Category: Sketch - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion - Hurricane Watch (Sept '05)

10/4/2024

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...

It's hurricane season, but years ago hurricane's were rarely as horrible as they are today. But a news tradition existed that some poor reporter was going to be stationed right smack in the middle of what ever natural disaster was looming. I decided to take on that tradition and simply exaggerate it to its logical conclusion, rabid chickens. I had forgotten about this bit, but (despite current events), it's pretty funny. Did GK object to the idea of NPR having a weather desk? Who knows. But they passed on it.

Hurricane Watch

Barely Home Companion - Crabapplebees (Sept '05)

9/27/2024

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 ideas I had kicking around. I had a title and needed to figure out a script to go with it. I had fallen deep into the "commercial parody" pit here, writing things that were really too short, without fleshing out the idea much beyond the joke title. It is a good, quick, funny bit but it didn't make the cut. I mean, it would have been quick and painless to do.

Crabapplebee's

Barely Home Companion - Foliaged Again (Sep. '05)

9/20/2024

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...

I had forgotten that I was still steadily submitting to PHC in 2005. Checking the files, yup, I was submitting something every week for the whole season. Not that it did me any good at this point. We're back to that original feeling; I was submitting in a void. No feedback, no notes, suggestions or advice. Send it in, listen to the show to see if they used anything, repeat the following week. I know there were lulls when I can tell I was "phoning it in" with minor, very short, or recycled bits, I seem to be attempting to get back up to speed other weeks. I mean, I don't recall much about this piece, but reading it, I think it's very clever and cute and very much in the PHC voice. It is two brief ideas tied together by theme, but I often felt that you could get away with that in radio; the sentence itself is your scene change. I did misspell "there" and still think my sloppy proofreading skills may have handicapped me in some way. Little side note; Whenever I have to mention trees, I usually work in "larch" as a nod to Monty Python.

Foliaged Again

Barely Home Companion - Real Estate-etics (Sept '05)

9/6/2024

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...

I really don't remember too much about this piece. I looked up some stuff and apparently there was this Asia shyster, Tommy Vu, who was pumping out these "how to get rich" videos about getting rich with real estate. And there were all the weigh-loss, exercise videos and informercials out as well. And I combined them into this slightly racist parody. There probably wasn't much here that would tickle GK's fancy, but some weeks, the muses come slowly.

Real Estate-etics

Barely Home Companion - Give Me Liberty (June '05)

7/4/2024

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...

The season was winding down. The Fourth of July was coming up. I don't know what inspired the idea, but it's not like I hadn't visited this terrain before (my Ye Old Catchphrase Shoppe) and perhaps we had visited Williamsburg around this time which would have put in in a Patrick Henry state of mind. It's a typical sketch premise for me; take a bit of history and then just have the guy over do it, in this case, Henry's famous rallying cry. I did it with bin Laden and his habit of declaring jihads on anybody who annoyed him. While that sketch got used, this one missed the mark. And I actually submitted two sketches that week, something I had stopped doing years earlier. I just couldn't take the double rejection. But with things ending, if I had another idea and didn't want to sit on it all summer, it had to be sent in.

Give Me Liberty

Barely Home Companion - I Wanna Be a Hitler (June '05)

7/3/2024

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...

I had forgotten about this sketch. Man, I was ahead of the curve on this one. Back in 2005, it was starting to get more common to refer to your opponent as a "Hitler." This was back when that was considered a bad thing. This is when Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies came into usage. That rule said that if any online discussion continues long enough, someone will almost certainly compare someone else to Hitler. Again, back when this was a bad thing. So what would be more natural that turning that concept into a TV reality game show? They were very popular at the time. It's a quick bit, get in, get out and I think it makes a point. Not sure if this was the first or the second of the two sketches I submitted, but neither made the cut. I figure this must have been the first idea, and then the Independence Day idea make itself known.

I Wanna Be a Hitler

Barely Home Companion - Now Showing (June '05)

6/28/2024

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 sketch about a problem that that didn't go away. Back in 2005, people were complaining about how the amount of time between a movie's theatrical run and its appearance on home video was shrinking. Theater owners were mad because this was cutting into their profits. Studios were concerned because the DVD goldmine was just about mined out as VOD was launching. And this was all beyond streaming was a glint in Blockbuster's eye. Hollywood still hasn't figured it out. The sketch is pretty good, but there's a lot of pop culture references to it (which GK wasn't fond of) and a lot of references to TV, which seems counter-productive for a radio show. What can I say? It was original. It was snappy. It was topical. But it didn't get selected.

Now Showing

Barely Home Companion - The Chubby Institute (June '05)

6/21/2024

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...

What can I say, there used to be commercials for the Chubb Institute for work skills. What could be more natural than to add the "y" and still present it as a training institute and weight center. Again, a short bit as the season was winding down and I wasn't fully engaged at this point. It had been months since I had a piece up. And even longer since there was any true contact with me. Or acknowledgment of me. My heart wasn't in it, but I still felt compelled to keep submitting material. Oh, well.

The Chubby Institute

Barely Home Companion: Ikea Motors (June 05)

6/14/2024

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 week's was a quickie, a silly idea that's probably been kicked around before. I wrote it up but there wasn't much to it and I didn't have the gumption to try and build it up beyond the slight idea it was. But it was treated like a heftier sketch, rejected.

Ikea Motors

Barely Home Companion - Deep Throat (June '05)

6/7/2024

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...

Back in 2005, a long held secret was finally revealed. FBI guy Mark Felt was outted as the character "Deep Throat" who guided The Washington Post through the ins and outs of the Watergate scandal. Many were shocked, others not so much (like writer Dawna Kaufmann, who reported on Felt ages before anyone else).

Now the trick becomes, how does one make comedy of it? With a 1950's Doo-Wop song parody, of course. Slipped in another jab at GW Bush, just because he usually deserved one.

Deep Throat

comedy, writer, Dan Fiorella, Daniel fiorella, screenplay, sketches,radio,computer games, television writer