Category: Radio

Sketchy Tales: Christmas Edition - Do You Know the Way to Santa Claus? (12/00)

12/22/2019

This was the first thing I sold to ACN radio. Granted, it was massively rewritten, but the idea of substituting "Santa Claus" for "San Jose" was totally mine. For the season, I pulled out the original parody lyrics, then I'm pasting the produced version below. I liked my version a lot, even working it into one of my screenplays.

Do You Know the Way to Santa Claus
by Dan Fiorella
(sung to the tune of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?")

Do you know the way to Santa Claus?
I've been away so long, my life's gone wrong, I need a pause.
Do you know the way to Santa Claus?
I'm going back to find some peace on earth with Santa Claus.

Noel is a great big season.
Spend a hundred now, and spend some more.
In a week, maybe two, you're back in the store.
Changing gifts and stuff back into cash.
And all the toys you treasured so
Are broken now and in the trash.

I need to believe in Santa Claus.
He's got a lot to give, not just to kids, but to us all.
I was born and raised on Santa Claus.
I'm going back to find some jingle time with Santa Claus.

The North Pole should be a magnet.
It's the place where Christmas spirit reigns.
Free of greed and the deeds that drive you insane.
Santa is the man who shows the way;
With peace on earth, good will toward man
and that's the point of Christmas day.

We've all got a friend in Santa Claus.
Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo.
Do you know the ways of Santa Claus?
Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo.
Can't wait to get back to Santa Claus!
Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo.

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Sketchy Tales: Christmas Edition - The Nick Files: Lost Claus

12/25/2018

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This is a special bit for me. As I've described elsewhere, Lost Claus was a labor of love for me. And it was often in my thoughts. It was a screenplay and a book. I created a radio play of it and submitted it as a Guy Noir audio play. The parallels were very strong between my Nick Flebber and Guy Noir, since they were both broader takes on the typical Hollywood private eye. Anyway, PHC passed. I salvaged that and converted it back into a radio adaption to submit to radio troupes that I found online. One group ran a contest and I entered and finished in the money, which meant they performed my piece as part of their show. I got a copy and preserved it here. It starts out all "Lost Claus" but the ending I hijacked off of something else I had written many years before, a comic book that I made to goof on my days at K-mart, which I passed around to my co-workers. That's where the character Ebeneezer J. Grinch was born, as a stingy store manager trying to lock down Christmas.

And, of course, Skit Happens is brought to you by "Lost Claus," the hilarious tale of abduction, blackmail and elves. What happens when Santa goes missing? Find out in "Lost Claus" available at Amazon!

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Sketchy Tales-Halloween Flashback; King Kong

10/11/2018

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March of 2008, the Peter Jackson-directed remake of King Kong is made, for some reason.

So, I decided to parody it in song. I originally went with a Mad magazine attitude, where no matter how good the movie actually is, you write the parody as if it were awful. Some of the edges got sanded off by ACN. Originally, ACN was iffy about doing it at all, saying they didn't have a "Steve Martin" voice guy. But they had done an earlier skit of mine, where I goofed on Steve Martin movies and they had a guy that said "Well excuse me!" really well, and I said that sounded great to me, so they went ahead with it. Or visa-versa.
Anyway, all in good fun and here to remind you to get a copy of Halloweenies today!

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Sketchy Tales: Halloween Flashback- Bag o'Leaves

10/7/2018

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I always got a nice reception to this bit. Written for and produced by the Prairie Home Companion team in October 2002. Granted, it's more of an Autumn piece than a Halloween piece, but, hey, 'tis that season. I was very excited when they did this bit, it's the first time of a very few, that they did one of my scripts verbatim. Such a talented group.

[ETA 10/8/19] I pulled out my journal from this time and I did make a note about submitting it. I had written it the previous year, but too late for autumn. I sat on it for a year. As noted, I was always a fan of Halloween, so I was going to bury them in Halloween sketches. They rarely used them. Weirdly, I don't even mention about them using this. Towards the end of the month I note that a check is on the way. Another, at the time, desperately needed check. That was my measuring stick then. I missed a lot of the joy back then because of finances.

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Halloween Flashback-War of the Worms

10/5/2018

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The directors cut of the On the Air Radio Players production of 1/3 of my submission to that year's contest...

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Halloween Flashback - Watch Vampires

10/1/2018

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As was often the case, if ACN passed on a sketch of mine, it got submitted to All Star Radio, who would, as often as not, buy and produce it. As they did with this bit from Aug 2012, at the height of "Twilight" mania. But fits in perfectly for our holiday theme...

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Halloween Flashback - Dancing with the Monsters

10/1/2018

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I was lucky enough to stumble on a company, the late American Comedy Network which produced and syndicated comedy bits to radio stations across the nation. They liked a nice assortment of evergreen bits and topical comedy, torn from the day's headlines. Oh, and how they liked pop culture. TV parodies became my thing. And I quickly fell into the promo/commercial format for the show I was parodying, which was only natural, as the bit s had to be short, 30 seconds to like 2 minutes max. They passed on a lot, but I got quite a bit of things produced. And when it came to the holidays, oh, man, I was all over them. For instance, from Oct 2008, an original bit written for and produced by American Comedy Network...

Sketchy Tales: Christmas Edition - Do You Know the Way to Santa Claus? (12/00)

Sketchy Tales: Christmas Edition - The Nick Files: Lost Claus

Sketchy Tales-Halloween Flashback; King Kong

Sketchy Tales: Halloween Flashback- Bag o'Leaves

Halloween Flashback-War of the Worms

Halloween Flashback - Watch Vampires

Halloween Flashback - Dancing with the Monsters

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