A lot of venting this week.  It was a strong start to the week, with 2 jokes and one set up.  The spring break was used as-is.  The COVID vaccination joke, well, after telling us to cut down on the Trump jokes, they took my line "don't want the rich catching COVID from the landscapers" and turned it into a Trump joke.  I wrote a joke about Putin being selected the sexiest man alive and after coming up with 2 punchlines where I was desperate to avoid a "falling out of a window" gag, they went with a "falling out of a window" gag.  Then Thursday...Thursday.  I wrote a "Masked Singer" joke.  While I wrote they were changing the name to "The Double-Masked Singer" it got changed it to this "cast doesn't have to worry, since they are all masked."  To me, that was the obvious line, and one I feel we've used before.  Something about a furry convention, I think.  Anyway I wanted to avoid that, so I thought I'd reference the recent issue of "double masking."  They reworded the Pence book joke.  Then the MacGyver joke.  I mean, I wrote that the show was going to be cancelled unless he could get a paper clip, double A batteries and a roll of aluminum foil.  For some reason they decided they had to go straight on-the-nose by saying "unless they could MacGyver a way out" and a different list of items.  Why???  Comedy is so subjective.  And Friday, frankly similar set-ups were used; Prince Phillip's death, ancient Egyptian city discovered, but there was so much reworking the punchline to where despite some words being repeated or inferred (Meaghan Markel, Indiana Jones) they ended with a totally different punchline and intent.  But two jokes they used verbatim again, even though I felt they were my sillier, weaker lines.  Oh, well.

Anyway, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time), if you want to see the jokes that got away.  And here's my contributions for last week:

Rough week for me.  Only 3 jokes.  Granted it was a short week with no show on Good Friday, but Monday and Tuesday I got shut out.  I managed to spring back with one on Wednesday's show and 2 on Thursday's.  But many of the premises were my submissions where the punchline went in a totally different direction.  For example, there was a joke about a disease that effects bears so that they are unafraid of humans.  I wrote "So, be careful out there, Mr. Ranger!"  So that Yogi Bear reference gets changed into "It's call Yogi Bear-itis." Which, okay, but if you're going to make that joke, why not go for Yogi Berri-berri?  My other line was "It's called Colt-45," which in retrospect should have been "Cub-45."  Joke writing is not for the thin-skinned.

Anyway, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

 It was a pretty solid week for me on TMI.  I got many jokes in.  Of course there was some re-working of punchlines; the term "recorded" got changed to "TiVo" (because it's hipper?). My phrase, "We finally find voter fraud and this is it????" became a long winded explanation defining the GOP's actions about the fraud.   I was surprised to find "duh" got left as-is.   My line, "So he hasn’t even bothered to come up with new material during his down time?" which insinuates that Trump is on the level of a comedian got altered to actually using the term "comedian."  But the 18th was an odd day where a lot of my set-ups were used, but the punchlines were flipped around.  I am absolutely including them, as my structure and logic are there.  For instance, my line about the Texas electric bills being forgiven so that people didn't have to pay was  "But, make sure you don't forgive the politicians and businesses who allowed it all to happen in the first place" jumping off the term forgiven.  It got rewritten to "the business men who caused it won't pay either" playing off the word "pay" instead and inverting my warning to not forgive them to assuming they won't pay.  Different sides of the same coin, right? 

​The "Biden won the election" was reworded for some reason, but the exact same intent.  And the Brad Pit joke took my "HBO docu-series" punchline and made it a long, winding sentence to get to the same place and beat you over the head with it.  As for the 19th, they took one of my earlier joke punchlines ("another broken campaign promised" and recycled on a joke that very closely resembles a submission from 2 weeks ago.  The CDC set up was mine, verbatim, and the cow/seaweed joke.  The punchlines were totally different though.  The CDC went from "how kids away from school too long think 3 feet is twice as far as six" and the cow joke was simply silly, about getting the cows to the beach instead of some weird knock on LA lifestyles.  Is seaweed diets a thing in L.A.?  Anyway,  you'll have to go to the TMI: Hollywood FB page to hear those, as I didn't include them.  Then there was the talk radio joke.  I used the word "business" first and changed it to "racket" in the actual submission.  Then they changed it back to "business" and added the word recently.  Why?  It's fascinating to see these changes, big and small, happen.  All this time and I really don't think we've created a "voice" for Tonya, although once in a while I try to through in something off speed to see what she does with it.  But since I'm not in any writing rooms, I'm totally in the dark as to why it occurs.

Anyway, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

So, the gang took the first week of March off, which was a much needed break for all.  The day job was going nuts the last few weeks and squeezing in time to write up the jokes before the deadline has been getting tough.  But I managed.  Got at least one joke in everyday, except Wednesday.  And I really thought I had some solid ones, too.  Hey, if you want to see what they didn't use, you can check out my Twitter feed, @danfiorella, because that's where I road test my humor.  It was busy week for the troupe as well, they had to use 3 hosts this week, our main host, Tonya Harris, the usual fill-in, Cameron Weir and the newbie, Emma Lieberman.  

Again, some rewording, some context added, some sentences grafted on, but it's my stuff.  Once again, just to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

Writing is such a weird life.  I thought it was going to be a lean week.  I had one joke in Monday.  Then nothing on Tuesday or Wednesday.  I have to admit that my jokes were pretty weak those days, and the creative juices felt dried up.  Then I got 4 jokes in Thursday, and another 2 on Friday, so, all in all, a very respectable week for my material.  The I liked the cocaine joke, or the performance of it.  As a joke it's okay and pretty obvious, but I ginning it up by taking the obvious line "They're great" and going overboard with the repetition, which Tonya sold BIG TIME. I like how the Ted Cruz joke played out as well.  

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

It was a solid week for me and my jokes. But again, things that could have been reworked better weren't ("They secede" should have been "Texas secedes.") and punchlines that were fine were extended (adding "Deutsche Bank" or "for no reason." Or reworking the donut gag from "I'm starting to understand why they think Trump won" to "who wants to bet she thinks 74 million votes beats 81 million."  It's the same internal joke logic, but repainted.  The Atlantic City punchline is a line I've been using constantly has the news reported over the last four years how different buildings were removing the Trump name.  The Prince Phillip line had "Script changes" added for something I thought was implied my my version.  As for the FEMA joke, I'm expecting to here the topper, "2021, am I right?" be pushed into catchphrase territory for any "Biden is doing the actual job" related jokes.  And using the actual Spanish pronunciation of "nada" kinda screws up the whole Wanda/Nada wordplay I'm so fonda.  But, as I said, a pretty solid week of jokes.

Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

No two ways about it, it was a tough week for me on TMI.  Only two jokes last week.  Maybe they used a couple of my topics, but the punchlines weren't even close to my take, so I'm not going to include them.  I've been devoting a hour a day to this (from my day job), so I can't be all prescious about it and I really am just pounding out items.  I will admit that I'm adding in my tweets, but, frankly, I've been using Twitter as a joke-creation system, using the topics that come up there as a spark for something.  I do now write many of my tweets with an eye toward recycling them on TMI...so if you want to get a sneak preview, go check out @DanFiorella on Twitter.  Couldn't hurt.
​
​Anyway, to remind everyone, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

They're getting back into their groove.  Me as well.  I got a decent number of jokes in (a few rewordings here, a few lengthy set-ups there; so I can toot my own horn here).  Despite Trump's exit, there's so much residual stuff to mock, which I'm happy to do.  California is in the process of lifting their shelter at home order.  I don't know how that will affect performers yet, but the TMI Troupe has really gotten into producing these shows, so we'll see what happens once theaters are open.  But, based on CA's ICU capacity (0% as of this moment) I can't see things changing too much.
You'll have to go to TMI: Hollywood's FB page to see all the topics covered, so...

...to remind you, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week:

Posting late this week.  After taking off for the holidays, TMI: Hollywood slowly geared up by producing the TMI: Wrap as a stand-alone feature.  It was a short week, and I had a spotty success rate on my submissions.  The Biden impeachment joke is essentially mine; the set-up, and the spirit of the punchline, though re-worded.  They had to use a couple of different hosts for the bit as schedules differed for the week.  But, all in all, a solid start to a new year!

​Now to remind you, TMI: Daily is on the TMI: Hollywood Facebook Page weeknights at 6pm on (Hollywood time).  And here's my contributions for last week: