20 years ago, The Onion said a 32-year-old looked great

We also revisit violence in Iraq, a Senate candidate's low-carb platform, Earth Day, iTunes and James Brown's sort-of wife.

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 April 21, 2004.

This week, there’s a lot of politics, along with 2004 nostalgia in the form of TiVo and iTunes. Plus, The Onion treads dangerous waters by commenting on a 32-year-old woman’s looks.

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. 40, Issue 16, the 189th new Onion issue of the 2000s. Here is what the website looked like in 2004, 2014 and today.

The front-page headline “New AnTiVo DVR Only Records Shows It Knows You Hate” is no longer online. What a 2000s headline!

What was the top story, and other impressions?

A Baghdad tailor stocks up on supplies before the June 30 transfer of power.

“Iraqis Arming Selves For Independence” is the boldest statement yet by The Onion in acknowledging that the U.S.-led invasion was in trouble. When I saw this headline, I assumed it was about Iraqis arming themselves against American troops.

But it’s not — it’s The Onion assuming that the U.S.-led coalition will hand over control to an interim Iraqi government and depart, leaving the country in a hopeless civil war. The “independence” is a cruel fate, not a fix.

Also readying himself is Thaer Abbas, a Tikrit shopkeeper who sells handmade baskets, earthenware pots, and surplus AK-47s.

"God bless the USA! God bless Bush!" Abbas said. "America has delivered our country back into our hands, and soon, thousands of those hands will be raised in anger as mullahs and imams lead the fight over what little remains."

There’s a “pox on all your houses” approach here, even if the U.S. gets most of the criticism. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, a week removed from Secretary’s Day, wants out of Iraq:

"Iraqi sovereignty will arrive on June 30," Rumsfeld added. "Citizens of a new free Iraq, this is your final warning: Sovereignty will arrive on June 30."

A Tikrit family's spare bedroom is put to use.

That said, The Onion also acknowledges the sectarian disputes bubbling beneath the surface. This passage combines those sentiments in a wry, sad way:

"True Iraqis know that our enemy has never been the U.S.," said Hakmed Butti, a Sunni who has been "saving my joy and weaponry" for the day America returns power to his country. "Our enemy has always been each other. It took an American invasion to teach my people that, but I do not think it is a lesson we will soon forget."

If nothing else, this story 20 years later captures the awful feeling that things were getting much worse in Iraq — and nothing was going to change that.

The Onion talks about politics

McBride describes his low-carb agenda to a group of supporters.

“Senatorial Candidate Introduces New Low-Carb Platform” revisits The Onion’s obsession with popular diets in the early 2000s, including Atkins.

Our protagonist is Mark McBride, the real-life mayor of Myrtle Beach, S.C., who ran for Senate in 2004 (and received 2.2% of the vote in the Republican primary¹). He’s combined the jargon of low-carb diets and “Washington outsider”:

"The people of South Carolina have allowed starchy politics to become a staple in their diets," McBride said, addressing a crowd of supporters at a capitol-area convention center. "You are what you vote for, and when you vote for McBride, you're telling Washington that you want a leader with meaty ideas. You're telling them you aren't going to swallow any more sugar-coated lies."

The Onion talks to a voter who supports McBride because she follows the Atkins diet. What a world!

Also, I love all the metaphors!

McBride said that, if elected, he'll push Congress to "cut the excess weight that's dragging the U.S. budget down."

"Take one look at the fat cats living large off your taxes, and you'll agree that the old way wasn't working," McBride said. "If you send me to Washington, you'll get quick results. You'll see a noticeable change within weeks. The first day I'm sworn into office, you'll notice a leaner, healthier government."

The article also mentions Inez Tenenbaum, who became the Democratic nominee, but not the eventual winner, then-Rep. Jim DeMint.

The Onion also commented on its other food obsession of the early 2000s, McDonald’s. “McDonald's Unveils Healthier Image” asks people on the street about the company’s public makeover. (Also, McDonald’s CEO died of a heart attack as this issue went to press.)

This is a very easy joke, but I still enjoyed it:

"I think it's brave. McDonald's is a very brave corporation."

Bobby Melvin • Nurse

Also … brace yourself for these photos.

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Left: Kahle's work hangs at the National Gallery Of Arts & Crafts. Right: "Sweet Taste Of SS," for which the NEAC granted Rachel Borstein $20,000 in 2002.

“National Endowment For The Arts & Crafts Criticized For Funding Giant Macramé Penis” reminds us that the NEA was a political flashpoint in the 19990s and 2000s (see 2003’s “Congress Accidentally Approves Arts Funding”). Other social issues have trumped the NEA in recent decades, I guess — namely, same-sex marriage and gender issues.

This article, if nothing else, offers a snapshot of First Amendment arguments around this time.

Like many great Onion stories, the joke rests on a seemingly minor change — adding “& Crafts” to the NEA’s name. Suddenly, the government isn’t funding obscene art, but obscene arts and crafts like the penis-shaped “Father (By Mother)” and the not-subtle “Sweet Taste Of SS.”

And those are just the grants from 2004!

This is not the first time an NEAC grant has sparked controversy. Last year, a vocal group of citizens appeared before Congress to protest government funding of C.F. Littman's "Piss-Soaked God's Eye," and in 2002, the NEAC received more than 10,000 letters of complaint over the grant it awarded Rachel Delancey for her shellacked driftwood clitoris "Found It… In The Sea."

I am uncomfortable with this article, which is probably the point. There are many, many more references to … unusual arts and crafts in this article.

Other politics items in this issue include:

• “Cheney Wows Sept. 11 Commission By Drinking Glass Of Water While Bush Speaks” is one of the better “Bush is dumb and Cheney’s puppet” jokes, mostly because of the visual.

• “Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department”: I just think of Ron Swanson. The story ends with this line: “Jacobs did not offer to pay firefighters for their service.”

• “Historian Has Big News For Grover Cleveland Fans”: This makes me laugh. There probably should be a good biography of a guy who was elected president, defeated and elected again — especially since Donald Trump might duplicate that this year. I hope whoever writes that book also calls it “Grover! Grover! Grover!” like The Onion did.

Area People doing Area Things

“Woman Looks Great For A 32-Year-Old” is one of those headlines where every word is essential, and the joke reveals itself with each word. I was much younger than 32 when this article was published, and now I’m much older.

The joke here is how we all make comments — judgments, really — about people’s looks based on some invisible standard of how they should look at that age. But what makes this really work is the specificity of 32.

What does 32 look like, after all? And does anyone really think that’s old (unless they’re being a troll or a creep)? The Onion makes this sound like we’re debating the age of our presidential candidates.

That said, 32 can be a weird in-between age, and that’s the other trick The Onion uses. To a 21-year-old, 32-year-old Jenny Scribba might seem like an old person. For instance:

"Jenny hardly looks a day over 27," said neighbor and University of Minnesota student Bethany Weber, 21. "Where are her wrinkles? You can sort of see little lines around her eyes when she smiles, but they disappear when she stops. I hope I look that good when I'm her age."

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"When we go out for drinks after work, Jenny sometimes has to show ID along with the younger employees," 21-year-old coworker Judd Truman said. "Keep in mind, this is a woman who learned to walk years before the commercial availability of VCRs, when Billie Jean King was the world's top female tennis player and people purchased music on 8-track tapes."

I like how The Onion gives all this unnecessary context about Scribba’s age, like how she was born the same year as Watergate and danced to OutKast's “The Way You Move” without embarrassing herself.

Near the end of the article, The Onion turns into a tabloid, interviewing the poor woman and speculating about her future:

The age-defying Scribba turns 33 next February, but shows no signs of slowing. In the coming weeks, she plans to paint her apartment, attend a family reunion in Biloxi, MS, and get her hair cut.

Other Area People items in this newsletter include:

• “Sea Claims Flip-Flop”: So simple and brilliant. I once lost a pair of glasses to the ocean, which was less fun.

• “Nation Celebrates Awkward 'Take Your Illegitimate Daughter To Work' Day”: My favorite line is the last one: “The annual holiday was established under President Kennedy in 1962.”

• “Longtime Heckler Just Kind Of Fell Into Heckling”: This guy claims he introduced “the concept of not quitting your day job.”

• “Weird Al Honors Parents' Memory With 'Tears In Heaven' Parody”: This is a super-dark joke: Weird Al’s parents died in April 2004 of carbon monoxide poisoning. The Onion creates fake lyrics referencing this. Hard to imagine The Onion doing this today.

Were the infographics good?

“How Are We Celebrating Earth Day?” features harmless, silly jokes. NASCAR was arguably a bigger cultural deal 20 years ago, but I still appreciate a joke about motorsports having an Earth Day-themed race.

This week’s issue has a lot of in-your-face jokes (Iraq, Weird Al, the arts and crafts article), so maybe that’s why I found “Thinking locally” so amusing.²

Here it is, the most 2004 joke possible. “Online Music Stores” brings us back to the good ol’ days of 99-cent iTunes purchases. What a weird era — album sales were starting to crater, MTV was slowly abandoning the music video, yet streaming services hadn’t really emerged.

This infographic doesn’t even mention iTunes’ influence in selling TV episodes or being the (free) home of the earliest podcasts.

“Like option of having cat select music purchases” is a good joke. We also have topical references to Kelis, Jennifer Lopez and Wal-Mart.³

Steve Albini is a musician and producer who’s a noted critic of digital recording techniques. This coverage of a March 2004 lecture gets at the gist of his arguments.

What columnists ran?

“Why Can't This Family Ever Have A Funky Good Time?” is a column by Tomi Rae Brown, who was either James Brown’s 4th wife or an attempted bigamist who was Brown’s companion for several years, depending on whose story you believe. She may have also had a son with Brown in 2001, although he had a vasectomy in the 1980s.

So … that’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know about James Brown before reading this column!

Anyways, this column depicts a contentious family gathering with many references to Brown’s life and music. Here’s an example:

Quit crying, James Jr. So your father took a swing at your mother, ain't no thing. With God as my witness, we're gonna have a funky family reunion this year if it kills me. What this family has been doing to itself is a damn shame. Every time I think about it, I wanna jump back, uh, jump back into bed. This family makes me sad. I only ask that we love each other right and get funky when we blessed enough to have the chance to share time together. Is that so much to ask? This family has got to get it together, I say.

This one sails over my head, but maybe people with a deep knowledge of James Brown will appreciate it more. Credit to The Onion: This does feel like the ramblings of a small-town newspaper columnist.

“I Haven't Achieved Greatness So Much As I Was Born Into It” is a classic nepo baby column. Our fictional columnist, H. Edward Winslow III, descends from real-life Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow.

I appreciate how honest he is about his source of money and power, even if he is obnoxious:

Now, there are other ways one can achieve greatness. I recently met a fellow who struggled for many years, working 70 hours a week in a screen-door factory until he achieved his lifelong dream of owning a ranch. Well, I guess that's one way of doing it, but it's not my way. My approach to achieving greatness was more effortless: I went to the best schools, I wore the best clothes, and I didn't have to do anything that was too hard.

This Gilded Age-era advice is fun to laugh at but also feels like a hard reality:

Those extra generations of wealth and power give you a foundation that no amount of hard work can equal. It's what gives you the edge over those who are willing to strive and toil. Though some may have found limited triumph through hard work, in the long run, they've usually fallen behind those of us with that special something called an aristocratic birth.

What was the best horoscope?

My favorite horoscope this week is Aquarius, because it feels like (to me, at least) like a “Bourne Identity” complaint:

Aquarius | Jan. 20 to Feb. 18

The government has spent thousands of dollars training you to be a highly efficient killing machine, so please try and act like one from now on.

What holds up best?

I liked many of the jokes this week, but I’ll go with “Longtime Heckler Just Kind Of Fell Into Heckling.” Some people seem to believe heckling is a calling, whether they’re yelling at athletes or comics.

What holds up worst?

That Weird Al joke is cruel, but for pure outdatedness, “New AnTiVo DVR Only Records Shows It Knows You Hate” is your winner.

What would be done differently today?

If this issue were published today, politics would remain front and center.

Sadly, most of the “local” stories wouldn’t exist. There’s also a zaniness to today’s Onion that we rarely saw 20 years ago—and I’m not sure it’s effective. Consider the recent article “Sharpshooting Mom Snipes Bread Out Of Daughter’s Hands From 800 Meters Away.” Who is that joke for?

By contrast, “Subway Manager Shows New Hire How To Properly Soak Bread In Mop Water” feels like it could have existed 20 years ago.

Thank you

Thanks for being here. Please share this newsletter (or the articles themselves!) with anyone who loves The Onion.

Next week, we’ll discuss Tom Hanks, IKEA, Condoleezza Rice and the threat of cyber security. See you then!

1. McBride lost his next mayoral election in 2005. He re-emerged in 2022 for a congressional primary, where he finished 6th and mostly made news for claiming he was offered a bribe. The accused person said he was merely trying to find McBride a government job: “He is a horrible candidate. And I’m not saying that as an opinion. Look at his last five elections. He lost them all miserably.”

2. The Wikipedia page for “think locally, act globally” is surprisingly uncertain about the phrase’s origins.

3. It’s easy to forget that Wal-Mart was one of the largest music sellers by the mid-2000s. The retailer even had exclusivity deals with artists like Garth Brooks and AC/DC — even while banning or censoring albums by other artists.