20 years ago was LeBron's 1st mention in The Onion
20 years ago was LeBron's 1st mention in The Onion
We also have The Onion listing the top occupations for chickens, parodying "Mission Accomplished" and very 2003 mentions of Bob Hope, The Hulk and PlayStation 2.
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 June 4, 2003.
It is truly bizarre to see Bob Hope and LeBron James be mentioned in the same issue — and that their fame overlapped at all!
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What issue is this?
This was Vol. 39, Issue 21, the 149th new Onion issue of the 2000s. Here’s what the website looked like in 2003, 2013 and today. The photo above is from The Onion’s Vol. 15 book archive, covering November 2002 through late October 2003.
The fantastic front-page headline “Closing-Credits Rap Awkwardly Recaps Plot” is no longer online. But there is a 2019 article about this phenomenon.
What was the top story, and other impressions?
“Bush Visits U.S.S. Truman For Dramatic Veterans'-Benefits-Cutting Ceremony” is The Onion belatedly mocking the “Mission Accomplished” speech by President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003.
I’m guessing by early June 2003, everyone had made fun of that speech itself. The Onion targets Bush with a different real-life issue — the 2003 criticism that his administration was cutting important veterans benefits. (The reported $14.6 billion reduction is from a real-life House budget proposal.)
Congratulations to The Onion for being attentive to our elected officials’ actions. Is this the funniest topic? No. But The Onion has a different goal here — this is one of the most vicious Onion attacks on Bush since his presidency began:
"When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I am honored to be your Commander-In-Chief," Bush said. "I am equally honored that you are stoically accepting Congress' elimination of a large percentage of the benefits you were promised upon enlisting so that I can finance a massive tax cut."
Later, The Onion has Bush explain that he’s just trying to make sure “parasites” aren’t taking advantage of the “veterans’ welfare state”:
"This is a battle to root out waste in the dispensation of veterans' funds," Bush said. "And, as you know all too well, casualties are inevitable in a battle. If some of you are cut off from compensation payments for injuries, take comfort in the knowledge that your sacrifice was not in vain, for you have helped liberate billions of tax dollars for our country's taxpayers."
Separately, what do we think about those Photoshopped scissors in the photo above? I think they’re goofy but also not comical enough? Compare those to this still from “Arrested Development”:
Those are comedy scissors!
There are a few other government mentions this week, all of them delightful:
The front-page photo “U.S. Mint Employee Disciplined For Putting Own Face On Nickels” is a decent visual!
We also have “Rumsfeld Wearing Same Shirt For Fourth Straight Day,” which does have a rare mention of Paul Wolfowitz:
"I can tell it's the same one, because he got a drop of chili on it last Friday, and the spot is still there," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Monday.
“City Councilman From Future Warns Against Building 12th Avenue Rec Center”: I love the idea that building a rec center leads to Skynet.1
LeBron James and Bob Hope
Besides being globally famous and OK movie actors, Bob Hope and LeBron James don’t have much in common. But in 2003, LeBron was the biggest high-school basketball prospect anyone had seen since Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), and Hope was turning 100. The Onion had something to say about both.
“Nike's Million-Dollar Babies” is a weird headline about Nike’s $90 million deal with LeBron and its deal with an unnamed 13-year-old soccer star (Freddy Adu, who was an unfortunate bust).
The entire premise feels ancient, but The Onion at least anticipated the endless, noxious LeBron-MJ debate:
"Nike may see LeBron James as the heir to Michael Jordan, but it remains to be seen whether he has MJ's wooden charm."
Paul Pearsall • Attorney
The jokes in “Bob Hope Turns 100” are a little mean, but I like most of them — trying to avoid Strom Thurmond, Death’s presence, the “two-hour performance of ‘Road To The Bathroom,’” the sad realization of all those golf clubs he won’t use.
It’s a testament to Hope’s fame that these jokes were probably easy to write in 2003. If you don’t know who he is in 2023, that’s OK! Meanwhile, LeBron is as famous and talked-about as ever.
Science is hard
“Study Finds Jack Shit” is a delightful Onion science story about a Johns Hopkins team that fails, after 5 years and $7 million, to prove that polyphenols lower cholesterol.
20 years later, the effect of polyphenols on cholesterol is still being studied. Like old Onion articles on GMOs, it’s interesting to see how people viewed this science 2 decades ago.
But how funny is this? The main joke seems to be having frustrated scientists use coarse language and slang. You be the judge:
“We can’t say zip about whether it lowers cholesterol,” Ingels said. “We don’t know if it raises cholesterol. Hell, we don’t know if it joins with cholesterol to form an unholy alliance to take over your gall bladder. At this point, I couldn’t prove that a male donkey has nuts if they were swinging in my face.”
Also, I enjoyed this photo. What a classic “disorganized brainiac” image.
Area People doing Area Things
The premise of “Manic-Depressive Friend A Blast While Manic” makes a lot of intuitive sense — you can imagine an Onion writer having experienced this with a friend and finding the humor in a difficult situation. But it also feels its age — the casual diagnosis of a mental health condition for jokes.2
Buffalo State grad student Tom Ruzek was diagnosed as manic depressive3 3 years earlier. The article’s less about him and more about his terrible friends!
"Tom got so down last winter, he started taking heavy doses of antidepressants," Reynolds said. "I was really worried about him, but he recently told me he's gotten so much better, he no longer needs artificial substances to be happy. He says he's off the pills and high on life. What a great new attitude. It's hard to believe there was a time when he was so bummed out, he didn't eat any solid food other than Doritos for a month."
Other anecdotes include Ruzek’s infrequently updated webpage, the time he blew up a gas-powered miniature helicopter in the mall food court, and taking hundreds of pictures with his new digital camera.
This is well-written and richly detailed, but you might not enjoy the details.
To be fair to these friends, they might not understand Ruzek’s crisis. The Onion reporter talks with Ruzek’s very worried therapist:
"What these people don't realize is that Tom has a deadly serious mental illness that, left untreated, will wreak untold havoc on his life," Wenger said. "He is trapped in a self-destructive cycle that could one day prove fatal. There is nothing 'fun' about his disorder, no matter how it appears to outsiders. Tom is a very sick man."
“You Can Be Anything You Want, Says Fictional Character” continues the psychoanalysis of this issue, with children's-book character Chipper Chipmunk being criticized for being too … well, chipper.
I love the illustration. Look at the sun’s goofy face! The chipmunk is giving a thumbs-up!
Here’s a helpful summary of the book:
In the book, Chipper faces numerous challenges as he attempts to climb Majestic Mister Maple. The Blustery Westerly Wind blows this way and that, rocking Mr. Maple and slowing Chipper's progress. Scornful Squirrel tries to damage his morale, openly questioning whether Chipper can climb as far or as fast as he thinks he can. And Fearsome Fox utilizes direct, physical methods of obstruction to impede Chipper's ascent.
In the end, however, the fictional woodland creature triumphs over all adversity, including his own self-doubt.
The Onion talks to a single mother who strenuously disagrees with the chipmunk’s optimism. There’s also this quote from a fictional literature expert that feels like a barely veiled political sentiment:
"Chipper's unshakable faith in success through hard work and persistence isn't something we typically encounter in our daily lives," Gibson said. "This groundless assumption that an individual's capacity for achievement is limitless is a particular failing of children's literature."
I enjoyed this article, though it probably resonates more with parents of young children?
Other Area People items include:
“Therapist Beginning To Show Cracks In Caring Façade”: 3 stories involving therapy/psychology in 1 issue!
“Office Janitor Asks To Work From Home” is just a photo, but I love how relevant this headline feels in the 2020s!
“Friend Gearing Up To Hate The Hulk”: This friend was right? The 2003 “Hulk” movie has a 29% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.6/10 on IMDB.
“Chuckling Cops Attempt To Imitate Sound Of Man Being Hit By Taxi” is a late entry in The Onion covering early 2000s police abuse. (I covered this in 2021.) Credit to The Onion for writing out sound effects like “tha-loomp poompf.”
Were the infographics good?
“Top Occupations, U.S. Chickens” is pure brilliance, from the illustration to the tiny percentages. Whoever thought of this, thank you.
Thankfully, cockfighting is only .0005% of the chicken workforce.
What columnists ran?
“Who Will Carry On My PlayStation 2 Adventures After I'm Gone?” continues the grand tradition of The Onion’s obsession with PS2.
Our columnist, Jon Crewes, has played many PlayStation games and enjoyed great success — Madden, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Kingdom Hearts, Xenogears, Deus Ex, Parappa The Rapper and much more.
If you’re wondering whether Crewes could simply bequeath his PlayStation to family, well:
Which brings us back to the question: Who will carry on my legacy? I live alone, never having taken a wife. How could I have? My life of polygon-based adventures has left me no time for anyone else. A marriage takes work, and no woman could have my full attention. And that is not likely to change, considering that Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater was just announced last week.
A few notes:
I love the reference to going to GameFAQs to find in-game secrets.
The early PlayStations had memory cards instead of hard drives to save your progress.
Sadly, this prediction did not come true: “Sony's next system will probably be backwards-compatible with older games, as the PS2 was with PS1 titles.”
I finally discarded my PS2 in December 2021. RIP to my Hall of Fame career on “MLB ‘06: The Show,” plus Madden and a few other games I hadn’t played in years.
I’m delighted that Jean Teasdale is back with “A Mouse Unusual Development,” where she’s looking for a job but enjoying unemployment with her cats, Priscilla and Garfield.
This is the 1st time I can remember Jean’s terrible husband, Rick, being excited about anything:
"Jean, you won't believe what I just saw," Rick said. "You know that fat orange cat of yours who farts a lot? Turns out he's a cold-blooded killing machine."
…
"I went for my hunting knife, just in case I'd have to take out some punk," he said. "But then I see your dumb cat, what's-its-name, Heathcliff (he knows perfectly well it's Garfield and that "its" gender is male!), running into the bathroom with this mouse in its jaws."
Jean is devastated, apparently not realizing that cats are hunters? She can’t even call them “kitties” anymore because now, they are merely cats:
Then I thought about our relationship. Was I not "Mommy Jean" at all, but merely a two-legged food provider? Was his seemingly affectionate behavior nothing more than a clever ploy to get more food out of me?
It's like discovering that your best friend stole money from your purse to buy drugs.
Jean later learns that an exterminator had laid poison in the building, so it’s possible Garfield/Heathcliff was merely playing with the dead body. She forgives her cats and restores them to “kitty” status.
I would say this is a really stupid column, but it accurately depicts many cat owners. Poor Jean. Always a new crisis.
What was the best horoscope?
My favorite horoscope this week is Scorpio. It’s not the funniest reference, but I hadn’t thought about the show “Wild On”4 in many, many years:
Scorpio | Oct. 23 to Nov. 21
You'll be getting phone calls for a year after your appearance on E!'s Wild On Scorpio.
What holds up best?
“You Can Be Anything You Want, Says Fictional Character” feels like an eternal struggle — wildly hopeful children’s stories and the curmudgeons who dislike them.
I really enjoyed “Closing-Credits Rap Awkwardly Recaps Plot,” too.
What holds up worst?
“Manic-Depressive Friend A Blast While Manic” isn’t all bad — it feels like it accurately describes bad friends and/or oblivious people. But it also feels, 20 years later, like it’s laughing at the guy with the health issues. Maybe I’m wrong on this, though!
What would be done differently today?
The way The Onion treats mental health, as well as casual alcoholism in “Study Finds Jack Shit,” would probably have a different touch in 2023.
I didn’t love the Bush story in terms of laughs, but I do like how it dug into policy issues in a modern way.
Thank you
Thanks for being here, y’all. Next week, I’m excited to examine “Area Man's Pop-Culture References Stop At 1988” and ponder the 2008 equivalent for a person in 2023.
The 3rd “Terminator” movie entered theaters about a month later.
A related phenomenon is Robin Williams’ death, which seemed (to me) to greatly reduce lazy jokes where suicide is the random punchline (or simply the “joke” itself).
“Manic pixie dream girl” had not been coined yet, so this is not a play on words.
“Wild On” was canceled later in 2003, with the show’s ratings plummeting after Brooke Burke (future “Dancing With the Stars” co-host) departed as host.