A Prairie Home Companion

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(Redirected from Garrison Keillor's Radio Show)

A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show usually runs two hours on Saturday afternoon from 5 to 7 PM Central Time, and originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is produced by Prairie Home Productions and distributed by American Public Media, and is most often heard on public radio stations in the United States. The show has a long history, existing in a similar form as far back as 1974, and borrowing the name from a radio program in existence in 1969. The program was named after the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota.

1 History
2 Format
3 Cast
4 Broadcast information
5 Film version
6 Trivia
7 External links
8 References

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History

The earliest radio program to have this name bears little resemblance to what is currently heard on Saturday evenings. A Prairie Home Companion was originally a morning show running from 6 to 9 AM on Minnesota Public Radio. The show's name came from the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota, which is located next to Concordia College.

After researching the Grand Ole Opry for an article, Keillor became interested in doing a variety show on the radio. On July 6th, 1974, the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion took place. That show was broadcast from St. Paul in the Janet Wallace Auditorium of Macalester College. Twelve audience members turned out, mostly children. The second episode featured the first performance on the show by Butch Thompson, who became house pianist. Thompson stayed with the program until 1986, and still frequently performs on the show.

In 1978, the show moved into the World Theater in St. Paul. This is the same location that the program uses today. The World was renovated and renamed to the Fitzgerald Theater.

The show went off the air in 1987, and Keillor spent some time abroad in the next two years. He returned to radio from New York City in 1989 with The American Radio Company of the Air (renamed in the second season to Garrison Keillor's American Radio Company.) In 1993, the show moved to Minnesota and was renamed to A Prairie Home Companion. While most of the episodes originate from St. Paul, the show often travels to other cities around the U.S. and world to do the weekly broadcast.

The show was distributed by Minnesota Public Radio in association with Public Radio International until July 2004, at which time MPR became the distributor through its American Public Media unit.

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Format

Each show opens with the Spencer Williams composition "Tishomingo Blues" as the theme song, but with lyrics written especially for A Prairie Home Companion. Before 1987, the show's theme was Keillor's singing of the Hank Snow hit "Hello Love."

Each show features a weekly story-telling monologue from Keillor, claiming to be a report from Keillor's fictitious hometown of Lake Wobegon, "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve... where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average". The opening words of the monologue never change: "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out on the edge of the prairie." The News from Lake Wobegon does not have a set structure per se, but often features recurring characters and places, such as the Chatterbox Cafe, Pastor Inqvist of the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, Father Wilmar of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, the Lake Wobegon Whippets sports teams, various members of the Bunsen and Krebsbach families, and an assortment of nearby "Norwegian bachelor farmers."

The show is "sponsored" by the fictitious product "Powdermilk Biscuits", whose slogan is "Made by Norwegian bachelor farmers on the shores of Lake Wobegon; buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the cover, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness. Heavens they're tasty, and expeditious!" Powdermilk Biscuits has its own theme song, sung by Keillor every week. Other original sponsors included Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery (the inspiration of the name of the Pretty Good Privacy cryptographic software), the Sidetrack Tap, Mournful Oatmeal, Raw Bits breakfast cereal, Jack's Auto Repair, Jack's Warm Car Service, Midwestern Discount Store, and Bertha's Kitty Boutique. An occasional sponsor is Monback Moving & Storage (a mover is heard directing a moving truck (as a backup alarm can be heard beeping): "Monback... Monback... [crunch] That's good.")

Other recurring bits on the show include fictional commercials, including those for "The Catchup Advisory Board" (with a spelling that is a compromise between catsup and ketchup), the American Duct Tape Council, the Professional Organization of English Majors, Earl's Academy of Accents, Cafe Boeuf, and Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie ("nothing takes the taste of fear and humiliation out of your mouth like a slice of homemade rhubarb pie").

Radio comedy skits featuring Keillor and the ensemble are performed, such as the satirical "Guy Noir, Private Eye", which pokes fun at gumshoe detective films. Guy Noir's popularity is such that the first few notes of the theme, or the first lines of the announcer intro ("A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets...") often draw applause and cheers from the theatre audience. A 2006 Guy Noir skit about Tourette syndrome, titled "Broadway Tourette's", prompted a press release from the Tourette Syndrome Association. TSA on PHC. For a short period in the fall of 2001, a series of spoofs of NPR's Linda Wertheimer speaking with correspondent John Knotwright in Afghanistam, being plagued by problems with satellite delay, aired.

Also, greetings from members of the audience (which are frequently humorous) to friends and family at home are read each week just after intermission.

Music is a big feature of the program; it is a significant outlet for American folk music of many genres. While much of the show is directed toward radio comedy, a portion of the show is usually devoted to some more sentimental and sometimes dark stories put together by Keillor and others.

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Cast

In addition to Garrison Keillor, several other performers frequently appear on A Prairie Home Companion:

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Broadcast information

The show is distributed by Minnesota Public Radio's distribution arm, American Public Media, to more than 511 public radio stations in the United States as well as other outlets. Approximately 3.9 million U.S. listeners tune in each week. The program is also carried around the world by the American Armed Forces Radio Network as well as America One.

New Zealand's National Radio carries it from time to time.

In Europe, the show is currently broadcast by WRN Europe on Sundays at 1100 UTC.

An alternative edition of the show is broadcast in the UK by BBC 7 and in Ireland by RTÉ under the name Garrison Keillor's Radio Show. This version of the show runs for approximately one hour and features the News from Lake Wobegon and selected musical acts and comedy sketches. Unlike Prairie Home Companion there are no station breaks. There are also no underwriting credits, as BBC and RTÉ do not use underwriting as a means of funding broadcasts. However, some of the programme's fictional sponsors are credited at the start of the show.

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Film version

Template:Main Due for release in 2006, a film version of the radio show written by and starring Keillor began filming on June 29, 2005. It will also star Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly, Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Maya Rudolph, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones, and L.Q. Jones. Robert Altman (with help from Paul Thomas Anderson) is directing the film, which will be a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities on a long-running radio show that has unexpectedly been cancelled.

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Trivia

At the beginning of A Prairie Home Companion's June 5, 2004 show (which was broadcast from New Hampshire), Keillor announced that former U.S. President Ronald Reagan had died. The audience reacted with saddened sighs and gasps. But, there was one audience member who hooted and cheered loudly. Keillor gracefully ignored this person and gave Reagan a warm tribute in the form of a gospel song.[1]

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