The site that was hosting all my audio clips has got MIA. (YourListen, heard of it? Not anymore! Ha!) Which kinda stinks, because I posted a lot of audio clips. And by "a lot," I mean all of them. So now all my old links here are dead. I will ponder my options over the holidays. Which reminds me; Happy Holidays!
 I watched a couple of movies this week that I recorded after hearing them both mentioned last year on Eli Roth’s show, “History of Horror.” They make for an interesting double feature (so many spoilers ahead)…
 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... Each Christmas season, the show would set up camp in NYC and not ever invite be to a broadcast, even as I made an extra effort to create city-specific material for my hometown. Of course the biggest deal in New York at Christmas time is the tree at Rockefeller center. A couple of things converged to make this script. I hope how or when, but I definitely misheard the lyrics to "Oh Christmas Tree." Maybe it started as a song parody somewhere, but that thought was kicking around. And I remembered an old sketch. The radio comedy team of Bob & Ray appeared on SNL and SNL-adjacent shows several times. One sketch had them as to midwestern guys who made their way to NYC to donate a tree to Rockefeller Center. They showed up with this scraggly tree that had taken a beating in transit and then they had to sit there as the person they were dealing with explained to them that they already had a tee and it was, like, 50 feet tall. Classic Bob & Ray. I think this sketch is more of an homage to them than a ripoff. But since probably no one remembers that sketch or saw this one, I don't think it matters. Also, there's a Monty Python reference thrown in for good measure ("The Larch") which was solely for my benefit. Also "the pining." I wonder how close I came to typing "for the fjords." Oh, well. Merry Christmas! Oak Christmas Tree Early on when I started posting under the Categories of "Skit Happens" or "From the Slushpile," I was posting stuff that that been submitted somewhere but didn't get chosen. Post-pandemic (if we are, in fact, post-it) I've been writing sketches and have had few, if any, places to submit them to. I don't know why I'm still writing them. It's like the idea pops into my head and I get such a rush from the act of creating, I want to get it down on paper, I need to. Anyway, these things are burning holes in my hard drive and I have to put them out there somewhere and I have a blog, so... I started working on this in 2020, thinking we might be able to do a Christmas show, and that hope just vanished. I wound up setting it aside and then going back to tinker with it from time to time. It kinda came about from "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" and the character Hermie. I mean he was a little blunt about people's dental hygiene so I figured what would happen if it was about everything else. It works fine. The elf Tweedle is named for one of the lead character in my novella, "Lost Claus," available over at Amazon. It's kinda evergreen, although I'd have to update the toy that got too popular if it goes foward. Blurt, the Elf Without a Filter I shared my views on Hocus Pocus and now I'll discuss another modern holiday perennial:
When I was a kid, we had a book about the Grinch who stole Christmas and a beloved animated TV special that was repeated every year. Now we have a whole Grinch-related film industry. It all started when someone got the bright idea of doing a like-action Grinch movie. And it starred Jim Carrey who, apparently, got the job because he could do the Grinch's wicked smile without CGI. I remember having mixed feelings about the movie when I heard about it. The book is 64 pages long. And frankly, most of them are white space. The animated TV show was only 30 minutes (less commercials). How are you going to get a full-length motion picture out of that? Easy! You pad it with subplots and turn the story upside down. And toss in an attempted top-40 Christmas song.  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... There was a time when we could send presidents to England and not get embarrassed to death. But also, there was a time when we could send George W. Bush to England and hope for the best. He was there in November of 2003 and PHC had a great impression of him on the roster, so it was something I would pull out once in a while. With a weekly show and you have to look to the news for any idea to build a sketch around. It's a quick, goofy bit with the "Brits have different words for stuff" trope thrown in. Nothing too deep here, just playing W has a good-natured knucklehead. Didn't make the cut. Bush in England 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, one of my pet peeves; as soon as Halloween is over, the Christmas music begins. We just shoot by Thanksgiving without a glance. So, this was my solution. It was kind of inspired by "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." There's the scene where the kids go to check up on Linus in the pumpkin patch and when he sees them, he says "Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?" I didn't get the line when I was a kid, but has I got older, I loved the line, the perfect juxtaposition of the holiday traditions. And it also falls into my wheelhouse of song parodies. Alas, PHC didn't bite. So, here's a sketch you can sing to! Happy Thanksgiving! Turkey Carols 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... It's a short piece, that I used to mock the text culture that was getting revved up with the youth. Text reading IA was around and starting to expand, but it was an idea I had and I needed to get something together for the week's show. They saw my ploy and didn't select it. I don't believe I bothered submitting it anywhere else because I knew it was lacking. Today, with the text-slang and emojis I could probably take it further, in light of the fact that the service exists in cars and to read scripts. Text Message for the Blind 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... Another skit torn from the headlines! As the sketch itself explains, the Kroc family donated a lot of money to NPR. And what would PHC do with such a windfall? Why, blow it on expensive nonsense! Of course, they wouldn't really, but that's where the joke is. It's fun coming up with over-the-top bric-a-brac they'd waste their money on. It's a quick, funny bit, but it didn't make the cut. Kroc of Gold 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... I have a thing for Abbott & Costello, as I've mention before. When my kids were little, we read them all the Dr. Suess books. The play with language was incredible. I remember the original TV version of "Horton Hears a Who." How it took so long to combine the two, I don't know. But when the idea hit, it hit hard. Naturally, I wrote it up for PHC, thinking if they went for my "Abbott & Othello" sketch, they would go for his one. They did not. The tag line, "Theatre with an r-e" was something I often thought and said whenever I saw the spelling "theatre." I had to keep it tight, but I really thought I transferred the rhythms and timing of the original sketch and the little surprises of comebacks into the patter. And it's over before you even realize I've been plagiarizing again... Horton Hears a What? |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. 
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