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 quirky bit that I stole from myself. There's a scene in a screenplay I wrote, "The Importance of being Ernie" (or "I was a Teenage Screenplay writer"), that had this scene it it. It was a brazen attempt to update Abbott & Costello wordplay into the newer slang...well, the newer slang, circ. 2000s, which is really 1990s when I originally wrote the scene. It was a set piece which I could easily copy and paste elsewhere. Which is what I did, essentially. I don't recall where the premise set-up came from, if that was based on some real-life rumors that were floating around at the time or not. But it's a simple bit of silliness that didn't stand a chance at PHC. So, here it is, as seen in "The Importance of being Ernie," Translating Youth:
