20 years ago in The Onion: Feb. 23, 2000
Light political humor, lots of wordplay, and the guy from "Airwolf," which is not a show about a flying wolf
Welcome back to The Onion: 20 Years Later. Today, we’re looking at Vol. 36, Issue 06, from exactly 20 years ago: Feb. 23, 2000.
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What issue is this?
So, I bought the 2009 book of what I thought was all The Onion’s front pages. Well, it’s not all of them. The Feb. 23, 2000, issue is not included, nor does Wayback Machine appear to have it.
So we’re stuck with 2010’s website and today’s. This is the sixth Onion issue of the 2000s.
What was the top story, and other impressions?
This week we get a lot of strong headline wordplay, as well as some cautious forays into the election season, mostly in the form of the silly — “Senate Candidate Drops Out Of Race Due To Shyness” and the person-on-the-street feature “Negative Campaigning.”
The Senate story is well-written, but it’s an extremely long joke about “Wow, wouldn’t it be funny if someone with social anxiety ran for public office and it went terribly?” Here’s an example:
"It wasn't until two months into his campaign that he finally went out on the road to meet his constituents," Upchurch said. "He said he knew he couldn't get his message out to the people if he just stayed at home, but that's the only place he truly felt at ease."
The “Negative Campaigning” segment is depressing in that the fake people’s responses describe all campaigning today. Kudos to this response by librarian Patti Eggers:
“It's not negative campaigning if you're just criticizing your opponent's criticism of your criticism of their criticism of you."
In all honesty, the most political story in this issue, at least from 2020’s perspective, might be the story “Affluent White Man Enjoys, Causes The Blues.” First of all, I love the headline wordplay. Second, I love the idea that Chicago was still leading the world in any manufacturing (“industrial refrigeration systems” are made by the fictional company).
Third, the main guy in the story, Alliance Manufacturing Senior Vice President Steve Smalls, is like some dream combination of someone every 2020 candidate could hate: He moved manufacturing to Mexico, mostly laying off black workers, got away with toxic waste dumping AND conspired to drive competitors out of business.
I do like that The Onion just writes up the facts — he’s fine, nothing is going badly for him. As he says at the end:
"Blues music is all about pain: It's about losing your job, your dog dying, and your woman leaving you for another man," he continued. "Listening to the blues, I can almost imagine what it would be like to experience one of those things."
On a happier note, let’s talk about all the fun headlines in this issue! They include the following:
“Custodian Taken Into Custody”: For work, I edit a newsletter in which janitors are part of the audience. News outlets love writing about janitors/custodians getting arrested, so this felt 100% accurate.
“Coach Patriotic”
“Israelites Sue God For Breach Of Covenant”: Israelite attorney Marvin Sachs makes some good points, but God’s lawyer is not fooling around:
Harrigan went on to note that the Lord has not ruled out filing a breach-of-covenant countersuit against the Israelites, claiming that they "have failed to worship the Lord in an acceptably faithful manner."
Were the infographics good?
Remember when we worried about gas prices? Of course, I live in D.C. and ditched my car years ago, so maybe I’m way out of touch here.
Anyways, I got some chuckles out of this one.
“Siphoning neighbors’ gas by wearing fake mustache and claiming to be ‘from the Bureau of Gas’” sounds like a delightful prank (that I do not recommend for legal reasons), and “Momentarily noticing price increase while filling tank, never thinking about it again” just sounds like the truth.
I also like the illustration — clearly, all the effort went into making a semi-decent depiction of a man and a gas nozzle, and no effort was put into the car.
The other infographic this week is, I think, fairly lazy. The premise is promising, but it’s mostly homeless jokes? (That illustration is, wow, really bad, too.) “Mr. Invulnerable Fortified Wine” is good, though.
There was technically a third infographic, though online it’s just a bunch of bullet points. “Stop Smoking Tips” has some fun lines and then some word choices that 2020 Onion would not make. This screenshot shows only about half of the “tips.”
My two favorites?
“Cover yourself in egg whites. No one knows why this works.” — this is a very Conan O’Brien sketch joke.
“Hypnotism has helped many people quit, but you risk becoming the hypnotist's slave. It's your choice: quitting smoking or freedom.” — this feels like many stupid, all-or-nothing online arguments, which makes it both brilliant and scary.
What real-life events/people were mentioned?
Joel Stein. Jan-Michael Vincent.
Joel Stein is one of those awful magazine/newspaper columnists that still exist but were much more plentiful 20 years ago. They are never as smart, insightful, funny or wise as they think they are. “Cocktail-Party Guest Cornered By Joel Stein” sums it up nicely in this one quote:
"We covered a wide range of topics, from Joel Stein's favorite restaurants to Joel Stein's dating prospects, to anecdotes about famous people Joel Stein had met."
“Jan-Michael Vincent Trying To Remember Who Starred In Airwolf” is one of those headline-only items that is no longer on The Onion’s website. Sadly for Vincent, I had never heard of him or “Airwolf,” and he died about a year ago.
“Airwolf” was not about a flying wolf with lasers, which is too bad. I would watch this show:
Most “Hey, it’s 2000!” reference
Many candidates — including Joel Stein and most of Jean Tisdale’s column I’ll soon discuss — but I’m going to go with the article “Area 31-Year-Old Can't Believe 'You Must Be Born Before This Date To Buy Cigarettes' Sign Up To 1982.”
That area 31-year-old is now 51.
What columnists ran?
T. Herman Zweibel has become my favorite columnist since starting this project, and he’s writing constantly. This week, in “My Mind Is As Sharp As It Ever Was,” Zweibel has many physical ailments but retains his poison pen with lines such as “great pervert Father Time” and “In this fashion, I was able devise a plan to make the entire Nation dependent on coal-oil, wheedle forth the secrets of the Electoral College, and defeat Orson Welles' great army of mechanical Martians.”
There are also goofy lines that leave the backstory to your imagination, such as:
“What? Ah, yes. And with the help of the Teamsters, the Wright Brothers were quickly and quietly disposed of.”
We also have Jean Teasdale with “Who Wants To Be A Jeanketeer?” This is a good recurring columnist but one I’ve never really connected with. Her archive is worth a look, however. Sadly, The Onion, with its dwindling resources, hasn’t published her in nearly 5 years.
She’s got a classic local columnist voice and is a wonderful oversharer. This column is a trivia quiz about herself, complete with a points system. And it has a lot of very 2000 references, including “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, "The Drew Carey Show” and “Touched By An Angel.”
Finally, there is “That Female Looks Capable Of Passing On My Genetic Material,” which, look, I didn’t write it! The author is, hilariously, Ryan Reynolds, though not the famous one. I would say two things about this article: 1. It’s a great play on mixing uncouth come-ons with reproductive science terminology. 2. I completely understand if you are like, “This is not what I want to read in 2020.”
What was the best horoscope?
Like last week, a surprising amount of homicide in the horoscopes. I’m not saying Libra had the best horoscope, but it genuinely caught me by surprise:
Libra | Sept. 23 to Oct. 22
"You will achieve a sort of fame after being featured on the History Channel's Great Masturbators Of The 1980s.”
Was Bill Clinton mentioned? Was an animal quoted?
No Bill or animal kingdom this week.
What holds up best?
I kind of like “Affluent White Man Enjoys, Causes The Blues,” and just one of many reasons is that I’m reminded of dudes in college who loved the blues to a … severe degree.
I also think “Pathetic Goal Reached” works. Not that I agree with the tone, but for being ahead of its time in telling a story about people charting daily self-affirmations.
Also, “Vending-Machine Snack Fails To Deploy” remains a fact of life.
What holds up worst?
Some of the smoking tips, and one particular answer in the “Negative Campaigning” feature about John McCain. I assume it’s playing off the dirty campaign tactics McCain faced from Bush in South Carolina, but that context is lacking today.
What would be done differently today?
The smoking piece would probably be about vaping. Sadly, the columns would probably be replaced by a ton of in-the-moment political jokes.
What was happening in the real world?
The Onion published on Feb. 23, but printing a newspaper requires an earlier deadline. Therefore, here are news items from Feb. 14-20, 2000, as listed by InfoPlease and The New York Times front pages (subscription required):
Donald Trump decides not to run for president (with the Reform Party). Researcher: “the more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings.” Bush wins South Carolina. Russia cuts off Chechnya’s capital, moves to end estrangement with NATO. “Putin Steering to Reform, But With Soviet Discipline.” US gets guilty pleas in Russian money laundering. Manmade satellite enters orbit around asteroid. “Cats” announces end of Broadway run. “Peanuts” creator dies. More witnesses in Diallo murder trial. Georgia tornadoes kill many. Workplaces unhappy with National Guard callups. “American Beauty” leads Oscar nominations. New York nuclear plant has leak. Reality show “'Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?'' airs on Fox. Al Gore, Hillary Clinton ignore each other. Reformists do well in Iranian election.