, if she didn't get it made! Anyway, the screening is Halloween night, so I won't be home for the trick-or-treaters.

So, I always recorded the Halloween decorations, first by photo, then with videos, since I started doing back in the 80s. Not everything is digital, but when I wrote my book, "Halloweenies," I pulled out some of what I had to create a couple of book promos for it. One shows the stuff in my attic, they other has photos from when I was decorating the door of our side-door apartment where we spend 20 years of our lives. Here's where you really see some of the different masks I used on my mechanical man figure, from mummy to monster to witch to wizard to vampire. It was pretty flexible. And I was always on the hunt for new accessories. It originally started with glove hands with string tied to a railing. Then monster hands, then I found the monster arms. I originally had an old man mask, but the way the ladder stood, with the paint ledge jutting out front, made everyone assume he was an old woman. So, I added a witch hat and cauldron and made him a witch. There were lights, coffins, and smoke machines added over the years. He even did a couple of personal appearances at some Halloween parties. That was the beauty of it, easily assembly and disassembly.

My favorite part is the kids' reactions to it. Some are fascinated by it. Others are frightened. The parents love it. It's turned into a real photo-op as they get their kids to stand next to it and take pictures. That part is a joy. And the weather has been nice on Halloween for so long that I get to hang outside with my bowl of candy and take care of business.

Halloween Homefront 2018

11/8/2018

Just wanted to post the video I took featuring my Halloween Day decorations. I've been setting up variations on this since 1986, featuring a "mechanical man" I build out of odds & ends around the house. Originally I did it to better attract trick-or-treaters to our side door apartment, since we didn't have a single kid show up the first year we lived there. Now it's a thing I do because it's cool. I've been taping them for only a few years, first when I finally got a camcorder. I've been posting them since I got a iPad and could do it digitally and edit and upload them. They're up on Youtube. I used pictures and videos of the various set-ups over the years to create my book trailer for "Halloweenies," so, I guess that means I can write that all off as business expenses.

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

Monster Mashing

10/31/2018

Happy Halloween!!

For the end of our Halloween Countdown, let's go with a classic, the Monster Mash, as sung by yours truly. I'm surprised they didn't throw me overboard...

Anyway, thanks for following along! And if you like Halloween comedy, check out my book, Halloweenies, available at Amazon! It's all treat and no trick!

Skit Happens: Halloween Edition-The Voting Dead

10/30/2018

As mentioned earlier in the month, there's definite overlap between Halloween and Election Day. And the election of 2016 was it's own force. Then you had Negan on The Walking Dead, and he was such an annoying jerk. Mix in the standard charges of Chicago-style voting fraud, were dead citizens were supposedly voting. I had adapted to the longer style, it's kind of a promo, but just to announce the amusing show title and then runs into a plot where I goof on the election, Trump and that season of TWD. It' incredibly topical which means it's well passed it's "use by" date. But we present it here because that's what the internet's for.

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

The Walking Dead Election Special

Skit Happens: Halloween Edition- The Tell-Tale SFX

10/29/2018

I adore this sketch. Yeah, yeah, it's mine...but I thought it was the quintessential Prairie Home Companion bit. It was Halloween, it was a take on a classic tale and it was ABOUT SOUND EFFECTS. Garrison Keillor loved doing SFX skits on the radio. I thought I nailed it. Alas, it was not to be. I re-did it a couple times. Even got it accepted to a Halloween-themed stage show, but that collapsed when they lost funding. It was part of a radio script I submitted to a contest, but they broke up my anthology 20-minute script and just featured another bit (War of the Worms) from the full script. Oh well...

Anyway, all in good fun and here to remind you to get a copy of Halloweenies today!

The Tell-Tale SFX

Skit Happens: Halloween Edition - The Attack of the Headless Zombies

10/28/2018

Well, here's a brief bit of nonsense. It was originally written for PHC but rejected. I attempted to submit it elsewhere to zero success. It's short. It's goofy. How do you make zombies more terrifying? You remove the one way to kill them; the head shot. But that opens up other problems...

Anyway, all in good fun and here to remind you to get a copy of Halloweenies today!

The Attack of the Headless Zombies

Skit Happens: Halloween Edition- Sing-a-long

10/28/2018

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

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