20 years ago, The Onion returned with Iraq, creationism and vaccines
I discover a missing joke from 2003! Plus, Herbert Kornfeld wants to become a notary.
Welcome back to The Onion: 20 Years Later, where we review the print issue from 20 years ago, find out what’s still funny and examine the cultural impact. Today, we revisit Jan. 15, 2003.
20 years ago today, The Onion returned after a month of holiday vacation. Any print issues from that period were collections of old stories. Basically, The Onion’s website was dormant for weeks.
How nice not to have a 24-hour media cycle and 15 social networks to post content to!
For now, we’re in the simpler world of 2003, where nothing was happening except a brewing war, massive post-9/11 changes, a recent recession and Tom Brady being the reigning Super Bowl champion.
I’m excited to share this issue and many more with you.
And, of course, if you’re new, please sign up!
What issue is this?
This was Vol. 39, Issue 01, the 130th new Onion issue of the 2000s. The 2003 home page isn’t preserved, and the 2013 website barely exists. Here’s today’s website, which is missing several links.
The image above is from The Onion’s annual “Ad Nauseum” book containing all content from late 2002 to late 2003 (albeit in black and white). I’ll rely on these collections during the next few years.
The front-page headline “Harvard-Educated Texan Not Sure Which Place To Mention First” is no longer online. It’s a timeless American joke — and maybe a topical dig at President George W. Bush, whose MBA is from Harvard.
What was the top story, and other impressions?
In October 2002, The Onion ran “Bush On Economy: 'Saddam Must Be Overthrown.’” Just 3 months later, the top story to open 2003 was “Bush On North Korea: 'We Must Invade Iraq.’”
For months, this has bothered me. I didn’t like The Onion copying itself, especially to begin the year.
But … I’ve recently decided that I’m wrong because I’m judging this by today’s standards.
In 2002-03, The Onion published new jokes once a week in print and online. That’s it. Moreover, these articles are 3 months apart — an eternity in publishing. How many people noticed the similarities 20 years ago? Not many. Was anyone bothered? Probably not.
But in the 2020s, I can google stories containing the word “Iraq” from The Onion and find all of them on one page. That’s not the reader experience The Onion intended.
So I’m treating this article as The Onion deciding, “Hey, it’s a new year, the invasion is still happening. Let’s make fun of Bush.”
In the article, Bush criticizes North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for quitting a nuclear treaty. This really happened in January 2003! Readers would have understood the relevance. But was it funny?
I think it’s solid, if not hilarious. The bit is that Bush criticizes North Korea’s bad behavior on the international stage — but with every quote, he slips in something about invading Iraq:
"North Korea has a full-scale nuclear program underway, one which may even now have the capability of striking the western U.S.," Bush said. "Even more alarming, Iraq is actively trying to scrounge up enough money to buy something nuclear on the black market, ideally something that can fly through the air.”
Also, The Onion repeats this line from October (which is based on a real-life Bush quote):
Added Bush: "This man tried to kill my dad."
Bush is so obsessed with Iraq that he can’t even imagine invading North Korea:
"Kim Jong Il, you have withdrawn from international nuclear treaties and cruelly starved your own people," Bush said. "The world at large will not let your evil deeds go unchallenged. Someone, somewhere will hold you accountable, sooner or later. I do not know who this person is, but somebody will."
This article is topical, accurate, maybe even prescient about Bush’s focus on invading Iraq. The writing is thoughtful — it feels like a news article, and I like the structure of “talk about North Korea, pivot to Iraq.” Credit, too, for including the treaty withdrawal, which occurred only 5 days before this issue published.
Do you need to read this 20 years later? Not especially. But a story about Bush and Iraq was probably the right move in January 2003.
The one with the missing joke
Bush was featured in another Onion item inspired by real life: “Bush's Smallpox-Vaccination Plan.” Thankfully, vaccinations have never caused controversy.
The best joke — and the most accurate — is probably this response:
"I'm sticking with my political party on the whole smallpox issue."
Meredith Vreeland • Homemaker
You might notice that this joke appears in 2 of the 6 responses. That’s weird, right? Could that be the joke? Maybe, but I immediately suspected that The Onion messed up its website archives.
So I examined my “Ad Nauseum” book and the 2003 archive of this story. Lo and behold, I found the missing joke!
"This is just a rehearsal for the far more serious largepox threat of 2009."
Mitchell Swan, Cashier
If you believe The Onion is covering up “largepox,” please tweet your theories at The Onion and CDC, not me.
All jokes aside, this omission is almost certainly an archiving error. The Onion’s website changed many times over the years, and I’m betting those updates required a lot of copy-pasting.
The Onion’s religion coverage
We’ve reviewed many stories about religion, often about the Catholic Church’s scandals, pope intrigue or the hijinks of Protestant pastors.
This week, we have “Supernatural Powers Vested In Local Pastor,” a simple joke describing the premise of a Christian minister. It’s fine.
We also have a politically charged story in “Creationist Museum Acquires 5,000-Year-Old T. Rex Skeleton.”1 This fictional museum dates back to 1874. With the help of Oral Roberts archaeologists, they've recently located a T-Rex that could have been created as early as 10,000 years ago.
Creationism, particularly young Earth creationism (YEC), is an easy target for a secular publication. I’m not criticizing — I’m just saying that the bar for humor is high.
So, is it funny? It’s certainly high energy. Everyone is very excited. I think The Onion focusing on the creationists’ storytelling is better than simply insulting them for 750 words. Whoever wrote this article clearly read about YEC theories and loosely incorporated them. We have the Great Flood, Noah’s Ark, and the historical timeline for all of God’s creatures:
“At most,” he added, “tyrannosaurs existed a few days before the first humans, given that the birds and the beasts were created early in the week, and Adam and Eve were made on the sixth day.”
Also, the T-Rex is named Methuselah.
Other museums and scientists are appalled by this, although you wouldn’t know it from The Onion’s framing. This paragraph reads like those movie posters that say '“Amazing! ~ Rolling Stone” instead of the full quote of “Amazing how bad this is!”:
Methuselah has caused such a stir that even supporters of evolutionary science have found themselves caught up in “T. Rex Fever.” Christopher Eldridge, director of New York’s Museum of Natural History, raved that the acquisition was “absolutely inconceivable” and “not to be believed.” Dr. Harmon Briggs, a Smithsonian Institution paleobiologist, gushed in a phone interview that the discovery of the 5,000-year-old beast was “mind-boggling” and “in defiance of all the human senses.”
The Onion targets McDonald’s (again)
Fast food was in the news in 2002-03, as I’ve discussed before.
“McDonald's Stock Slides As More Consumers Turn To Food” is based on real-life events: Jim Cantalupo became CEO on Jan. 1, 2003, after McDonald’s posted its 1st quarterly loss ever. Things weren’t going well.
The Onion anticipates many of Cantalupo’s real-life actions, such as healthier menu items. But there’s a twist: McDonald’s considers “food” to be a competitor and only “sometimes” uses beef in its hamburgers:
Said McDonald’s COO Charlie Bell: “We don’t see the burgeoning food industry as a threat, but rather as a public fancy with which McDonald’s can happily co-exist.”
Added Bell: “I even enjoy some food myself here and there. I ate some corn just last weekend.”
This is a clever satire, and it’s even better if you know how McDonald’s prepares its products.2 This quote from Bell basically describes real McDonald’s:
“Certainly, as a last resort, we could introduce some recognizably food-like items, perhaps a sandwich made with animal matter and vegetables that have not been shredded, condensed, and flash-frozen to remove all possible nutritional content or general appearance of earthly origin. But I honestly don’t think it will ever come to that.”
The tricky thing with this story 20 years later is how these guys died.
Cantalupo was CEO for just over a year before — I’m not making this up — dying of a heart attack at a McDonald’s convention in 2004. Bell became CEO but was immediately diagnosed with colon cancer. He also died in 2004.
Did McDonald’s food kill them? Probably not, but it makes you wonder.
Area People doing Area Things
“Free Condom Harsh Reminder Of Sexless Existence” is about 31-year-old Julie Tudor, who is accosted by college students handing out condoms and related literature.
Tudor’s breakup occurred on Valentine’s Day 2002. She’s had no lovers since, not even on New Year’s Eve. In fact, her whole perspective on safe sex has changed since her college years:
"I'd worry if carrying a condom in my purse was being too forward. I'd think, is it okay to have sex with friends? What sort of stuff do I want to explore? Are threesomes safe? I had no idea that one day, my safe-sex questions would boil down to, 'Where can I get some?'"
The college students are as bubbly as you’d expect. They mistake Tudor’s hesitancy for her being uncomfortable with sex, and they’re happy to tell her about the many types and flavors of condoms available.
I like the college campus setting for this article. Nobody has more pep than college students advocating a cause. And the encounter is even more awkward because Tudor doesn’t want to be on campus; she’s just taking a shortcut to the coffee shop.
Unexplained, of course, is why the unnamed Onion reporter was there to get all these interviews!
Other Area People stories this week include:
“30th Anniversary Of 1973 Commemorated”: I love this type of stupid joke. Tony Orlando does the ribbon-cutting while the Post Office unveils a “30 Years of 1973” stamp.
“Humane Society Worker Secretly Glad To See Nippy Dachshund Put Down”: The volunteer seems to hate dogs generally. Poor Oscar the dog.
“Asshole Even Shoots Pool Like An Asshole” follows a long line of “asshole” stories by The Onion. This article is mostly an excuse to reference “The Color of Money.”3
“Eating Entire Box Of Donuts Not Originally Part Of Evening's Plan”: We don’t know what doughnut brand Patrick Angelis favors, but we do know he watched the CBS shows “King Of Queens” and “Yes, Dear.”
“Last Living Tamagotchi Dies In Captivity”: This headline and photo are a great 2003 joke. I remember kids having Tamagotchis in school growing up, but I didn’t get into them.
“Teen Scores Awesome Oral Cancer Poster” suffers today because the image is so blurry. The text should say, “Take a Close Look at What the Tobacco Industry Won’t Show You,” which seems to be an authentic anti-smoking poster.
Were the infographics good?
I’ve never heard of “The Raelians,” but they got their 15 minutes of fame in 2002 by claiming to have cloned a baby.
I like the jokes about an Intercult Softball League and the walk in the sunset “holding cloned hands.”
The joke about Flash is interesting. If you asked me 20 years ago what Web. 1.0 technology would be relevant in 2023, I might have said Flash because it was simple and ubiquitous. To be fair, Flash survived until the end of 2020. RIP, Flash.
“What Is Our Long-Term Financial Strategy?” accidentally predicts esports with the answer “Get real good at Nintendo, maybe someday turn pro.”
I also like the image implying that “donate blood and plasma for $” is a long-term financial strategy.
What columnists ran?
I really like “One Look At My Music Collection Will Show You How Much I Respect Women.” It’s obviously a silly joke, an exaggeration, a mockery of people’s desire to simultaneously show off their virtues and possessions.
It’s also weirdly perfect for the social media era, where people can signal to the entire world how their cultural tastes illustrate their moral values.
I don’t want to get on a soapbox because that would turn me into our columnist, Randy Hollins! Instead, let’s examine his theory that his CD collection reveals his respect for women/feminism.
Some men are threatened by powerful women. They prefer them weak and subservient. Me, I'm the exact opposite. I mean, if I were threatened by women, would I own two albums by k.d. lang, a woman and a lesbian, no less?
His complete Tori Amos collection is also mentioned, along with Ani DiFranco, Sheryl Crow, Joni Mitchell, Eve, Billie Holliday and many others.
However, Hollins has his limits. And note the reasoning!
To be fair, I should clarify something. I don't love all female artists. I used to own an album by Sleater-Kinney, but I got rid of it. It seemed like they were trying to be like men, and that just turned me off. The Donnas also act all tough like guys, but they're just doing it as a put-on, so that's okay. It's really funny. Sexy, too.
You might wonder, what are Hollins’ big goals? Is he hoping to advance feminism or women’s music? Well, not really. He’s saving up for an iPod and hopes that women find him attractive because of his music collection:
In the meantime, I guess all I can do is go for a jog with my India.Arie CD in my Discman and hope to run into someone who wants to know what I'm listening to. Hopefully someone hot.
God, I'm lonely.
We learn so much about Hollins’ life in one short column. Well done, Onion writers!
Our other columnist, Herbert Kornfeld, is one of my favorites. He’s the CPA who turns the English language into something else entirely.
In “Joinin' Tha Notary Club,” he lobbies fictional Gov. Glenda P. Ten Eyck for a notary license. Kornfeld can’t get a license because he was convicted of “felony freestyle accountin’” as a minor.
I never thought Herbert Kornfeld would raise contemporary issues like second-chance hiring.
Being a notary is in the Kornfeld bloodline:
Eva since I wuz still in my Underoos, I wanted to be a notary publik. My daddy wuz a notary publik, an' even though bidness take him away from our crib foe weeks on end, some a my best memories growin' up be when Daddy come in late an' get me outta bed, his right hand still all achin' an' blistered from workin' his seal, an' he tell me all about his notarizizin'.
This is absurd, and I love it.
Will Kornfeld get his notary license? Well, it depends. Will the governor react well to being told “y'all seem like a reasonable bitch, an' a stone-col' playa, as well”?
And what about the implied blackmail that closes the letter?
Yo, Madam Governor, I gots accountz to reeceeve, so I OUT. Lookin' forward to your response an' all that. An' a special shout-out to Lieut. Governor Popovich. We never fo'get what tha A.R. posse did foe him, an' I trust he don't, either, know what I'm sayin'?
What was the best horoscope?
This week’s horoscopes feature death, Napoleon and difficulty finding “meaningful, non-strangling relationships.” But I’m going with the Porky Pig reference — you don’t see him mentioned much anymore:
Sagittarius | Nov. 22 to Dec. 21
Scientists say the universe will end in a state of heat death, which makes the giant stuttering cartoon pig's announcement that much more of a surprise.
What holds up best?
There’s no wrong answer, but I like simple jokes such as “Asshole Even Shoots Pool Like An Asshole” and “Eating Entire Box Of Donuts Not Originally Part Of Evening's Plan.”
They’re timeless and relatable. Perhaps you’ll read these and think, “Oh yeah, I know someone like that!” or, possibly, “Oh, The Onion called me out.”
What holds up worst?
“The Raelians” has no relevance today. (And yes, I realize Herbert Kornfeld isn’t exactly cutting-edge!)
What would be done differently today?
The Raelians would be replaced by another cultish or fringe group.
The infographic about long-term financial strategy would probably talk about meme stocks or crypto. Likewise, instead of iPods and Discmen, I guess we’d have AirPods and Spotify?
Thank you
Great to have y’all here. We’ll see you next week for more North Korea coverage, dot-com nostalgia, and a classic column about the Muppets by Larry Groznic.
A real-life Creation Museum has existed since 2007.
While McDonald’s food production is surely different now, this 1986 book remains an excellent history of the corporation’s growth and its intricate food network
I finally saw “The Color of Money” last month. Pretty good! Also, Tom Cruise in 2023 is about the same age as Paul Newman was then.
Herbert Kornfeld not cutting-edge? Respect for tha H-Dogg!