20 years ago, Fritolaysia cut off chiplomatic relations with Snakistan

The CIA apologizes for black highlighters, plus jokes about plutonium, Walmart, C-sections, unnoticed irony 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 Nov. 30, 2005.

I hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving. For the holiday shopping season, I created a list of Onion-related books, including ones I own and recommend.

How to buy books by and about The Onion

Today, we’re revisiting one of my all-time favorite Onion stories, “Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan,” and much, much more. This is among the best print issues of 2005, so let’s dig in.

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What issue is this?

This was Vol. 41, Issue 48, the 267th new Onion issue of the 2000s. Here’s what the website looked like in 2005, 2015 and today.¹

The front-page image is courtesy of former Onion Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers, who just released a new book about The Onion.²

The front-page headline “Well-Put-Together Woman Falls Apart Easily” never made it online.

What was the top story, and other impressions?

“Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan” has long been one of my favorite Onion jokes. But it’s also divisive — I know multiple people who hate this type of pun-heavy joke.

The Onion loved to twist “normal” news articles by replacing 1-2 words to create an absurd alternate reality. If you’ve read The Onion (or this newsletter), you’re familiar with that sort of wordplay.

But the “Fritolaysia” story is more specialized. It retains the serious context — in this case, geopolitics — but overlays an absurd alternate reality by modifying dozens of words. Thus, we get the concept of snack-based countries at loggerheads.

The U.S. snack industry is a perfect choice here, as it’s constantly manipulating words to trick consumers.

Other examples of this Onion subgenre include:

• “National Funk Congress Deadlocked On Get Up/Get Down Issue” (October 1999)

• “Spaghetti-Os Discontinued As Franco-American Relations Break Down” (November 2001)

• “Munchtime Is The Most Important Snack Of The Day” (April 2004)

• “German Luftwaffle Chain Offers Waffles, Overwhelming Air Superiority” (August 2005)

• “Munchstrosity Created In Frito-Layboratory” (September 2012)

• “Bo Obama Receives Visiting Dognitaries From Furuguay” (January 2013)

Fritolaysia’s CORNCOM command center.

If you like wordplay, this story has it in spades, beginning with the dateline of “KARUNCHI, SNAKISTAN” instead of Karachi, Pakistan.

Political leaders, treaty names, random adjectives — all are transformed to serve the bit:

Relations between the two countries grew stale in 1994, when Fritolaysian rufflelutionaries crossed zestablished borders and forced Snakistan to dispatch cheesekeeping forces. The late-night SALTY talks held at Snakistan’s Kuler Ranch, however, cooled the spicy conflict with the signing of the historic Buttermilk Compromise, which established bilateral chiplomacy and regulated trade flows by setting the international Rold Gold standard of currency.

Other nations mentioned include the “the Blandinavian nation” of Utzonia, the “Yogurtslavian nation of Colombo,” Yumen, Mmmmadagascar, and the Chex Republic.

The Utz brand catches strays, as Snakistan would rather resolve the conflict with Fritolaysia than trade with Utzonia:

“The only option besides bowing to Fritolaysia’s demands is to begin trading with the extreme funyunmentalist people of Utzonia,” Freedman said, referring to the Blandinavian nation that offers similar but less-satisfying goods for cheaper exchange rates. “But deals with the Utzonians always leave a funny taste in your mouth.”

As I mentioned up front, some people hate this type of joke-telling, and I respect that. But make no mistake, this is The Onion at the height of its brilliance.

A few real-life notes:

• Frito-Lay was satirized in the April 2000 classic “Funyuns Still Outselling Responsibilityuns.”

• Frito-Lay reportedly sent potato chips to The Onion as a thank you for this joke.

• Dikkers has a theory that all jokes fall into 11 categories, with this headline cited in the “Wordplay” category.

CIA Director Porter Goss.

Amazingly, the “Fritolaysia” story is likely the 2nd-most famous joke from the Nov. 30, 2005, issue. That’s because of the classic “CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years.”

The premise is simple: The government is constantly redacting information with black markers, especially with intelligence-related documents. But what if that was never the CIA’s intention?

An investigation by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General reveals that it’s all a horrible mistake. CIA Chief Porter Goss is aghast:

When asked by a reporter if the black ink was meant to intentionally obscure, Goss countered, “Good God, why?”

Goss lamented the fact that the public will probably never know the particulars of such historic events as the Cold War, the civil-rights movement, or the growth of the international drug trade.

“I’m sure the CIA played major roles in all these things,” Goss said. “But now we’ll never know for sure.”

One lesson of joke-writing is to commit to the bit. The Onion does so here by portraying everyone as baffled by the redactions — Goss, outside scholars, even the internal investigators:

“It is unclear exactly why CIA bureaucrats sometimes chose to emphasize entire documents,” the report read. “Perhaps the documents were extremely important in every detail, or the agents, not unlike college freshmen, were overwhelmed by the reading material and got a little carried away.”

An anonymous ex-CIA officer adds that the agency accidentally shredded many documents when trying to make photocopies.

A few real-life notes:

• Other notable CIA jokes by The Onion include July 1997’s “CIA Unveils New Ghetto Drugs For ‘98” and June 2010’s “CIA Declassifies Thousands Of Black-Ops ‘Humor In Uniform’ Jokes.”

• The long-running blog Scheiner on Security cited this joke in December 2005, as did a 2013 essay on the problems with government redaction.

• When the CIA joined Twitter in 2014, employees passed around a “first week of tweets” brainstorming document. One idea was to post a redacted tweet, then retweet this Onion article. Instead, the CIA went with this:

• Writing for The Baffler in 2015, Ben Schwartz (not the actor) cited the CIA joining Twitter as evidence of satire’s ineffectiveness:³

  • “But this age of humorous excess has shown that satire, even when delivered in the sharpest and most unforgiving forms, hardly makes a dent. The proliferation of satirists has multiplied the amount of funny material out there. But it has diminished the belief that satire, political or otherwise, can serve any real purpose beyond amusing us.”

Left: Yaquub Akhtar. Right: A man struggling to move containers of plutonium.

Our 3rd big story, “Terrorist Has No Idea What To Do With All This Plutonium,” might be less timeless, but it certainly captures how Americans feared terrorism in the mid-2000s.

This fear wasn’t unjustified, given 9/11 and the anthrax mailings, not to mention the still-recent memories of Oklahoma City and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. These attacks and the worries of more created measurable social effects.

But those fears could become all-consuming. For instance, 41%(!) of Americans were somewhat or very worried “that you or someone in your family will become a victim of terrorism” in December 2005.

The Onion seeks the middle ground: Yes, terrorists are plotting against us, but they are way too incompetent to build a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb:

“We had just given thanks to Allah for this glorious means to destroy the Great Satan once and for all, when [sub-lieutenant] Mahmoud [Ghassan] asked, ’So, what’s the next step?’” Akhtar said. “I was at a loss.”

The fictional terror cell Army Of Martyrs lacks the physics knowledge to convert plutonium into a useful weapon. Consulting the Quran does no good, while the nearby internet cafe’s web connection is too slow to access the necessary knowledge.

The terrorists lament their lack of networking skills:

“I have heard many in the corrupt Western media say that Muslim terrorists have acquired harmful radioactive materials that can be readily deployed,” al-Malik said. “Whoever this terrorist group is that’s all but ready to strike America with a nuclear device, we sure could use their help.”

I love this quote, which could easily be a sitcom bit:

“I drew a circle to represent the plutonium,” Akhtar said. “Then I drew a line pointing to it, and beside it wrote ‘plutonium.’ After that, I just hit a wall.”

American Voices

“C-Section Boom” appeared online as “C-Sections On The Rise” on Dec. 2, 2005, with only 3 responses instead of the 6 shown above. So you’ve likely never read jokes like this one:

Is there some sort of awareness-raising long-distance run about this? Because that’s my preferred method of addressing women’s health-care concerns.

Hugh Webb • Pipe Fitter

2005 was indeed a record year for cesarean births. But in 2025, leading hospitals are trying to reduce the rate of C-sections.

Area People doing Area Things

Wheaton hams it up for the camera.

“Sleazy Town Will Do Anything To Get On Map” is the story of Wheaton, Minn., which is accused of abandoning “decency and traditional virtues” to become famous.

I’ve read a lot of books about 1700s and 1800s America, so I thought this might be a parody of boosterism on the frontier. But instead, it’s satirizing the pearl-clutchers of small-town America who love to judge anyone who dares to be different:

In the late ’90s, the town began to brazenly woo “commerce” and “nightlife” by spreading its figurative legs to lure anonymous outsiders to gauche events like the Midsummer Hoedown. What’s more, observers in decent neighboring towns agree that the Wheaton Indoor Flea Market has been slathered in a shade of taupe that would be tawdry for a building half its age. Apparently, many residents have no idea how ridiculous they look.

You could also read this article as a condemnation of the media for sensationalism and its snobbish attitude toward anything rural or Midwestern. For example, Wheaton is shamed for such outrageous activities as obtaining ISO certifications, holding a dance to raise money for the library, and creating a town website.

The Onion’s outrage culminates in paragraphs like this:

Other orgies orchestrated by the Wheaton Pride Committee include River Day, the Walleye Fry, the Autumn Apple Pick & Cider Squeeze, and something called “Dandelion Daze” that is best left unexplained.

A couple of additional notes:

• The image above is a popular stock photo from an unnamed location in New England, not Minnesota.

• There are 7 communities named “Wheaton” in the U.S., and the Minnesota town is the 4th-largest.

Other Area People jokes include:

• “Unregistered Sex Offender Notifies Neighbors In His Own Way”: God bless the guy who had to appear in that photo.

• “Rerun of $25,000 Pyramid Adjusted For Inflation”: This joke is doubly ironic because the show began as “The $10,000 Pyramid” but was adjusted upward. Today, it’s “The $100,000 Pyramid”!

• “Enchilada Premonition Comes To Pass”: Very silly.

• “MythBusters Team Struck Down By Zeus”: RIP Adam and Jamie! And welcome back, Zeus, who wrote a column in April 1999.

• “RIAA Bans Telling Friends About Songs”: The Onion occasionally skewered the Recording Industry Association of America for its militant anti-piracy campaign in the 2000s.

• “Impersonal Trainer Couldn’t Give A Fuck What You Do With Those Free Weights”: I like this joke, although I think the headline is both too long and too mindlessly angry.⁴

Were the infographics good?

In December 2024, I examined how Wal-Mart was the corporate villain of the 2000s but is somewhat overshadowed by Amazon, Big Tech and even companies like Target these days.

One reason for this shift is “Wal-Mart P.R.,” which The Onion skewers here.

These are solid jokes. Some discuss real-life Wal-Mart criticisms, such as the retailer driving out mom-and-pop businesses and its mid-2000s fight against a former executive:

• “Force any newspaper that depicts them in poor light out of business by opening larger, cheaper newspaper nearby”

• “Offer free hot dogs to potential whistleblowers”

Also, you can still get that Tony Stewart car today via eBay and similar sites.

“What Are We Buying In Bulk?” features yet another stem cell reference in The Onion!

I love the little images next to each joke, especially for “That cereal husband loves, in case he ever comes back.”

The Sudafed joke is about methamphetamine production, but 3 years before “Breaking Bad.”

What columnists ran?

“Why Can’t Anyone Tell I’m Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?” is a wonderful critique of making irony your personality. It’s a perfect assignment for the largely Gen X staff of The Onion, even as it’s also mocking 2000s hipsters (Xennials).

Noah Frankovitch has always treated fashion ironically, from his Mr. Bubble iron-on T-shirt and “Adam And The Ants war paint” to embracing the “trucker-hat concept” in college.

But now it’s time to grow up — by mockingly dressing as adults do. Unfortunately, no one gets the joke:

I resolved then and there to stick it to the mainstream and adopt this bullshit suit as my signature look. If I knuckled under and went back to my drainpipe trousers and Chucks, I’d just be selling out. Nope. If anything, I was gonna take it further. I perfected the look until it was as hilarious as it could possibly be. No expense was spared—if I cut corners, I wouldn’t be doing the joke justice. So I got a leather Hermes attaché case, and I filled it with— you guessed it—actual legal briefs! And my watch? Lame-ass TAG Heuer. Most expensive one I could find. Is that the avant-garde of hipness, or what?

I love that he wore a suit to a Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert.

Other “ironic” activities by Frankovitch include buying a co-op on the Upper East Side of New York City, making partner at a law firm, marrying a woman from Connecticut and having 2 “ironic children”:

I swear, they look like something out of a creepy 1950s Dick And Jane reader—I even have these hilarious silver-framed pictures of them in my cheesy corner office. But still, the humor is lost on everybody but me. I’m probably the most fashionable guy on the planet at this point, but no one understands.

This column was positively received in certain anti-hipster circles, while this person in 2025 seems unaware of the joke (and of Barney Stinson).

Our other column, “At Least I Got My Ass Kicked By A Name-Brand Crowbar,” is also about status-seeking, albeit from the perspective of a guy desperately seeking a moral victory:

Sure, it hurt my ego when the Titan SureGrip crowbar was first driven into the back of my head, and yes, I did cry about it for a couple of hours afterwards, but that night, I was hit by something even harder than that 18-inch, curved piece of high-carbon steel: the realization that there’s no shame in being beaten down by the best crowbar money can buy.

This is a very dark story, with Brent Waldie sharing horrific details of his injuries.

The funniest parts, to me, are the asides about the crowbar:

After all, how many people can really say they were bludgeoned within an inch of their lives by the only crowbar to receive a perfect five-star rating in Hard Hat News magazine?

What was the best horoscope?

My favorite horoscope this week is Virgo for The Onion mocking renewable energy in the language of, say, current Energy Secretary Chris Wright:

Virgo: August 23 - September 22

You will be forever labeled “quixotic” after mistaking a field of windmills for the solution to the world’s energy crisis.

Also noteworthy is the rape-related joke in Sagittarius — a joke topic that would flare up several years later with the Daniel Tosh controversy.

What holds up best?

“Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan” is still a lot of fun, while “CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years” retains its power as a critique of the CIA and, more broadly, the federal government’s lack of transparency.

“Well-Put-Together Woman Falls Apart Easily” is arguably a very long way of saying “Karen.”

What holds up worst?

“Rerun of $25,000 Pyramid Adjusted For Inflation” and the C-section jokes are both based on outdated information. That said, the underlying topics are each relevant in 2025.

What would be done differently today?

The Onion doesn’t publish many infographics or columns today, so it’s less likely we’d have those columns or the Wal-Mart PR infographic.

Worse still, The Onion rarely publishes silliness like “Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan,” although writing such jokes seems really difficult!

That said, many of the topical jokes — about the CIA, terrorism, the “sleazy town,” shows like “MythBusters” — could be relevant today.

Thank you

Thank you for being here! Let me know what you liked, if there’s anything I missed, or if you have any questions about the old Onion! Happy to look up something for you.

If you like what I’m doing, please help the algorithm by liking, commenting and sharing! I’m also on Substack Notes occasionally, if that’s your thing.

See you next time!

1. The Internet Archive is an invaluable part of my research — I couldn’t sustain this newsletter without it. And donations are tax-deductible.

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

3. Schwartz’s arguments are admittedly undermined by his overestimation of John Oliver’s impact and his declaration that Donald Trump will never be president.

4. You see this a lot with Onion jokes from the late 2010s/early 2020s. Some barely endeavor to make a joke, a la:

• “‘Follow Your Instructions, This Is All Part Of The Plan,’ Hisses Richard Nixon Tattoo Protruding From Roger Stone’s Back” (2019)

• “Lemur Fantasizes About Ripping Face Off Next Dumbshit Who Calls It A Monkey” (2017)