Apparently Pepsi is celebrating its 125 anniversary of not being Coke.  They are doing many things to mark this milestone, but one of the things they are not doing is showing this video that parodies their famous "Pepsi Challenge."  That honor goes to me.

First, some backstory.  Sometime after college, I signed up for one of those Stand-Up comedy workshops with my college humor magazine cohort, the late John Rawlins.  In that class we met a guy who was trying out stand-up.  We got friendly, but not so friendly that I remember his name.  But he insisted we should meet some people he was dealing with who were trying to put together comedy ventures.  So we did.  We hit it off and put out a fanzine called "Salvator Deli" for a couple of issues.  Then attempted a stage show.  A video program was always something the group was looking to do, so when in 1985 one of the members had a friend who was looking to do something on NJ Public access, so we decided we could fit that bill.  We gathered up sketches and went to Jersey.  We called ourselves "Friends of Leon."  We worked on a cold-open together, then did material we all brought in.  My contribution was the Pepsi Challenge outtakes.  Look, I'm a writer and a bit of a ham, and tend not to pass up an opportunity to perform, so I'm the lead here.  What we have here is a bunch of writers  performing their own material.  I only digitized my two contributions, because I only wanted to toot my own horn when the whole concept of YouTube came about.   There were several others sketches and I preformed in them, too.  But since I wasn't looking to be an actor, I only copied the skits I wrote.

Maybe I'll get into this stage of my writing life and how that led to another venture, Big B's Traveling Sideshow.  Frankly, so many of these threads cross and mingle, I don't remember everything as it happened, just flashes of events.  But it's something worth revisiting (for me, anyway).  Until then, let's present Pepsi Challenge Outtakes!

I'm finally getting around to posting the video of the production of my 1-minute version of "Countdown to Love" aka "Countdown to Valentines" aka "The CPHCCVDMF."  This is from October, 2021. 

I really liked the original version of the script that I had written for "TMI: Hollywood" years earlier.  It didn't get used there.  I turned it into a monologue for my friend's annual Valentine's Day night of monologues for the following year and, as luck would have it, that year she didn't do it.  Then I reconnected with a group of friends from my "Pen to Stage" days on Facebook.  They announced they were accepting short works for their annual night of 1-minute plays.  They have been doing it for years, and I was not really aware of it.  So, I pulled out the short monologue, re-inserted the cable TV executive and, ta-da, "Countdown to Love."

Because of the pandemic, I didn't attend in person, but I streamed it live at home.  It was an eclectic night of material.  Towards the end of the show, my piece came up, and it was perfectly cast.  Two of my old Pen-to-Stage cohorts, Joan Lunoe and Mickey Ryan were cast in it.  When I dropped a note to the director, Rose Bonczek, also from Pen-to-Stage, to thank her and compliment the job she did and the casting, she told me "how could I not cast them!"  It was like old times!  

Here, for your brief viewing pleasure is "Countdown to Love."

​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 would do these little musical vignettes from time to time, a series of black-out type scenes alternating with a song.  I gathered a series of jokes and opinions I had and cobbled them together using "Grandmother's House We Go" as the thread.  I even had to add a few verses of my own to pad it along.  Uncle Al's rant I lifted from a prose piece I wrote about the pilgrims.  I shoved that in there as well.  It did not make the cut.  So, here it is, as some Thanksgiving leftovers...

Yes, I had a recent successful sale with Bag o'Leaves so, naturally, I would try to go for a sequel and maybe create a running bit.  I came up with Box o'Pumpkins.  Maybe it's a little less ridiculous than a bag of leaves, but really, not much less.  Another goofy, fun idea, right? And this time I tried to follow the rhythms of the produced version of my last sketch. Since it got rejected, I didn't bother trying to follow it up with "Box o' Dandelions" or "Pail of Clover" or "Bucket of Sand."  Perhaps I should have kept pushing the concept.  But, then, as now, I'm easily discouraged.

Ok, so a new movie just came out and I'm a little bit more excited about it than I usually would be.  The movie "Free Guy" is hitting theaters and I'm thrilled that someone I know is in it!  Mark Lainer is an actor I met back in 1988 or so as part of a comedy troupe I became involved with.  I've written about Style Without Substance many times on the blog.  They were a remarkable group of talented people.  It really was an exciting and creative time in my life and I was thrilled to be part of a team.

Mark was an incredibly funny actor (and totally still is).  Any part you handed him--mime, priest, colorizer, beach nerd--were much improved by his presence.  We did a lot of sketches together and I was lucky enough to get tapes of some of them.  I want to share them here.

Yeah, I was in a real writing slump at this point.  I pulled this item out of the file and thought it would be considered.  It's basically a one-act play I wrote years earlier, back when I had no idea what one did with a one-act play.  Still don't.  I consider them long sketches.  It's in my wheelhouse of little guys getting it over on the system, only this time literally. 

​I vaguely remember getting the idea and mulling it until the ending came to me.  I wrote it up.  Presented (I believe) to a workshop I was part of at the time.  I think that's what brought the idea up, sitting in a workshop seeing people present their stage plays and all I ever brought in was my little comedy skits, so this was me trying to be a mature writer...kind of.  Anyway, I had not business sending it to PHC.  I didn't even try to set it up as a typical PHC bit.  I can't say I was surprised when I checked the website that Monday to discover it failed to make the cut....

 I never would give up trying to submit something as one of their recurring bits.  This was based on a real news story; word had gotten out that McDonald's had been putting beef broth in the fryers to give their fries that special flavor. Naturally, people went nuts.  So, naturally, I thought it would be perfect for a ketchup sketch.  As I often did once I had a couple of these sketches under my belt, I would recycle some of the opening monologue gags from earlier ketchup sketches that didn't get picked up.  There would be a new one and then the others would be ones that I thought were underappreciated lines. 

The sketch hits one of my long standing annoyances: vegetarians who can't let go of the carnivore lifestyle.  They won't eat meat, but they want to hang around McDonalds or have fake tacos.

I thought I nailed the tone and pacing of the series, but it got a pass.  I need some ketchup to settle down...

I must have been battling quite the writer's block back then, because this bit is a lazily re-worked essay from my college days.  I was going through a severe Woody Allen phase back in college and wrote a number of essays mimicking his style.  It was a diary-style article, that was inspired by a class where we discussed the transition in film from silent movies to sound.  My memories are vague on this, but I seem to recall the opening paragraph referencing "Singing in the Rain" so it must have been a film class.

And it's not even like PHC was in Hollywood, so I don't even know what prompted me to submit this sketch.  ​I guess the lack of effort showed because it wasn't used.

This sketch I was really proud of.  I went through a phrase of song parodies, writing for ACN and such, but when the Enron sandal hit, I just saw it as the exact plot of The Producers-a company that could make more money (for the owners) failing than succeeding.  Power companies were selling off their power plants and only wanted to deliver the electricity without have to concern themselves about producing the power, maintaining the plants or keeping the infrastructure intact.  And this sketch just came out of all of that.  None of the songs are from the Producers musical.  The play opening in April 2001 and ran until 2007.  I didn't see until the final years, so I didn't know those songs.  Actually, all these years later, I still don't, really.  I peddled this skit around to everyone.  It was a writing sample for a while because it was too long for my radio outlets and I didn't have a real stage outlet then.  I finally just adapted it for PHC. I knew this was a long shot going in and I was right.   But, in light of the recent events in Texas (home of Enron), the sketch still seems relevant.