Category: Song Parodies - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion - New York, New York (Jun. '06)

6/13/2025

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 2006, Bush Jr. proposed a budget where "New York City would get $6.7 million less from the State Homeland Security Grant Program than in 2006." There was a lot of pushback on this because, you know, New York had actually been attacked on 9/11 and not any of the areas where they were looking to increase the security grants. The only way to address that would be with a song parody to the tune of "New York, New York, A Wonderful Town."

New York, New York

Barely Home Companion - Enron: The musical (Jan. '06)

1/31/2025

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...

Yeah, it was one of those weeks where the ideas were slow. But I had this one sketch in my back pocket. This is one of those sketches I wrote and fell in love with. Alas, I was the only one who did.

The idea just popped into my head. It all flowed. I was thrilled when each song parody practically presented themselves to me completely. And I got such a charge out of writing them, getting the right song to use, getting them to scan right.

Back in the day, the Enron scandal was huge news. These people who went around claiming to be the smartest ones in the room, only to have their whole scam fall apart so spectacularly. And to me, the whole affair reminded me of Mel Brook's movie, "The Producers," which had now been turned into a musical, so once I had a parody in my head, I let it go from there. I submitted it around. Too long for some. Too music-y for others. Too topical for the rest. And follows the flow of The Producers too closely. However, these I all see as its strengths.

But, as I said, if I had a slow creative week, I pulled stuff out of the files and I send this to PHC. It was really a Hail Mary, I had no expectation they would even consider it. It wasn't used and it was time to pack away this sketch, whose time and come and gone. Twenty years later, it's not less dated, either:

Enron!: The musical

Barely Home Companion - Putin's on the Fritz (May '05)

5/17/2024

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...

Vladimir Putin, what ever happened to him? Back in 2005, he was the leader of Russia and its young democracy. It was a tough time for Russia, so Putin came up with a novel idea; stay president for life by holding bogus elections. Sure, he paid lip service to the concept helping spread freedom, but his heart wasn't in it. I decided to write up something, then this title popped into my head. It became a song parody, which is a risky thing to submit. Sure, I got "The 12 Days of Christmas" up, but nothing else. They did the song parodies occasionally, so it wasn't an unheard of concept, but in my waning days, I was throwing everything I had, whenever an idea presented itself, at PHC. This one didn't stick either.

Putin's on the Fritz

Barely Home Companion - Ground Hog (Jan '05)

1/31/2024

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...

Again, when all else fails, go with a song parody. Staten Island has a very strong ground hog culture, with our own Staten Island Chuck, who famously bite one mayor and was killed when another mayor killed him by dropping him...allegedly. So, as the month came to a close and Ground Hog Day was within sight, I took the old Elvis song and made it about ground hogs that kinda scans. Anyway, I predicted it wouldn't get picked and it wasn't!

Ground Hog

Barely Home Companion - Wintertime (Jan '05)

1/26/2024

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...

When all else fails, song parody! The show only did song parodies occassionally. I remember one about the Y2K computer bug, to the tune of "Y-M-C-A." They did my version of "12 Days of Christmas" previously. But sometimes a tune gets in my head with an alternate title and a line or two and I follow it up. And if there's a writer's block to deal with, that's enough to carry me through sometimes. They didn't go for it, however...

Wintertime

My Stranger Things

7/11/2022

Hey! I wrote a Stranger Things song parody!

My Stranger Things
(to the tune of "My Favorite Things.")

Dungeons and dragons and
whispers from ceilings
Bright, flashing lightening and de-mented feelings.
Mutated black bats that kill with their wings
These are a few of my Stranger Things…

Mad psychic powers and fierce Demogorgons
Secret mind projects and all kinds of jargon.
Kids named with numbers and major mood swings.
These are a few of my Stranger Things…

Frozen waffles
Frozen waffles
Then my nose just bleeds
I simply remember my Stranger Things,
And then destruction proceeds.

Children go missing in dimensional portals
Soviet agents and lethal immortals
Drifting black snow stuff and Christmas light strings
These are a few of my Stranger Things.

Frozen waffles
Eighties fashions
Then the mall explodes
I simply remember
my Stranger Things
And binge all the episodes

Barely Home Companion - Baseball Song (Nov. 2001)

11/5/2020

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...

Re-reading this script, I realized I did something I'm usually very sloppy about, setting up the premise of a topical bit. Usually I just throw myself into it and never consider what might happen a few years down the road when the moment has long passed. I guess it's the hazard of writing topical sketches. But I had forgotten that the Carol Burnett Burnett show often introduced a sketch, giving us the theme or the premise up front.

But, then, this being a song parody, it must have occurred to me that I couldn't squeeze the premise into the song and I needed to set it up. I totally forgot this was ever an issue in the sports world and I'm pretty certain it didn't happen anyway. I should note here I'm not a sports guy. But I thought it was news that would have been important to the people of Minnesota, so I made sure the context was there. So, here's another bit PHC didn't use, with the introduction meant to be read by GK.

Take out the Ball Game

Skit Happens: North Korean Edition 2

8/5/2019

Who would possibly write TWO North Korean song parodies? Me! Back in March 2013, things were ever dicey with the Axis of Evil, so North Korea was in the news a lot. Man, pundits were going nuts that we weren't just going in and invading them. I had a joke somewhere about doing it so we could make a sequel to M*A*S*H. Now we go around trying to woo them. How times have changed.

Anyway, here's a ditty I wrote up for the radio producers. It didn't make the cut.

Korea!

Skit Happens: North Korean Edition 1

8/2/2019

Well, here's an old bit I thought would never be topical again. Back in March 2012, North Korea was in the news for firing missiles, with an attempt to increase range. People couldn't decide whether to ignore him or battle him. I sent this song parody to the radio people I was dealing with. One pass. the second gave me a soft pass. He kinda liked it but didn't think the story had legs. He was afraid by the time it got produced, the story would fade away. I resubmitted it the next time North Korea started sending up missiles again. Nothing then either. Now it's 2019, and here we are again! So, I'm cutting out the middle man and posting this bit to the blog.

Launch a Missile, Korea

Barely Home Companion: Catsup Ad (11/00)

7/15/2019

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...

Again, I was always trying to find a way to get the gang at PHC to notice my stuff. I would try to submit to their running jokes but with a twist of my own to make it stand out. It rarely worked.
I don't know if it goes on today, but there was a time ketchup was also sold under the name catsup. Today, my spell check won't acknowledge the word. Anyway, it seemed like a goofy take to insert into PHC's Ketchup commercials. So, naturally, I wrote a song parody. The thing is, PHC didn't do a lot of song parodies. Sometimes I'm my worse enemy. But with having to come up with something each week to show them I was still alive, I couldn't afford to be too precious about what I was creating. If it was a solid idea and I could type it out, I would.

But it didn't get picked.

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