20 years ago in The Onion, children were traumatized by Janet Jackson

We've got a gallery of children's drawings! Plus, crime scenes that used to be cool, failed political protests, copy editing novels, and much more.

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. 26, 2005.

Today is 5 years since I sent the 1st email edition of this newsletter. Hopefully, I’ve gotten better at writing about The Onion’s past (and much better at formatting!). Thanks for being here, whether you joined early or recently.

Today, we revisit the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake incident, crime scenes, unsuccessful protests, GEICO’s ad campaigns and much more. Let’s begin!

If you’re new here, welcome! I invite you to sign up below. We publish most Sundays. View the archives here.

What issue is this?

This was Vol. 41, Issue 04, the 226th new Onion issue of the 2000s. Here is what the website looked like in 2005, 2015 and today. At some point in 2015, The Onion deprecated its print archive pages — that 2015 link looked like this by October 2015.

The front-page headline “Terrifying Sea Monster Turns Out To Be Even More Terrifying Amphibious Monster”¹ is no longer online. Should this be the plot of “The Meg 3”?

Once again, The Onion’s homepage included a donation call for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The front page image is courtesy of former Onion Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers. Check out his Substack and his latest book.²

What was the top story, and other impressions?

Jackson irrevocably damages millions of American children.

You might remember the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, during which Justin Timberlake caused a “wardrobe malfunction” for Janet Jackson. As the Wikipedia page illustrates, this immediately became Problem No. 1 for America.

One year later, The Onion hadn’t forgotten the incalculable damage Jackson caused, which is the premise of “U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV.”

This satire has many layers. The Onion, like many, puts 100% of the blame on Jackson. It claims the breast-baring wasn’t just unfortunate, but also caused long-term psychological scarring:

According to the 500-page report filed by the FCC, more than 90 percent of the children who saw the exposed breast said they were “confused and afraid.”

“Mommy has dirty chest bumps,” said a 5-year-old boy quoted in one of the thousands of case studies compiled by the FCC. “She’s like the bad lady on TV. I’m afraid Mommy will take off her shirt and scare everyone. I hate Mommy.”

Even infants aren’t immune — 76% have refused to breastfeed or use a bottle!

The Onion also satirizes itself by implying that the “Nipplegate” anniversary is as important as the 9/11 one (which I covered in 2022).

And, in classic Onion fashion, the incident sparked a new medical condition (“Nearly Naked Breast Disorder”) and a host of fictional foundations:

“How can my son Brandon be expected to make it through something like that unscathed?” asked mother of four Shonali Bhomik of the San Francisco-based What About the Children? Foundation, one of many social-awareness groups spearheading the fight for increased NNBD funding in Congress. “For approximately 1.5 seconds, he saw a breast. The image was seared into his innocent, tiny retinas. He can’t close his eyes without replaying the whole ugly scene over and over in his little head.”

Drawings by children who saw the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show.

20 years later, have we learned any lessons? Anyone with legitimate criticism of the stunt (and Timberlake’s deflections) was drowned out by virtual-signaling fame-seekers — including FCC Chairman Michael Powell!³ There was as much clamor to rewatch the incident as there was to condemn it, especially with the rise of DVR availability.⁴

The silver lining in 2025 is that the Jackson-Timberlake controversy would have lasted maybe 36 hours, tops, before the internet got distracted by other nonsense. The outrage machine will not be denied.

My favorite part about reviewing this 20 years later? The Onion has individually published all the fake children’s drawings — something that wasn’t available in 2005. View them at the article link or as a gallery below:

The Onion checks in on Bush

Some of the 24,999 protesters who showed up to turn their backs on Bush.

“Protest One Person Short Of Success” is The Onion’s cynical take on the various protests against President George W. Bush’s 2nd inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2005.

The Onion opens with Jet Heiko, whose protest involved people literally turning their backs on Bush:

“It’s a pity that so many people who support our cause didn’t make it out,” said Jet Heiko, who organized the protest through his website TurnYourBackOnBush.org. “If one more person had come through for us, Bush would have had a moment of clarity and changed his entire approach to governing America.”

The Onion is too optimistic, repeatedly noting that 24,999 people protested when the actual count was roughly 5,000.

The Onion is satirizing the entire protest movement. Not only have scientists defined the magic number of protesters required, but most of American history has swung on protests falling exactly 1 person short:

In April 2003, the massive Not In Our Name protests were one person short of stopping the invasion of Iraq.

Historians agree that a small group of very powerful people has shaped the nation by staying at home.

“Sixty-one people have defined our era,” said Roger Graham, a history professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “If these individuals had chosen to attend politically motivated public gatherings at key moments, we’d be living in a very different country right now.”

Boston resident Tom Kenyon relaxes in his apartment as Bush's motorcade passes through Washington, D.C.

In the photo above, Tom Kenyon appears to be anti-Bush, given his “Air America” shirt and bookpile that includes John W. Dean’s “Worse Than Watergate” and Paul Krugman’s “The Great Unraveling." Yet he’s too busy with his PlayStation to travel from Boston to D.C. Alas!

20 years later, of course, we have another polarizing Republican president who’s just begun his 2nd term. But the parallels feel coincidental. I also wonder whether today’s Onion staff would be so cynical about protests.

The other Bush administration item is “The Rice Confirmation,” with The Onion asking people about Condoleezza Rice’s State nomination. Today’s website version is missing the headshots, although you can see them in the 2005 archive. My favorite response:

“Twenty years ago, I never would’ve believed that we’d have a black, female Secretary of State, much less one who was a conservative warmonger, too. We’ve come a long way.”

Joy Mattingly • Designer

The Onion on cops and crime

Left: Gassel, who split a Koreatown crime scene shortly after Carmanica and Strenge (right) showed up.

“Crime Scene Used To Be Cool” is an underappreciated classic.

If this joke were nothing but the headline and photo, I’d still love it. After all, “crime scenester” Troy Gassel sure looks like a mid-2000s hipster. But The Onion creates a Russian nesting doll-like hierarchy of scenesters, each annoyed by the poseurs who supplant them.

Gassel and friends stumble upon 2 dead bodies next to a Dumpster, much like a “Law & Order” cold open.⁵ That’s when the scene was coolest. But slowly, the scene gets taken over by passers-by, then by LAPD beat cop Jason Carmanica. But while Carmanica secures the scene, his triumph is short-lived:

“It was real laid-back at first—no sirens, just the regular guys from the beat with their thermoses of coffee,” Carmanica said. “Then the detectives show up, shoving past you like they own the place. And those goddamn paramedics. I was like, ’I was here before you even heard about it from your dispatcher, so don’t tell me to step away from the body. You step away from the body.’”

Eventually, the detectives and paramedics are displaced by newspaper reporters, who are outshined by the arrival of TV crews, but even they are powerless to get good on-air material from the forensics teams, who signal the crime scene’s doom:

LAPD forensics expert Hank Trevario said he had mixed feelings about the downfall of the crime scene.

…

“After we leave, a crime scene is never the same again,” Trevario said. “We take everything that mattters. People can write their true-crime books or make their TV shows, but they won’t ever get it right. You can’t recapture that feel once it’s gone.”

“Still, for a brief period, that crime scene was happening,” Trevario added. “And I was there.”

You might be familiar with the flash-fiction trope “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” where each word is essential and builds on the previous words. Now imagine a story doing much the same for 720 words, and you have this Onion article.

The other cop joke in this issue is “Breathalyzer Big Hit At Cop Party,” which features the real-life Lifeloc FC-10 Portable Breath Alcohol Tester. The Onion’s reference to “Coptoberfest” is fictional, although there are real-life festivals by that name and, curiously, a questline in a “Simpsons” mobile game.

Area People doing Area Things

Herman and Greunwald, who are successfully dating.

“Relationship Beats Second-Quarter Expectations” imagines that people in relationships are like publicly traded companies, each filing quarterly reports about their state of affairs.

As such, this article contains business terminology like “synergize,” “devalued,” “dividends,” “liquid assets” and “maintaining solvency.”

There’s also a reference to “meat-market forces.”

The couple in question is Kirk Herman and Deanna Greunwald, who hooked up at a steakhouse bar⁶ and have dated on and off for 6 months:

“Kirk generally keeps a tight rein on his interpersonal expenditures,” Herman’s longtime friend Ken Klein said. “Contributions of affection rarely exceed his own yearnings. Also, there was an exchange of liquid assets on the first date, which is suicide in this dating market. It’s not the sort of thing that generally leads to a permanent merger.”

As you can see, they moved fast. And despite a brief breakup (“a correction” after a 1st quarter of “high dividends”), they’re now living together!

Friends projected that the couple would continue to underperform for the remainder of the second quarter, citing data from Herman’s previous partnerships. But the couple surprised everyone with a living-space and possession merger in November.

I wonder how the 3rd quarter went. I hope they didn’t have an accounting scandal that forced them to revise past quarterly reports.

Other Area People items include:

• “Hilary Duff's Number-One Fan Tasered”: I think I knew someone in college with a big crush on Duff. That’s all I got for ya.

• “Technophile Has Coolest Junk Drawer Ever”: Do we call anyone a “technophile” anymore? This photo shows an early iPod and maybe a PalmPilot, but I don’t recognize most of these. (I had a Discman and no cellphone for most of college, FWIW.)

• “Part Written Specifically With Sylvia Saint In Mind”: Saint was a porn star. The Onion invents a screenwriter named Dick Shavers, whose film is titled “Blonde Rambition.”⁷ This is not a subtle joke!

• “GEICO Saves 15 Percent Or More By Discontinuing Advertising”: I can’t believe how relevant this still is! I love the last line from real-life CEO Tony Nicely:

  • “Nicely added that sometimes a company has to save money to save money.”

• “Doctor Unable To Hide His Excitement From Patient With Ultra-Rare Disease”: A real-life doctor pushed back on this joke in January 2005. Also, The Onion misspelled the 1st word in Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome.

• “Roommate Not Seen For, Like, Five Days”: I love how no attempt is made to find the roommate.

Were the infographics good?

“Huygens Space Probe Discoveries” is about a cool space mission to Titan that I didn’t remember. This remains the farthest from Earth we’ve successfully landed anything.

The jokes are OK. Two of them anthropomorphize the probe. References to real-life events include NASA losing the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 and the Pacific Gas & Electric pollution scandal featured in “Erin Brockovich.” Also mentioned is Vangelis, the Oscar-winning composer.

The headline “How Are We Poisoning Our Adversary?” reminds me of the greeting card company Archelaus, especially its series of “check the box” cards.

I like all these jokes, and my favorite is probably “22%: With ideas.”

What columnists ran?

Quaking Rodent (Master of Losing at King Fu)

“My Reclining Squirrel Kung Fu Stance Is Eminently Defeatable” is a simple parody of kung fu culture, except that this guy boasts of being the worst kung fu master:

Many years have I studied in anticipation of this day, laboring under the gentle tutelage of ancient master Breaking Reed, who taught me the Contemptible Way of the Reclining Squirrel. It was said of Breaking Reed that none had ever lost to him, so well trained was he in the arts of the squirrel stance. He remains to this day the only man I have ever defeated in battle. Yes, you heard me correctly—I killed my master! And on this day, you shall annihilate me and avenge his death.

His moves include:

• Squirrel-Covering-Nuts maneuver

• Skittering-To-Other-Side-Of-Tree defense

• Slightly Twitching-Tail attack

• The Relaxing-On-Branch kick

If nothing else, Quaking Rodent buys into the squirrel persona.

Joanne Cohen

Our other column is “Someday, I Will Copyedit The Great American Novel,” which immediately raises the question of whether “copyedit” is 1 word or 2 words.

I’ve almost exclusively worked in the world of AP Style, which uses “copy edit,” “copy editing,” and “copy editor.” But other style guides, dictionaries and industry publications use the 1-word version, as this 2019 blog post explores.

Confusingly, this Onion column uses “copyedit,” “copyediting” and “copy editor.”

Anyways, Joanne Cohen isn’t working in publishing or journalism. No, she copy edits business documents at the now-defunct financial firm Washington Mutual (an Onion favorite).

But Cohen wants more. She’s ready to distinguish between “that” and “which,” to add or delete hyphens where appropriate, and to know when to let writers break the rules:

Macaulay’s copy editor let him begin sentences with “but.” JFK’s copy editor knew when to let a split infinitive work its magic. You need only look at Thackeray to see the damage that overzealous elegant variation can do.

I love her passion for the work. After all, I was 7 years old when I decided I would work in newspapers.⁸ However, copy editors can go too far in their zeal, and Cohen is no exception. You don’t copy edit someone’s diary:

In the diary, a young housemaid recorded her hopes, fears, and aspirations.

That summer, I spent many hours poring over the handwritten book, pen in hand, correcting grammar and writing “sp” next to words. I urged paragraph breaks, provided omitted words, and indicated improper capitalizations with a short double-underline. I wrote “stet” in the margins when I made a mistake. Even though I knew Miss Charlotte would never see the notation, I wanted the text to be flawless.

What was the best horoscope?

My favorite horoscope this week is Sagittarius, where The Onion is slightly ahead of its time regarding zombies:

Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21)
Unfortunately for you, the Bible addresses the fact that there is a time to live and a time to die, but it's vague on the subject of zombies.

Once again, the horoscopes don’t display correctly on today’s website. The 2005 archive has a better view.

What holds up best?

I love revisiting old favorites, but it’s also cool to discover an Onion classic for the 1st time. “Crime Scene Used To Be Cool” is one of them. It’s funny, well-written and plays on tropes to tell a timeless tale about human nature.

What holds up worst?

“Part Written Specifically With Sylvia Saint In Mind” requires you to know a very specific person who’s retired from their very specific profession.

What would be done differently today?

As much as I enjoyed “U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV,” the outrage cycle moves so quickly today.

I can’t imagine The Onion writing a long story on a 1-year anniversary of, say, Elmo checking in to ask how everyone was doing.

I also loved the front-page joke “Terrifying Sea Monster Turns Out To Be Even More Terrifying Amphibious Monster.” The modern version feels like January 2025’s “Monster Devastated To See Film Depicting Things He Told Guillermo Del Toro In Confidence,” especially with the pop culture focus.

Thank you

Grateful to have you here. Please continue to like, comment and share the newsletter! Gotta woo the algorithm, after all!

Next week, we’ll look at The Onion downplaying bird flu, the battle of leisure vs. work, a car chase involving a Toyota Prius, Jay-Z’s grandfather’s legal troubles, and much, much more. See you then!

1. Sadly, this headline is long forgotten, with the most recent mention from a MetaFilter commenter in 2013

2. I may get commissions for purchases made through book links in this post, including this one.

3. Powell owned up to his performative response in 2014: “I think we've been removed from this long enough for me to tell you that I had to put my best version of outrage on that I could put on.”

4. This 2024 Washington Post article notes that this was TiVo’s viral moment — and even inspired the creation of YouTube!

5. Apparently, “SVU” has strayed from the “NYC resident stumbles upon a body” cold open formula.

6. The Onion sets the meet-cute at the Waldorf Astoria’s Bull & Bear Steakhouse, which closed in 2016.

7. A roller derby player in 2017 went by that name, although I doubt this Onion story was the inspiration.

8. I was a newspaper copy editor from 2005-09, then worked in digital media for over a decade. Now I’m a freelancer who still copy edits, but I’m also an editor, writer, content marketer and ghostwriter. Trying to be “only” a copy editor is increasingly difficult nowadays.