Garrison Keillor: It's good to be back with you for a new season. We're pretty excited about the new season because Willie Nelson is going to join us to sing the role of Don Carlo in Bizet's Carmen. Willie's debut in the role.....
Tim Russell (WILLIE): L'amour, l'amour
L'amour, l'amour.
GK: It's a big season coming up and we've spent three and a half million dollars on marketing and the ad campaign is, I think, going to take us to new heights. This is one of our new commercials........
(FRAGMENTED JAZZ PIANO)
Sue Scott: It's a new season on A Prairie Home Companion and it's an all-new show----
TR: ALL NEW (MONSTER TRUCK)
SS: Have you heard A Prairie Home Companion lately?
TR: It's all new.
SS: (TEEN) It is totally, like, there ---- you know?
TR: A new season and an all-new show. (LASERS) A show that takes you to the outer limits of radio. (WHOOSH, JET) Out to where space and time become one. (SPACE SOUNDS)
SS: Oh. Wow. (LASERS, ELECTRONIC SFX) Everything is, like......moving.
TR: It's here and it's now and it's new. (JAZZ FRAGMENTED PIANO)
TR (DARTH): A Prairie Home Companion. It's out there. (BIG GONG)
GK: Anyway that's our new ad campaign designed by our vice-president for marketing, Brad Brent.
TR: Thank you. The ad will be hitting the airwaves soon on shortwave and CB and we'll have billboards at 45 selected locations in New Hampshire and Nebraska and men with sandwich boards will be handing out circulars in bus stations.
GK: Bus stations.
TR: Right. And ushers at drive-in movies will be placing the brochure under the patrons' windshield wipers as they watch the feature.
GK: October tends to be the slow season at drive-in movies.
TR: That's why we got such a great price on it.
GK: Well, good. People have asked how will the show be different this year, and we've got a lot of new ideas. For example, we'll be working more with puppets. The puppets are named Rodney, Brittany, and Danny, and they tell jokes. It's a new thing.
TR (LIPS CLOSED, INCOMPREHENSIBLE): I saw two houseflies in the kitchen today. Both females.
SS (DITTO): How did you know they were females?
TR (DITTO): They were on the phone.
GK: We're working out some of the wrinkles now. It's hard to talk without moving your lips.
Tom Keith (DITTO): My name is Pavlov. Ring a bell?
GK: The puppets are handmade puppets, their heads made from papier-mache and their costumes are all hand-sewn and I think they're going to become a big part of our show.
SS (DITTO): Why can't Episcopalians play chess?
TR (DITTO): They can't tell the difference between a bishop and a queen.
GK: Rodney, Brittany, Danny, our new puppets on the show. And coming up very soon, Willie Nelson sings songs from Carmen.
TR (WILLIE): Toreador, en garde
Toreador, toreador.....