20 years ago, The Onion moved to the big city!
The Onion says goodbye to Bill and hello to W. There are also stories about Eminem, big-city Omaha, bringing people from the dead and "Crocodile Dundee"
Welcome back to The Onion: 20 Years Later, where we review the print issue from exactly 20 years ago, find out what’s still funny and examine the cultural impact. Today, we revisit Jan. 17, 2001.
New York, New York
Today, we look at the first issue of 2001, the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency and — in real life — the first issue produced by The Onion’s editorial staff in New York City, rather than Madison, Wis.
As Editor in Chief Robert Siegel told the New York Times:
''We were watching Onion stories getting bought and turned into movies, and we felt we'd rather create the movies, and put more into brainstorming books and other ideas.”
The Onion still had its design team in Madison, and three other cities that offered print editions also had “culture sections” — more or less a localized The A.V. Club.
You can tell this is 2001, because The Onion viewed as its competition two other print papers that have also cratered in the past 20 years:
Mr. Haise said: ''We've never cracked a market as big as New York, and we won't be competing with Time Out and The Village Voice. But we'll have our own great angle on pop culture.''
I’ll be excited to see whether we can detect changes in coverage, tone or real-life references because of this move. Last year’s coverage of the 2000 Onion showed a high number of Midwest references, and we might expect a slight decline there.
Another thing to watch will be the number of stories. This issue has 21 stories, headlines and photos, which seems like a lot. But look at today’s output! In just 3 days in January 2021, I counted 30 stories published on The Onion’s website. Even the satirical news cycle gets faster and faster.
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What issue is this?
This was Vol. 37, Issue 01, the 45th published Onion issue of the 2000s and the 44th issue of new content. Here’s what the website (kind of) looked like in 2001, as well as in 2011 and today.
Amazingly, the top story is not on today’s Issue 01 page: “Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over.’”
The front-page headline “Date With Proctologist Ends Predictably” is no longer online.
The advice column “Ask A Former Touring Drummer For The Pointer Sisters” was printed in this issue but is originally from 1999.
What was the top story, and other impressions?
“Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’” looks at first glance like one of those “The Onion predicted the future!” stories. I mean, a lot of the plans Bush mentions did happen in some form.
But I suspect this story was built off of simple, more accessible biases: One, the previous 8-10 years had been economically strong and light on major U.S. military campaigns. Two, The Onion staffers probably liked Clinton as a politician, and they especially loved him as a comic foil. So it’s natural to parody those things with the opposite, a la “Seinfeld” — war and poverty!
That said, it’s interesting to look at mentions of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and talk of tax breaks and not think, well, The Onion did read Bush’s policy positions! Then there’s this paragraph, which probably did not have the Taliban, Afghanistan and Iraq specifically in mind:
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"
I think this is a well-executed article, but I’m not sure how many folks are excited to read it 20 years later, no matter who you are.
My favorite story from 20 years ago this week is “Corpse-Reanimation Technology Still 10 Years Off, Say MIT Mad Scientists,” which isn’t just a futuristic story. No, it is written as if we’re talking about a cure for AIDS or the spread of broadband internet, and there’s a whole separate wing of science — mad science! — that’s working hard at a solution.
“During the demented-tech boom of the '80s and early '90s, the mad sciences made great strides, including the development of high-voltage neck bolts and the discovery of a neon-green fluid that produces smoke when poured into beakers. But the past five years have witnessed a significant drop-off in federal funding for university-level mad-science programs.”
I love that The Onion places mad science is some sort of semi-respectable realm — there are university programs, Mad Scientific American magazine and even federal grants, yes, but also grave-robbing and secret laboratories.
Brands and celebrities
This first issue of 2001 is heavy on brand mentions, from the headline-only “Denny's Introduces 'Just A Humongous Bucket Of Eggs And Meat’” to stories like “Paul Hogan Keeps Pitching Crocodile Dundee Saturday-Morning Cartoon,” which doesn’t sound like the worst idea for a kids show.
Two things I’ll say about this:
A show about Hogan “in a hot-air balloon, having adventures with his outback pals Kenny Koala and J. Wellington Wallaby,” sounds OK? I mean, lots of adventures when you’re in a balloon!
Hogan won a Golden Globe and got an Academy Award nomination for screenplay for the first “Crocodile Dundee” movie. I’ve not seen the film, but this feels like learning that “Police Academy” got an Oscar nod.
Other brand and celebrity highlights:
“My God, What Passes For Crunch-tastic These Days” is a great column, with Mel Crowley outraged at the national decline in … the quality of snack crunchiness. One example is Nestle mistakenly calling the Crunch Bar crunchy instead of crispy, while Frito-Lay is praised for its unsafe levels of Chee-tos “cheesiness.” Crowley even has a ranking:
“As any snack aficionado knows, crunch-tastic is the ultimate snack-chip adjective, outranking crunch-riffic, crunch-rageous, and even crunch-mongous.”
“New KFC Employee Takes 'Fry-Q' Test In Employee Manual” is a good workplace joke. The employee’s Fry-Q is 127, which seems to be a good score.
Eminem’s Grammy nominations were the topic of The Onion’s “What Do You Think?” It’s a fairly meh feature, I think, save for homemaker Linda Pulliam’s answer:
"Eminem deserves to win after being so badly snubbed at last year's Tonys."
“Chinese Guy Still Insisting It Was Him In Front Of That Tank” is just a photo, but wow. This headline is almost certainly a reaction to a book released in January 2001 about China’s internal deliberations before the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Area People doing Area Things
“Rural Nebraskan Not Sure He Could Handle Frantic Pace Of Omaha” feels like The Onion bridging its Midwest roots with its new NYC status. I’ve never been to Nebraska, although my mom was born there while my grandfather was a Navy recruiter there in the late 1950s.
I’m someone who’s always lived on the East Coast, so of course I’ll enjoy this article. I think the vivid detail of Fred Linder’s fears of Omaha are what make this shine.
"Oh, sure, I bet it'd be exciting at first, going to see 9 p.m. showings of movies, shopping at those big department stores, and maybe even eating at one of those fancy restaurants that doesn't use iceberg lettuce in their salads," Linder said. "But I just don't think I could put up with all that hub-bub for more than a day or two."
Other Area Man highlights include:
“Man Who Thought He Was On Date Actually Just At Work-Related Get-Together” plays itself off as this man feeling embarrassed and his co-worker being unaware, which is probably better than, say, the guy being a creep. Plus, they got a lot of work done! The bosses will be happy.
“Ex-Girlfriend's Last Electric-Bill Check Remains Uncashed In Area Man's Wallet”: Remember when people wrote checks? Also, Baltimore Gas & Electric is a real utility, and it always surprises me when The Onion uses a real-life reference like this.
“English Teacher Obviously Hung Over”: I wonder whether I was ever in a class where this was the case.
“Salvadoran Earthquake Registers 0.2 On Local Man's Consciousness”
Were the infographics good?
I’m not sure if a bunch of jokes about people doing the bare minimum to honor Martin Luther King Jr. qualifies as a “good” infographic. But is it accurate? You be the judge.
Same for ‘The Inaugural Ball,” in which many of the jokes are calibrated correctly, but it’s not uproarious 20 years later. It’s kind of like a 20-year-old car — you appreciate driving it, but you're ready to move on.
We also have the listicle “Firearm-Safety Tips,” which has some solid jokes even if most are predictable. I’m fond of the last one:
“Don't leave bullets on the floor where you can slip on them. That's the real killer.”
What columnists ran?
Jan. 17, 2001, was the first time in over 11 months that T. Herman Zweibel didn’t have a column in The Onion, and even that Feb. 9, 2000, issue featured a column from his dead father. In fact, there’s no regular columnist this week, as even the regular “Ask A …” feature is a 1999 repeat.
We’ve already discussed “My God, What Passes For Crunch-tastic These Days.” So what else do we have? Just one other column, and it’s the male protagonist version of 2000’s “My Baby Don't Want No Medicine,” which I said in October 2020 was a well-written column that felt sad to read today.
This week’s “I’m Going To Be The Worst Father Ever” is similarly well-written and said, but it’s more passive-aggressive than aggressive, as columnist Jim Jarrell readily admits:
“No doubt, I’ll take my frustrations out on him. Not overtly. Just in lots of little passive-aggressive ways that undermine his sense of self-esteem and well-being. One day, in about 20 years, he’ll trace it back to me while on his therapist’s couch. But by then, it’ll be way too late.”
He’ll also force his child into activities before gradually settling into a cycle of distancing and smothering, preparing his child to repeat all the same mistakes with his kids.
This column certainly reflects some people’s realities, but it’s not going to cheer you up.
Most “Hey, it’s 2001!” reference
Probably the “What Do You Think?” feature, as Eminem was never more famous and controversial simultaneously as he was in 2000 and 2001.
Was Bill Clinton mentioned? Was an animal quoted?
Bill Clinton was mentioned! This is also the last week we’ll dedicate a section to him, as Clinton will be an ex-president the next time we review The Onion.
Clinton’s mention is in the solid but underwhelming “Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White House Security Deposit.”
There were no animals quoted, but we’ll keep monitoring this closely
What was the best horoscope?
Virgo captures what it’s like for all of us, with age, to lose touch with the zeitgeist
Virgo | Aug. 23 to Sept. 22
A pop-cultural shift you are not equipped to understand will turn you into an object of high camp overnight.
What holds up best?
The George W. Bush welcome holds up, although nobody is happy about it.
I’d also consider “Man Who Thought He Was On Date Actually Just At Work-Related Get-Together,” because it’s a strong example of The Onion depicting a person feeling embarrassed in a low-stakes situation.
A couple examples of this include:
What holds up worst?
Not everything is all that funny, but there’s little that’s amateurish or shoddy in this issue. Which makes sense, considering they hadn’t published in nearly a month.
What would be done differently today?
I don’t even know how to compare 2021 with any year, at least right now. But let’s imagine 2001’s events are happening right now. The Onion would have slideshows or something about its Clinton archive, fuller coverage of Bush’s incoming Cabinet, something about Sen. Hillary Clinton, and so forth.
What real-life people were mentioned?
Bill Clinton. George W. Bush. Gale Norton. John Ashcroft. Dennis Hastert. Rush Limbaugh. Paul Hogan. Hank Williams Jr. Al Gore. Laura Bush. Martin Luther King Jr. Busby Berkeley. Eminem. Don Henley. Professor Griff. Hank Ketcham.
Bush Cabinet members Norton and Ashcroft, House Speaker Hastert and Limbaugh were mentioned in “Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over.’”
Williams Jr., Gore and Laura Bush are mentioned in the ‘The Inaugural Ball” infographic.
Berkeley, a choreographer who died almost 25 years before this issue, is mentioned in the horoscopes.
The Eagles’ Henley and former Public Enemy member Professor Griff are mentioned in the “What Do You Think?”
“Dennis the Menace” cartoonist Ketcham, who died later in 2001, is mentioned in “My God, What Passes For Crunch-tastic These Days.” Ketcham is criticized as he “continues to whore Dennis The Menace” out for Dairy Queen. Those ads ran for many years. Here’s an example:
What was happening in the real world?
We’ve been away awhile. So let’s just catch up on Jan. 1-14, 2001. News is from InfoPlease and the front pages of The New York Times (subscription required). Movie and music charts are linked:
Bill Clinton’s last acts include: Meets with Yasir Arafat; signs treaty for international criminal court; increase mental-health benefits for federal employees; shields national forests from logging, drilling; creates counterintelligence czar; gives farewell address.
Bush retains Commerce Secretary Mineta, moves him to Transportation. Bush’s Labor nominee withdraws. NYT profiles New York sex shops that survived purge. Hillary Clinton becomes a senator. 50-50 Senate agrees to power-sharing. Oklahoma wins college football national title. FCC approves AOL-Time Warner merger. INS sets rules for better treatment of detainees. Frito-Lay reduces chips, but charges the same. Ex-Louisiana governor sentenced to prison for extortion. Earthquake kills hundreds in El Salvador (The Onion covered this). New York City to pay $50 million for illegal strip searches in the 1990s. Ronald Reagan has surgery for broken hip. Astronomers find more planetary systems. Army rolls out “An Army of One” slogan. U.S. Postal Service to pay FedEx to transport some packages. Genetically engineered monkey is born. U.S. to present evidence of Osama Bin Laden terror network. 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond to nominate son, 28, as a U.S. attorney.
Top movie (weekend of Jan. 12-14): “Save The Last Dance”
Top TV show (Jan. 8-14): “ER”
Billboard top single (Jan. 13): “Independent Women Part 1,” Destiny’s Child
Billboard top album (Jan. 13): “1,” The Beatles