While I was attempting to mock the "War on Christmas" as if some smug atheist was gloating about his lawsuits making headway. The news always seems to focus on the few people out there who go out of their way to cheer on the banning of ANY religious aspect to the celebration of the BIRTH OF CHRIST. Like, just in the recent news, banning candy canes from school because the principle thinks candy canes are the letter "J" for Jesus instead of candy in the shape of a CANE. Anyway, it got rewritten...
I've posted this and lamented about this bit before...
While I was attempting to mock the "War on Christmas" as if some smug atheist was gloating about his lawsuits making headway. The news always seems to focus on the few people out there who go out of their way to cheer on the banning of ANY religious aspect to the celebration of the BIRTH OF CHRIST. Like, just in the recent news, banning candy canes from school because the principle thinks candy canes are the letter "J" for Jesus instead of candy in the shape of a CANE. Anyway, it got rewritten...
This edition of Sketchy Tales is brought to you by "Lost Claus" the snappy comedy mystery! Leaping Yule Logs, Santa's missing! And only one man can find him, Nick Flebber, PI. Get your copy today at Amazon!
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Well here's a bit I wrote a couple of years ago, but probably wouldn't get done today. Those high-wire kung-fu pictures were all the rage. I had played with the idea for Halloween and when that didn't fly, I re-worked it for Christmas. I'm guessing they didn't have any Asians on staff, so those accents are pretty non-PC. But that was then and as we all know, comedy is only funny when it reinforces your political agenda...
We present this comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush!
Sketchy Tales: Christmas Edition - The Grinch: If I Stole Christmas Here's How It Happened12/14/2018
Looking back on my material, I didn't do a lot of O.J. bits back when the trials were going on. Lord knows everyone else was. This was before the internet so stuff like that was left to the pros. Also, that earlier on, (for the same reason) there wasn't a real pressing need for me to do topical humor. Later, as the trial faded from memory, OJ wrote a book. And I had an outlet. And the holidays were coming up, so, I did an OJ bit, kinda...
If you liked this bit, you'll love my book, Lost Claus, the story of a tough PI and an elf who have to save Christmas. It's over at Amazon. Buy a copy today! Yule be glad you did!
This is actually a Skit Happens/Sketchy Tales combo. I wrote and submitted a sketch to the Prairie Home Companion called "A Charlie Brown Mid-Life Crisis." It wasn't used. However, Keillor could the last line of the sketch and incorporated it into this one. Barry Minot was a reoccurring segment on the show. It was, as a friend called in not funny, but funny-ish. So, I present it here for a listen. And just remember that end bit being said by Pig-pen to Charlie Brown and his family.
If you liked this bit, you'll love my book, Lost Claus, the story of a tough PI and an elf who have to save Christmas. It's over at Amazon. Buy a copy today! I'll be glad you did.
Man, did I beat this bit into the ground! It was a prose piece originally, which made sense, as I was parodying letters. I got that printed in the Staten Island Advance. Also The Big Jewel ran a version of it. Then I decided to re-do it as a radio bit for PHC and they went for it. Few liberties were taken and the voice work was A-1. The ending was altered a bit, as endings usually were to sent up the next segment better, or because PHC bits often didn't end on "jokes."
We present this comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper,Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush!
Yikes, Virginia! The Further Correspondence of Virginia O’Hanlon & Mr. Francis ChurchWe set the dial on the Way Back Machine way, way back! This bit is from my college humor magazine, The Plague, circ. 1979. I don't know if college magazines generally did Christmas themed issues, but we did and I jumped all over it. If the graphics look very much like a regular newspaper ad from the day, there's a reason for that. I worked my way through college at K-Mart (R.I.P.) and I was friendly with the woman who laid out the ads did for the local paper. She let me go through her discarded company "clip art" and I was able to grab a bunch of it (enough for 2 future bits in The Plague). Oh, the frustrations I worked out in this 2-pager, mocking the store and it's cheapest, both in prices and employee benefits, with a mix of store graphics and typewriter inserts (since we didn't have the budget for graphic lettering; and that would have been a pain to do that lettering one letter at a time!). And, as I mention elsewhere on the blog, I was able to pitch this bit to Cracked magazine in 2000. Comedy life lesson: Never throw anything away! If you liked this bit, you'll love my book, Lost Claus, the story of a tough PI and an elf who have to save Christmas. It's over at Amazon. Buy a copy today! I'll be glad you did. Cavemart Christmas Ad - The Plague at NYU
This is one of those quirky moments with my time on Prairie Home Companion (which I'm planning to take on in the future) and by quirky, I mean Garrison Keillor actually credited me on this bit and even has my name as the copyright holder, which I assume is a song writing thing for him. They did change it a bit, but I must honestly say I was surprised that it made the cut. It's a silly little trifle, but I guess it struck somebody's funny bone. I apologize for the quality of the sound on this bit and all the PHC bits...I had to literally record them off the website. They only streamed the audio and I couldn't get the guy to send me an audio file for beans. I had to get a special cord (thanks & farewell, Radio Shack) that I could plug into the ear jack and plug into the mic jack to play it on one window and record it with some software. Technology, amirite?
We present this comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush!
I was thrilled when All Star Radio produced this bit. You heard that song about the Christmas shoes, right? And then they did a TV movie about it. And then they did a TV movie sequel about it. It's the most depressing Christmas thing ever, therefore it NEEDED TO BE MOCKED! And I was willing to do it! So, wipe your eyes and merry Christmas!
We present this comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush!
So, "Halloweenies"; how'd that come about? This was a just a work of love that I pieced together from many sources, much like the Frankenstein monster. And I kinda came at it backwards. As you'll note on this blog, I have A LOT of Halloween/monster/horror sketches. I'm a comedy writer that writes what he knows; and what I know and love is Halloween. Any time a show did a Halloween episode, I got excited. It was pretty big of a TV deal back in the 1980s. Anyway, I had a bunch of homeless Halloween sketches. I wanted to use them somehow. I had written a film script called "Christmas Carol" about a family dealing with holiday projects. And there was a similar situation with Christmas--I had a ton of Christmas-themed skits. So what I did was worked some of my skits into the script, mostly as stuff they were watching on TV for one reason or another. I decided to take a similar tact with my Halloween material. I wrote a story about a kid who is really into Halloween. And I drew on a lot of my memories of growing up on Staten Island: boat yards, scary old ladies in the neighborhood, trick-or-treating well after sunset. And always looking for the perfect costume. The sketches worked their way in as promos on TV for various movie releases and TV shows "coming soon" or being featured on a cable channels' "Fright Fest." It was really a cute story, with a lot of goofy, fun elements. Then came the era of Amazon self-publishing. I started taking some of my scripts and adapting them into novellas. "Halloweenies" was one of them. Of course, changes were made. For one, I converted the family into the same family from my "Christmas Carol" script, figuring I'd create a book trilogy, since Amazon authors seem to like doing that so much. So, I reverse-engineered the story to be a prequel to my Christmas tale (thinking I'd adapt that later. Still waiting). I also changed the delivery method for the Halloween skits. I feel it's more organic to the story, plus it set up one of the characters for the next two stories (if there was a need for the next two stories). The whole thing came together pretty well, in my estimation. You can see for yourself by buying Halloweenies at Amazon.com. I've gotten very nice reactions to it. As a sneak preview, I've come upon one of the sketches I had written that wound up in the book. I really liked this premise. It started as a radio bit. I thought I really nailed the voice of the movie. And it was done as a commercial parody because, again, I had to work within the 2 minute maximum limit. I loved the title mash-up with the Abbott & Costello movie. After radio passed on it, I redid it for a comedy troupe, but it didn't pass their muster, for stage or video. It was too tricky, choppy and short for stage and too costly for video. So, I bumped an older bit from the book to make room for our next presentation: When Harry Met Frankenstein
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 FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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