
![]() Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories. This one I can't believe got used. This is one of my older premises, bad inventions. I did variations of it for Cracked, The Plague, and The Staten Island Advance and this blog. Similar bits were rejected by all the regulars. But here it is. This always happens. I never throw anything out, and when I get stuck for material, I resurrect something from my dead file. Sometimes it works. Other times, I'm so busy trying to remember stuff, I forget to think up new stuff. But when you are chasing a paycheck, it's an easy trap to fall into. I simply had to pad out my bad idea with some factoids to accompany it. At Cracked, the name of the thing was usually enough, with art. But for WWN, it had to be a well-researched presentation.
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![]() Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories. Another article I can't believed they used. Once again, I was digging into my old files and found several sketches and bits about bad restaurants (as well as toys, candy, rollercoasters). There might have been one or two to get me started, but the material is mostly original for the article, except for the closing Fast Food restaurant gag, which I had kicking around for a while. Jerome Howard was able to make it work (and frankly, publishing a weekly fake newspaper ate up a lot of content).
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... ![]() Here's a piece from my Cynical Period. Nah, just kidding, I just drift in and out of cynical phases. But this was an early one. It's one of those bits where I take a charming and innocent premise and just pepper it with adult angst anchored by a cranky old fart. It's a pretty solid premise and I did for a workshop. And I thought a fairly easy bit to rework for radio. That was the one thing about radio, I just saw it as dialogue-driven but I never let the words lead the listener along. I rarely used dialogue to introduce another character or weave a visual gag. People would talk and if someone new entered the scene, they would just start talking. I think I started to realize with this bit that I had to walk the audience through the scene aurally. Plus, I found myself writing almost a whole 'nother routine to set up this one as a radio bit. All the mentions of other radio shows were new for the lead-in. Rule of three and all that. And I got to play with sound effects again. But, as is often the case, the sketch leaned too heavily on TV shows and that may have doomed it. And, perhaps, the cast size. Also GK, who was old then, had just had a kid, and I made mention of it; which could have gone either way. Though the idea of GK describing an episode of the kiddie show Teletubbies would have been so funny. REALITY-TIME STATION
![]() The holiday season means a lot of special TV. But not every show can be "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "Frosty the Snowman." There a couple of slushy projects that are less Ho-Ho-Ho and more Ho-Ho-Hum. And here's a couple you probably missed: Ted & Bill’s Excellent Advent: Two dudes, trying to find the perfect Christmas presents for their girlfriends, travel through time disrupting events at Bethlehem, Charles Dickens’ house and the North Pole...
Or, a Tale of Two PostsI was very lucky...this article found a home over at Weekly Humorist in time for Thanksgiving 2023. But, since website come and go, I'm leaving up the original post...just in case... ![]() by Chef Louis as told to Dan Fiorella Bon jour, America! We here at the kitchens of Chez Chaz have discussed this many, many times and we had decided it is time. Time to save Thanksgiving from you Americans. The holiday fare is so Americanized. Yes, yes, it is true; turkey, stuffing, apple cider. It is stale, it is stodgy. You Americans, it would kill you to broaden your horizons? My staff and I have been working very hard to introduce a special Thanksgiving menu which we will be serving this year. What we have done is no less than remarkable. We have turned Thanksgiving into an international gastronomic event. |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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