Category: Radio - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion-Coma Spa (June 02)

6/17/2022

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...

This is one of those PHC rejected scripts that found a hope eventually. A goofy idea I had for a commercial parody that I put together. PHC passed, but I held on to it to submit to other venues and it finally got picked by All-Star Radio comedy. I've posted the audio below the script.

Coma Spa

2021 Marion Thauer Brown Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition

7/9/2021

It's been announced that my radio script, "Cupid is As Cupid Does" was the winner in this year's MTB Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition, which celebrates exciting aural storytelling!

The script is an adaptation of my short story that was published in "Love and Other Distractions: An Anthology by 14 Hollywood Writers." You can pick up a copy today. All proceeds go to charity!

The story is a sequel of sorts to my film script "Lost Claus." I've been working on several episodes of a project I call "The Nick Files," where the detective character, Nick Flebber, is called in to solved other odd-ball cases. I started adapting them to radio, getting the idea from the time I took the film script and knocked it down to a 15-minute sketch for Prairie Home Companion. They didn't produce it, but I sent it around to various radio groups and it's been produced. I followed that up with an adaptation of my book "Author in the First" and then found a home with the Lakes Area Radio Theater. They have produced "Never Say Never Neverland Again," "The Leprechaun Job" and "Spoiler Alert" but I'm still waiting for them to post the shows online.

Wow, this post went off in a lot of directions at once.

Barely Home Companion - Radio Sight Gags (July 2002)

7/9/2021

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...

PHC was winding down for the 2001-02 season with their big Season Finale. I always would try to put something together that was bigger and broader to make a year-end splash. The show announced it would begin live-streaming the show on the internet and that triggered this idea, a sketch about radio sight gags.

It's something I've alluded to before, with things like "radio magicians" and such but the idea of online video made this a skit that had to be submitted. I checked my journals from this time and I was pretty distraught, trying to finish up a screenplay, trying to get a paying gig as I watched Cracked magazine start to implode. The day job was a nightmare and the family kept me busy. I noted in my notebook how I had an idea, then forgot it, then remembered it as I was writing I forgot it. I was upbeat about the idea and thought it was funny and how I had to add a mime to the end to punch it up. Again, a brief bit of silliness and sound effects that I would have bet PHC would love! I would have lost that bet. The show aired for the last time that season without me. And again, a very specific sketch that couldn't be submitted elsewhere

Radio Sight Gags

Barely Home Companion - Kettering, Ohio (June 2002)

6/25/2021

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 one of those pieces I had totally forgotten about. PHC was on one of its road trips and was doing a show from Kettering, Ohio, which usually meant they liked to do some bits about the town they're in and it's history. I had become fond of these times because they forced me out of my box. As noted, I was running on creative fumes, submitting old material to the show. So, I did some internetting about Kettering, Ohio and wrote up a lecture about the town.

I have to say, rereading it now, it's actually pretty good. I present the facts in a goofy fashion and had fun with the topic and the man the town is named after. Naturally, I was disappointed it wasn't used, more so because there was absolutely nowhere else to send it. That was the thing with PHC, you wanted to write in its voice but that made it harder to submit rejected material elsewhere. It was something I always did with the more neutral or generic comedy sketches, but these type of things were dead in the water. Well, here it is for the first time anywhere; a celebration of Kettering, Ohio on its 50th anniversary:

Kettering, Ohio

Barely Home Companion - NPR News (March 2002)

3/15/2021

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 a heavily recycled bit. I had come up with a couple of sketches and pitched them as a series of black-outs for an ABC comedy pilot called "Where's the Party," a sketch-comedy-music-talk show. I honestly don't remember how the idea came about, but there were a series of sketches about a news team that was so desperate to be the first on the air that they caused the problems. It got produced in 1991. The bits got scaled back a bit (as you'll see in the video below) for budget reasons. But the radio version went all out again, as originally written. So I pulled them out and submitted it to PHC. They didn't go for it. Years later (I think 2010) I submitted to the All Star production Network and they did do two of the full sketches. I'm including them below, as well. So, again, first rule of comedy writing, Never Throw Anything Out.

NPR News

Barely Home Companion - A Charlie Brown Mid-Life Christmas (12/01)

12/13/2020

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie 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 was a strange run for me. They used some of my writing during the month of December, but never quite in the context I wrote it. I had this piece called A Charlie Brown Mid-Life Christmas which I adapted for radio and submitted. Granted, it faced the hurdle of being too TV, but, it's Peanuts, for heaven's sake and a classic Christmas special. Anyway, they lifted one line from my piece and used it in one of his Barry Minot sketches, a running bit he did that sounded like many of the other running bits he did. I got an "Additional material" credit for my efforts:

© Garrison Keillor 2001, additional material by Dan Fiorella

I posted my version of the sketch a couple of Christmases ago (the link is above) as a "Skit Happens" entry. The broadcast version is below, with the PHC page here. They saved my line for the big ending.

Dan Fiorella · PHC - Barry Minot Christmas

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.

Dan Fiorella · DO YOU KNOW YOUR SECRET SANTA CLAUS

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

12/25/2018

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!

Dan Fiorella · The Nick FIles - Lost Claus

Sketchy Tales-Halloween Flashback; King Kong

10/11/2018

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!

Dan Fiorella · King Kong

Halloween Flashback-War of the Worms

10/5/2018

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

Dan Fiorella · War Of The Worms - 2013

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