20 years ago, The Onion made fun of Pope John Paul II

The Onion also mocks a small-business plan, some guy named Pete, unrequited love from a muffler commercial, Katie Couric and 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 Oct. 29, 2003.

I remember this issue well, mostly because of the article about Pope John Paul II. Read on for several excellent headlines that I wish The Onion did more with.

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What issue is this?

This was Vol. 39, Issue 42, the 168th new Onion issue of the 2000s. There is no 2003 website archive yet again. Here’s the website from 2013 and today.

The front-page headlines “Non-Crime-Fighting Dog Takes Bite Out Of Couch” and “Understudy Overacting” are no longer online. These are really strong one-liners — “Understudy Overacting” could be a full article.

What was the top story, and other impressions?

Think of your favorite comedian ever? Then, imagine their comedic hero. Now you’re ready for “Pope John Paul II: 25 Years Of Laughs,” which roasts “the legendary funnyman's career as one of the most influential performers in modern history.”

The Onion doesn’t pretend the pope isn’t the pope, with all that entails. But it treats all his statements on Catholic theology as an endless string of hilarious bits. He’s praised as the most daring and subversive comic alive:

Among the works to give the pope his first taste of fame was his 1960 treatise Love And Responsibility,¹ in which he defined a "modern Catholic sexual ethic." It was here that the pope developed his oft-repeated chestnut that the only acceptable act of sex is one intended for the creation of a child.

"The pope would always lean on his material about sex," director Woody Allen said. "He had this crazy, special way of looking at the world. I definitely count him among my influences."

Among the pope’s admirers in 2003: George Carlin, Don Rickles, Jonathan Winters, Joey Bishop, Bob Newhart and Jerry Stiller.

I was a junior at Loyola College (now University) in fall 2003, and so we all noticed this article! It’s worth remembering that the pope was frail and ill, so there was constant speculation about who would take over (The Onion wrote about this in 2001’s “Cardinals Blasted For Negative Campaign Tactics In Papal Race”²).

The last line is deliberately poignant and cutting:

"There will never be another Pope John Paul II," said comedian Jerry Stiller. "He's truly one of a kind, straight out of a time and place that no longer exist."

This satire holds up 20 years later because it’s direct, consistent, has a clear target and doesn’t hold back. Maybe it’s just me, but a half-assed takedown of an institution or powerful figure is worse than none at all.

More broadly, The Onion should make fun of the sacred, whether it’s the Catholic Church or the image of Muhammad in 2012’s “No One Murdered Because Of This Image” (NSFW). The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no exception, even though that’s probably tougher than ever to navigate.³

This satire doesn’t have to be capital-I important, either. Silly satire, like 2019’s “Islam Is Incompatible With Country-Western Culture,” is just as important.

Other Real-Life News

Left: U.S. soldiers in Basra reconstruct Iraq, while you do nothing but criticize. Right: A neighborhood in Baghdad, which is not as easy to reconstruct as some people seem to think.

This week was relatively light on political news after weeks of covering Arnold Schwarzenegger and the CIA leak. That said, “Well, You Try To Reconstruct Iraq,' Says U.S. Defensive Dept.” combines 2 great facets of The Onion: Its Iraq War coverage and petty guest columnists.

Also, I read right over “Defensive Dept.” the 1st few times. Nice wordplay.

Fictional spokesman Lawrence Pettibone has had it with the naysayers, and if you think you can do a better job in Iraq, go for it!

"Oh, dear!" Pettibone said. "It's taking a little bit more time than expected. Maybe the U.S. military should quit, huh? Then you could do the job for them, Mr. and Mrs. American Genius. Go ahead!"

Pettibone checks his wallet, finds $49, and notes how that’s not enough. He wonders aloud whether $87 billion would help — the real-life funding amount signed into law in November 2003.

This is fun, but is it as funny today? White House press conferences have only gotten more dramatic and less substantive in the past 20 years, right? Maybe The Onion was predicting the future here.

For example, this quote reminds me of the infamous "we create our own reality” quote from 2004. It also calls out the old-school habit of reporters not voting:

Continued Pettibone: "Listen, you guys don't really know what's going on over there. We know what's going on over there. And you're not making my job any easier with these emotional outbursts! The worst part is—I didn't want to say this—most of you don't even vote! There, I said it! Most of you don't even vote, okay? So shut up!"

Other real-life news included:

• “Katie Couric Winces At Word 'Vagina’”: Making fun of Couric was almost too easy, although I like that it’s during an interview with the National Ovarian Cancer Foundation.

• “Sniper Suspect Rehires Lawyers”: The Onion asked people on the street about sniper John Allen Muhammad rehiring lawyers. My favorite:

  • "I know where he's coming from. I tried to treat myself for colon cancer. But after a few months, I turned to a pro."

    Oliver Ralli • Securities Agent

• “U.S. Upset After Aliens Land In Italy”: The U.S. government is mad that aliens from Xygal 8B didn’t choose them. Simple but effective.

Area People doing Area Things

Sabin's friends encourage her terrible idea.

“Ridiculous Small-Business Plan Encouraged By Friends” is a brilliant parody of your friend who has a halfway decent idea but has no idea how to turn it into a viable business.

Natural dog food is a real business opportunity! But should Karen Sabin quit her full-time job to make dog treats by herself at home? And only rely on her friends for advice?

One of these friends is Angie Anderton, whose advice is less MBA and more folksy aphorisms:

"I said, 'Do what you love, and the money will follow,'" Anderton said. "Even if it doesn't, at least she pursued her dreams. I'm so happy for her."

I mean, I started this newsletter because I thought it would be fun and because my friends backed me up, but this is just a hobby! I make zero dollars doing this.

One of six varieties of Sabin's all-natural dog treats.

Look, I’m rooting for Sabin. But I hate the name — Grandma Sabin's Low-Fat Biscuits For Particularly Finicky Dogs. Her friends aren’t helping, either:

"When Karen said that she was quitting her job, I told her she was doing the right thing," longtime friend Gail Komareck said. "She doesn't actually have any small-business experience, but how else is she going to learn? I told her to jump in headfirst. It's sink or swim. Besides, she really hated the long hours she had to work at the hospital. She has everything to gain and not all that much to lose."

Alas, Sabin has not mapped out the business plan:

Sabin said she will produce the biscuits in her kitchen and sell them through the mail until she generates enough capital to open a storefront with a bakery. This will require the sale of approximately 90,000 biscuits at $1.50 each.

If nothing else, this article feels like a meaner version of 2000’s “Plan To Start Little Stationery Store Too Sad For Bank To Deny Loan.”

Bradshaw (center) discusses issues of cost with two members of his party.

This is a strong issue for character studies. “Lawyer Friend Makes Strong Case For Nachos” is easy to picture in your mind.

Plus, The Onion gets to make legal references:

"Mike can be very persuasive when it comes to appetizers," said John Spence, one of eight diners swayed by Bradshaw's closing arguments. "There was a split among the eaters, with four people wanting hot wings and four wanting nachos. In the end, though, Mike convinced us all, beyond a reasonable doubt, that nachos was the appropriate verdict."

Probate attorney Michael Bradshaw was on fire, arguing that nachos allowed for a greater per-person consumption and that he could procure free salsa. He also wins support by arguing that the stains from wings are worse than from nachos:

"I bring this up because we're going to Club 66 later on, to try to get laid," Bradshaw said. "Can we all agree that the likelihood of failure will increase if we arrive with greasy spots on our shirts?"

I bet this was fun to write.

Other Area People items include:

• “Area Man Wins Conversation”: What a headline! Sadly, just a short blurb instead of the full-length treatment it deserved.

• “More Than $30 Worth Of Burned CDs Stolen From Residence”: The police refuse to investigate this crime. George Kinney previously suffered the theft of “his Diet Pepsi Twist promotional duffel bag, which contained a copy of USA Today.”⁴

• “Nursing-Home Residents Mate In Captivity”: This article imagines very old people as chimps or gorillas being observed by humans. Unfortunately, STDs at nursing homes are a real problem, with the pandemic worsening this trend.

There were also 2 front-page photos with headlines:

“New Excedrin 'Lights Out' Kills You Dead On The Spot” is silly, but I like the Photoshopped image with the skull.

“Moral Compass Lost In Woods” is another great headline that could have been an article or even a column.

Were the infographics good?

I cannot emphasize enough how many early-2000s Onion jokes rely on a firm understanding of mix tapes, VHS or video stores. “Oh Shit, What Did We Just Tape Over?” is another in this canon.

I like this infographic, in part, because there’s a very topical joke (the 2003 Mars rover) and a throwback joke (the “All In The Family” episode from 1977).

There’s a small comfort in knowing that “Tuition Hikes” have plagued Americans for generations!

These jokes are fine, and they kind of hold up now. That World Book encyclopedia set might actually be valuable now as a collector’s item? Also, do colleges still have computer centers? I’m genuinely asking! I usually visited them because I needed peace and quiet, not because I literally needed a computer.

What columnists ran?

No regular columnists this week, but we do have a Point/Counterpoint!

“Pete's An Asshole vs. Aw, C'mon, Pete's An All-Right Guy” is the rare Point/Counterpoint where the 2 parties actually address each other. Michael Borroughs starts by complaining to Jamie Henderberg about his friend Pete.

TL;DR, Pete is an asshole, and he also said some racist stuff. Pete did say one thing that made me laugh — this burn of Minnesota by the Wisconsin-hailing Onion writers:

Take what he did last night, when I introduced him to Greg. Within 10 seconds of meeting him, Pete said, "Oh, so you're from Minnesota, huh? I should have known, based on your wife's hair."

Jamie Henderberg was Pete’s college roommate, so he wants to stick up for him. He argues that Pete is an acquired taste, has low self-esteem and doesn’t put up with bullshit. But eventually, Jamie realizes that Pete’s the worst:

Look, I understand why Pete bothers you. He bothers everybody! That's just the way he is! Once you get to know him, you just accept him. It's all part of his charm! Well, not charm. That would imply that someone might like his behavior. But everyone just kind of, I don't know, gets used to it out of necessity. Because Pete doesn't care what anyone else wants.

This isn’t as silly as many Point/Counterpoints, but it’s another example of The Onion’s ability to find humor in relationships.

Our other column is “I Would Treat The Girl From The Muffler Commercial Right,” about a local muffler shop’s ad featuring a female employee. The muffler shop, Hart Muffler & Auto Superstore, is fictional — but let me know if you remember a local muffler ad like this.

I love this photo of Jerry Nexler. Nexler shares all the ways he’d care for the muffler shop girl, including picking her up after her shift, letting her control the truck radio, buying her Exclamation cologne, and forgoing drunken weekends to hang out with her.

Of course, I’m reading this and waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it does:

I know what you're thinking: How can I say I'm going to treat the muffler girl right, when everybody knows how bad I was to Kristi Paulson? Well, Kristi was trash. The muffler girl's got class. You can tell by the way she's so polite to the customers. I would never sleep with the muffler girl's best friend. And I would never leave her stranded out on Delton Road and then not call her for two weeks, even though we were engaged. You don't treat a diamond like trash.

Huh.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to contact the muffler shop girl — because she was probably just an actor! If you’ve seen “The Office” episode “Chair Model,” just know that The Onion did this first.

What was the best horoscope?

This week’s horoscopes are wild — leprosy, feuding inside the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Aquaman, pro-lung-cancer advocacy — but my favorite might be Aries.

It’s juvenile, but I like how it’s written like a Bloomberg article:

Aries | March 21 to April 19

Unfortunately, the depressed economy and reduced demand for the service will force you to once again scale back the price of your mustache rides.

What holds up best?

“Lawyer Friend Makes Strong Case For Nachos” makes me laugh, and it feels like something real-life lawyers are doing today.

What holds up worst?

“More Than $30 Worth Of Burned CDs Stolen From Residence” and “Oh Shit, What Did We Just Tape Over?” are solid, but no one uses the technology anymore.

What would be done differently today?

Dog jokes are always good. I like to imagine that “Non-Crime-Fighting Dog Takes Bite Out Of Couch” lives today in stories like 2023’s “Dog and Owner Having Public Fight.”

The Onion had a lot of jokes about Kathie Lee Gifford and Katie Couric in the 1990s and 2000s, but surprisingly few about Matt Lauer.⁵

Again, “Area Man Wins Conversation” deserved more. Such a promising headline.

Thank you

Grateful to have y’all here. See you next week, when The Onion mocks hipsters, the secretary of energy and teens who liked Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.

1. More on this book here. John Paul II was a prolific writer who, unusually for most popes, wrote for the public as much as for theologians and the ordained.

2. 2002’s "Pope Forgives Molested Children” is another classic Onion take, which I covered here.

3. I follow The Onion on Instagram, and it’s interesting to see how commenters react to jokes in isolation — even The Onion gets treated like it’s issuing policy statements.

4. There are multiple(!) versions of the Diet Pepsi Twist duffle bag online. Here’s one:

5. Lauer only had 4 Onion mentions between 1996 and 2015 (before his scandal) that are still online.