20 years ago, The Onion talked Al-Jazeera, meeting the parents, Smurfs and Howie Long
We also grapple with a story that probably sounded hilarious in 2002 but raises eyebrows in 2022.
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. 23, 2002.
What a wild surprise to see NPR mention this newsletter, so welcome to folks who found us that way!
This is The Onion’s 2nd issue of 2002, and we continue to see coverage of Afghanistan and Enron, as well as stories that required a lot of real-life research by Onion writers.
What issue is this?
This was Vol. 38, Issue 02, the 88th Onion issue of the 2000s and the 87th issue of new content. Here is the website as it looked in 2002, 2012 and today.
As longtime readers know, some stories are missing from The Onion’s website, and the old photos/images are mostly gone. I reproduce as many as I can each week.
These 3 front-page headlines are on the 2002 archive but no longer online. The 2nd joke works better if you think about some jerk saying that and thinking they’re in the right:
“Clock In Basement Still One Hour Ahead”
“Orphan Can't Take A Joke”
You can also see above a blurry photo for “Procter & Gamble Introduces Home Menstruation Test.”
What was the top story, and other impressions?
I struggled with “Developmentally Disabled Senator Wants To Be Treated Like Any Other Lawmaker.” It’s a discomfiting headline to see today, and yet the word choices could have been so much worse in 2002.
In the early 2000s, “developmentally disabled” and other phrasing were not the go-tos for the media. Instead, a certain word beginning with “R” was still used, even by the New York Times. That word, of course, was also a common everyday insult.
The Onion is inconsistent with phrasing in this article — and as late as 2016! And oddly, The Onion ran a very similar story 1 year earlier — “Developmentally Disabled Burger King Employee Only Competent Worker.”
I approach stories like this with these 2 questions:
Who is the butt of the joke?
Does The Onion actually achieve that goal?
I think The Onion wants this to be a Congress story with some zany twist, like 2001’s “57 Lawmakers Feared Dead In Senate Mine Disaster.” And that sort of works — Sen. Freddy Rigby’s longtime political success is acknowledged, he’s given some good quotes (including a burn of longtime Onion target Sen. Strom Thurmond). Many senators make appearances, and a Nebraska voter lauds Rigby’s qualities.
It’s well-written and well-executed in all those senses. But ultimately it kind of feels like the joke depends on this premise: “Wow, wouldn’t it be zany if the Senate had a guy who was developmentally disabled!?”
I cautiously submit this was a more accepted, higher-order of comedy in many circles back then. By contrast, in the 2020s, jokes about “X people are this” or “[blank] people, right?” are closer to hackwork. (Whether you think this is a good development is a separate question!)
Now, The Onion did a good job given these constraints. It’s probably an accomplishment to read this story today and think, “Well, no reason to re-read it,” rather than, “Wow, they were monsters!”
The passage that’s most regrettable is this one — it’s the only time The Onion truly treats Rigby like an idiot (and also reminds up how long The Rock has been famous):
"And after the terrorists bombed the Sears Towers, I was the first senator [to draft a resolution calling for professional wrestler] The Rock to go find them and kick their butts!" Rigby said. "Yaay! The Rock!"
Enron and the War on Terror
Enron declared bankruptcy on Dec. 2, 2001, but the fraud was still emerging. The Onion continues to catch up with the funny-enough “Enron Executives Blamed For Missing Employee Donut Fund.” Fellow copy editors can debate “donut” versus “doughnut.”
Believe it or not, I don’t remember every old Onion story. But some stick in my head. “Confused Marines Capture Al-Jazeera Leader” made me laugh in my dorm room in 2002, and it makes me laugh today.
Do you remember the “American Taliban,” John Walker Lindh1? He’s the 20-year-old American captured while fighting with the Taliban. The Onion asked people on the street what they thought. My favorite might be this thinly veiled Johnnie Walker exec:
"As CEO of a major scotch manufacturer, I demand that he be referred to as John Lindh. Our image is going down the toilet, goddammit."
Tom Eisen • CEO
More real-life parody
“Howie Long Expresses Desire To Direct Radio Shack Spots”: I always thought of the Howie Long-Teri Hatcher commercials as being in the 1990s, but I guess not. This is a classic take on the actor who suddenly gets the urge to direct. RIP Radio Shack.
The front-page headline “New Michael Landon Biography Resolves Many Unasked Questions” seems really random, as Landon2 died in 1991 and the photo refers to this 1993 biography.
“Consumer Reports Rates Self 'Excellent'" is a common genre of underappreciated Onion jokes. It’s really hard to make such an obvious joke. Especially when the tone is this dry:
“Consumer Reports magazine earned a rating of "excellent" in its special "Consumer Advocacy Magazines" issue, which hit newsstands Tuesday.
Area People doing Area Things
“Antique Dealer Sick Of Appraising Smurf Collections” is a lovely story about people who devote their life to a higher calling and instead are assaulted with low-end kitsch. Milton Jarry would love to be collecting and appraising E.F. Caldwell & Co. lighting and metalworks, but instead …
"A 17-year-old cereal bowl featuring a bunch of silly blue creatures does not constitute an antique," said Jarry, whose areas of expertise include antique European and Russian chandeliers, wall fixtures, and classic reproductions of 18th-century candelabras. "Neither, for that matter, does a 1986 ALF pillowcase."
This story is well-researched, with several 19th- and 20th-century design firms mentioned. And it’s not simply a story about an out-of-touch older guy or the clueless customer who complains about a Tiffany lamp costing $1,200 instead of $12.
The clever Onion observation within is about the late-1990s emergence of PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” and eBay. They made popular the junk in people’s attics and garages. And that’s turned Jarry’s life into “a Dukes Of Hazzard lunch box, a UM-Duluth edition Monopoly game from 1996, some Jaws 2 trading cards, and a smiley-face pillow that the owner found in her basement and thought looked 'pretty old.’”
“Weekend With Boyfriend's Parents Explains A Lot” is a fairly standard Onion relationships story, but that’s not a bad thing.
The article is mostly told by girlfriend Julia Wasson, who is the daughter of 2 psychologists. After visiting the parents, she sees similarities in boyfriend Jay Loftus’s passive-aggression, money-handling, condescension and desire to get up early.
"Sometimes, Jay will mysteriously say he has to go somewhere and then run out the door," Wasson said. "Later on, I'll find out that he just went to the bookstore. Well, on Friday night, Jay's mom wouldn't say where she was going, and we later found out she'd gone to the grocery store to pick up some milk. Why do these Loftus psychos feel the need to hide things like that?"
2 quick notes:
That photo looks badly Photoshopped, right?
The 4 of them also saw “The Royal Tenenbaums,” which I guess is suddenly 20 years old!
The 3rd big “Area People” story is “Peace Activist Has To Admit Barrett .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Is Pretty Cool,” which centers on the premise that activists are really people who “doth protest too much.” Credit to The Onion for describing a real gun.
Do I think most people with hardline views are actually obsessed with the other side? No, but at least The Onion commits to the bit, even quoting a friend of Paul Robinson who’s upset, but not for the reasons you’d suspect:
“Plus, it failed some of the Navy's field tests for reliability and accuracy," Shorter added. "The extractors kept breaking, I seem to recall."
I have 2 questions here:
Would Paul Robinson have renounced peace when the Iraq war came along?
What is that outfit? Such a mix of colors and patterns!
Finally, we have “Receptionist Takes Leave Of Absence Citing Dehydration, Exhaustion.” This is a parody of the excuse used when something bad happens to celebrities in public, often as a precursor to entering rehab.
This instance is probably about Mariah Carey. You’ll notice The Onion is much less sympathetic here than in the story about the developmentally disabled senator.
Were the infographics good?
“Top Religious Visions” is basically Christian jokes, with the topical reference to Regis Philbin even as “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” was collapsing in the ratings.
I do like No. 4’s roundabout way of saying “nightlight.”
The “Ford’s $5 Billion Loss” infographic has many of the jokes you’d see about any struggling company, but they’re well-written and, in some cases, sound frighteningly realistic (the Ibiza trip, mass layoffs).
I love the references to the Jackson 5’s Marlon Jackson and “Beverly Hillbillies” actor Max Baer Jr., son of the boxer. So random.
What columnists ran?
No “regular” Onion columnists this week, but we have 2 provocative headlines.
“Homeless People Shouldn't Make You Feel Sad Like That” hits right at the difference between sympathy and empathy. Being not so successful? That doesn’t bother our author. It’s the public display of it!
Though the homeless should be allowed to go almost anywhere they want without harassment, they should at least have the decency to go where people aren't trying to enjoy themselves. Stay away from the art museums and movie theaters. Do your loitering and panhandling outside places where people aren't having fun, like the DMV or dry cleaners.
This is excellent. And The Onion mocks us, too, because we’re laughing at this author without questioning whether we’re like that, even a little bit.
Our other column is “Who Do I Have To Blow To Win The Bancroft Prize In American History?” which especially made me laugh because our author wrote a definitive book on President William Taft. Coincidentally, a source close to this newsletter has had an unfinished Taft book sitting around for roughly 5 years.
What’s not as enjoyable — to me, at least — is that the article devolves into seeing how many different ways blow jobs can be referenced. I guess I’m the weirdo who was looking for more obscure details about Taft?
I do like how our fictional author is angry at several actual Bancroft winners:
Maybe if I'd dressed up all sexy and shook my ass like David McCullough did when he won for John Adams, I'd have had the Bancroft people eating out of my hand.
What was the best horoscope?
This week’s horoscopes have a 2nd “Beverly Hillbillies” actor, the artist LeRoy Neiman and a literal interpretation of the “I’m rubber you’re glue” phrase, but let’s go with Scorpio:
Scorpio | Oct. 23 to Nov. 21
You will soon be reduced to a whimpering, quivering mess by the challenge of keeping all 33 wind-up toys going simultaneously.
What holds up best?
“Weekend With Boyfriend's Parents Explains A Lot” wasn’t my favorite article of the week, but it’s spot-on in describing relationships and how we’re all like our parents.
What holds up worst?
“Developmentally Disabled Senator Wants To Be Treated Like Any Other Lawmaker” would be far down the list of Onion headlines today, even if it isn’t as bad as I feared.
What would be done differently today?
This issue has a good mix of real-life coverage and purely fictional “Area Man” articles.
That said, it’s hard to imagine today’s Onion not mentioning the U.S. president for an entire week. January alone had already seen Bush sign No Child Left Behind into law, celebrate 1 year in office and transport the first batch of War on Terror prisoners to Guantanamo Bay.
The other big unmentioned event? The Salt Lake City Olympics were only a couple of weeks away.
Thank you
So glad y’all are here to explore the old Onion with me. If you’re new here, know that you’ll get an issue almost every Sunday — exactly 20 years since the original Onion newspaper came out. If The Onion skipped a week, I probably will, too, and I’ll you know either way.
See you next week!
I worry about people who feel a need to analyze comedy. As Freud taught us, sometimes a comic is just a comic. But I really enjoy the posts. They're as good as they were 20 years ago. Or maybe I'm as bad as I was 20 years ago.