Some final plague prestidigitation

These are my final jokes from the final week of TMI: Daily.  The group is taking the summer off and then plans to relaunch the show under a different title and/or format, adjusting for post-pandemic life.  And hopefully the group will be back onstage in their sketch-comedy format, too.

I am glad to be a part of it, in the background.  Writing for this day after day kept the pandemic at bay and let my vent a lot of my fears, anger and frustration.  I was one of the lucky ones, I was able to work from home the whole time and didn't have money woes or eviction fears.  But many of the cast members did.  They got to share and vent and make the pandemic person for us.  And hopefully brought some laughter with the insights.

It was a short week, 3 shows.  I missed the first show because I was away.  Nothing got in the Wednesday show, but then I managed to score 2 jokes in the season finale, which underwent the usual re-wording.  So, take it away, TMI: Daily...

Things are winding down here in Pandemic land, so the Amazing Maskoroni has a couple of final tricks to pull!

Weird week for me.  The show is only 3 days a week now, and I got nothing in Tuesday and Thursday, but got 4 jokes in on Wednesday, so my average remains intact.
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The FBI joke punchline was a much wordier version of my punchline, "So, not jovial tourists?".  And the Texas power grid joke; I don't know what they was going on there.  The whole joke turns on the word "power" and it got altered.  The same premise and tag, but the logic that gets you there has been removed.  

So, the TMI: Daily summer season is 3 days a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for June, so check the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page for details.  And here's my contributions for last week:

Comedy is so subjective and random.  I wouldn't get a joke in one day and the next I get 4 in.  Jokes I think are clever get passed by while a mediocre joke is in.  Basically, it was a good week for me, in total.  I know they used a number of my topics and set-ups, but the punchlines were totally different in tone and style.  Even the ones that made it in had some changes made: 

The FEMA joke was "sharpies and paper towels" and got changed to "sharpies and plastic maps."  The Texas joke reworked my "but masks" take a bit.  The muffin bit was a real re-wording of my punchline, but the punchline logic remained.   The Milli-Vanilli joke got altered a bit, but again, the premise was intact.  The 1/6 commission joke got a real workout to have the punchline come back on itself as opposed to my simple "They're ok with 4 recounts but not 1 investigation."  I was very happy my "Quid Pro Coop" line hit.  I liked that line a lot.  And I was proud of my "full contact" airline joke was well.  

TMI: Daily is going into summer hours after Memorial day, so check the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page for days and times.  And here's my contributions for last week (the video is fine, the thumbnail got pulled from a dissolve frame):

A light week for me, all in all.

Frankly, I wasn't feeling it much this week.  I hit the usual places for news to mock, but much nothing was inspiring me.  And my tweets have been mostly lecture-y rather than funn-y.
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​I included the one joke as a example of some comedic re-writing.  Okay, so idiot Congressman comes out and says "For the most part the insurrection was peaceful.  Immediately, I thought of comparing it to the Titanic, "for the most part the cruise was great."  But when I submitted it I changed it to the Hindenburg, because my logic was its trip was just about finished, up until the last few minutes, it was fine.  TMI changed it back to Titanic.  Did I over think it?  I just found that an odd/interesting choice.  But mostly odd.

There are going to be changes to the show come summer, especially as things open up in L.A. and the troupe gets the theater up and running again.  But, until that time, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week:

It was an odd week.  The show from May 10 dropped off the web.  No video, no audio from the podcast.  It just doesn't exist, I didn't see the show when it was webcast and I don't know if they used anything and no one has gotten back to me about what happened. We had Emma Lieberman and  Cameron Weir alternating the anchor chair for Tonya Harris, so each tried to make the spot their own with the jokes selected.
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Wednesday's show, I'm taking credit for the Chik-fa-A.  My punchline was simply "Thanks, Joe Biden," a throw back to the old "Thanks, Obama" trope.  It got re-worked into a much longer punchline that nonetheless references Joe Biden.  And, oddly, my Rock and Rock Hall of Fame tag went from "better luck next year" to a longer punchline about an office pool.   Got nothing in Thursday's show, and got one last joke in Friday.  
There may be changes to the show in the coming weeks, especially as things open up in L.A. and the troupe gets the theater up and running again.  But, until that time, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week:

Had a solid week on TMI: Daily, Getting in several jokes this week.  Few tweaks.  So me reasonable editing but a good bunch of jokes with a wide range of topics.  Which is rewarding, considering everyone involved with the show is doing it all on spec.

There may be changes to the show in the coming weeks, especially as things open up in L.A. and the troupe gets the theater up and running again.  But, until that time, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week:

I had a pretty solid week last week with a joke or two every night!  Some rewording, some slight twisting or expansion, but a lot used.  And a lot of premises used, too.  A hat tip to the gang especially; I submitted a joke about the QAnon Congresswoman Greene challenging congresswoman AOC to a debate.  I had made the joke, "I expected her to challenge AOC to an arm wrestling match."  TMI picked up the straight line and reworked it to "Wouldn't challenging her to a duel be more on brand?" Which is the prefect punchline for that set-up and those characters.

I'm proud that I'm able to more and more remove myself from the political arena and get back to some pop culture jokes, which don't get used much but I was worried about my ability to come up with jokes post-Trump.  And I've managed to channel a lot of that disgust toward many others in the GOP, so I'll be flexing that muscle for a while.  The group is taking off next week, although I'm still waiting to hear if they will be producing the monologues for the week.

Anyway, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week:

A lot of venting this week.  It was a strong start to the week, with 2 jokes and one set up.  The spring break was used as-is.  The COVID vaccination joke, well, after telling us to cut down on the Trump jokes, they took my line "don't want the rich catching COVID from the landscapers" and turned it into a Trump joke.  I wrote a joke about Putin being selected the sexiest man alive and after coming up with 2 punchlines where I was desperate to avoid a "falling out of a window" gag, they went with a "falling out of a window" gag.  Then Thursday...Thursday.  I wrote a "Masked Singer" joke.  While I wrote they were changing the name to "The Double-Masked Singer" it got changed it to this "cast doesn't have to worry, since they are all masked."  To me, that was the obvious line, and one I feel we've used before.  Something about a furry convention, I think.  Anyway I wanted to avoid that, so I thought I'd reference the recent issue of "double masking."  They reworded the Pence book joke.  Then the MacGyver joke.  I mean, I wrote that the show was going to be cancelled unless he could get a paper clip, double A batteries and a roll of aluminum foil.  For some reason they decided they had to go straight on-the-nose by saying "unless they could MacGyver a way out" and a different list of items.  Why???  Comedy is so subjective.  And Friday, frankly similar set-ups were used; Prince Phillip's death, ancient Egyptian city discovered, but there was so much reworking the punchline to where despite some words being repeated or inferred (Meaghan Markel, Indiana Jones) they ended with a totally different punchline and intent.  But two jokes they used verbatim again, even though I felt they were my sillier, weaker lines.  Oh, well.

Anyway, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week: