| Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large |
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 Writing Christmas song parodies out of actual Christmas songs is easy. Just try writing Christmas song parodies out of other Top 40 pop song hits. Then you got something. And what I got is a lot of song parodies that didn't go any where, except here. We present this Christmas 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! Christmas Day Christmas!
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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!
Secular Christmastime Song parodies are tough sells; on one hand, they are perfect for radio content, short and sweet. On the other hand, if you can't get them on the radio, there's very little chance it'll go elsewhere. Comedy troupes don't really do song parodies (at least that's what they started telling me). And I don't play an instrument or sing well, so doing it myself wasn't an option. Also, I have no friends, so I can't get them to do it. So, I'll put them here! "Polar Vortex" was written for one group, hence the lead-in to the song. It was the first winter they started talking about weather conditions being created by the Polar Vortex over the Arctic. And a lot of people were denying it existed and was a "made-up" term. "Coal" was written back in my ACN days because they were always open to a decent song parody and they loved holiday content. And "Only the Good Die Young" kinda merged nicely with the "Yes, Virginia" story. Also, it was easy to write holiday stuff well ahead of time to submit. 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! The Polar Vortex Only The Bad Get Coal
As American Comedy wound down, I was starting to download audio files of all my produced bits they did. And I found this one late in the game. I'm sure I've mention it before on the blog, but it was the first piece they bought from me. What a hoot, right? It got a massive rewrite, however. The song was lifted from a script I had written, a family comedy about a Christmas pageant and I wanted a bit where the kids would write a Christmas song. I had the song kicking around, based on "Do you know the way to San Jose." And it was more like "Do you know the ways of Santa Claus" about gift giving. So, still, it was a beginning.
ETA: Hey, I found a version of it in my script of "Christmas Carol." It's included now! Compare and contrast!
Sketchy Tales is brought to you by "Lost Claus" the Christmas Comedy Caper that's more fun than a barrel full of elves! Get you copy today at Amazon.com!
Do You Know Your Secret Santa Claus
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!
 A quickie song parody from 2008. Remember back in the day people had to make up shortcomings about a president? Good times. I actually had a run of these type of songs back there, it was a weird, weird time. But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon! Barack be a Muslim Tonight
 Here's a two-fer for today, a couple of song parodies. I'm not even sure when or for whom I wrote these. Cracked Magazine certainly did song parody lyrics, I night have submitted them there. Prairie Home Companion occassionally would to pop song parodies and I'm pretty certain I sent them out to them. The file I found these in was dated 2006, so I must have pitched them to ACN and All Star Radio to boot. I might have included them in an early draft of my script, "Halloweenies." It's all very fuzzy, like a lollipop at the bottom of a trick-or-treat bag. The song titles are easy to see, but the songs themselves were trickier to scan. So, to remind people that Halloween is coming and I have a Halloween book to sell, here is... Sing-Along
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!  September 2014: A news story came out that a Russian scientist was claiming to have evidence that Bigfoot is real and lives outside Moscow. This was in addition to reports that scientists had been sent to Siberia to look for proof of Bigfoot’s existence. Perfect sketch material, right? Exceptin' that the comedy troupe only did mostly show business current events and no song parodies (at all), so this little gem was put to the curb after the radio people turned it down. Anyway, it's about a monster, so let's make it part of our Halloween theme! All to tout my book, Halloweenies, available at Amazon.com! BigFootloose!
As was often the case, if ACN passed on a sketch of mine, it got submitted to All Star Radio, who would, as often as not, buy and produce it. As they did with this bit from Aug 2012, at the height of "Twilight" mania. But fits in perfectly for our holiday theme...
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Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. 
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