The Onion talked about Ringo's death and old Harry Potter fans 20 years ago
The Onion talked about Ringo's death and old Harry Potter fans 20 years ago
Plus, a Polish rapper tries to reclaim his heritage, an Area Liberal feels guilty, and a Java programmer explains humor
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 Dec. 5, 2001.
We only have 2 issues left from 2001 to review — this one and Dec. 12. The Onion then took several weeks off, as it often did back then during the holidays. I’m traveling this weekend, so I’m likely headed to Amtrak or on a train as you get this.
What issue is this?
This was Vol. 37, Issue 44, the 84th Onion issue of the 2000s and the 83rd issue of new content. Here’s what the website looked like in 2001, 2011 and today.
As in past weeks, The Onion’s website in 2001 continued to link to the 9/11 issue.
The front-page headlines are no longer online, or they lack their images. They are:
“Gender Of Person In Ronald McDonald Costume Unclear”
“Barnes & Noble Creates Stripper/Prostitute Memoir Section”
“Gun Purchaser Won't Be Needing Bag With That”
“Ringo Next”
These are not subtle jokes, and that’s good and bad. “Ringo Next” has been an Onion headline I’ve been talking about for, well, 20 years. It’s The Onion’s main commentary on the death of fellow Beatle George Harrison.
Ringo is still kicking in 2021 and apparently is doing Masterclass offerings, according to my Instagram ads. He does not look like an 81-year-old man — is that a good thing?
What was the top story, and other impressions?
I want to begin with a minor story — one that’s problematic to use today’s parlance but also made laugh to an irrational degree.
“Polish Rapper Under Fire For Use Of The Word 'Polack’” is a rapid-fire display of deliberately distorted Polish jokes, from the rapper’s name (MC Krakow) to his latest album “World Warsaw III” and hit song “Ten-Inch Pierogie” (technically a misspelling of “pierogi”).
For maybe the 1st time in history, we have Polish jokes that are — sort of — glorifying a Polish person! Or, as MC Krakow says, “it's my way of taking the word back.”
This type of story in 2021 would feel instantly political, some sort of culture-war statement. In 2001, I believe it’s simpler — it’s an absurdist commentary on Eminem and his obsession with using gay slurs in his music. This is "Federal Judge Rules Parker Brothers Holds Monopoly Monopoly” all over again, just on a touchier subject than Microsoft’s antitrust case.
The problem is this is another one of those articles where The Onion tries to point out homophobia by using the very same words. And so that tempers my love of this story despite how much I laughed re-reading the first few sentences last week.
So, what was the top story?
The too-accurate “Children, Creepy Middle-Aged Weirdos Swept Up In Harry Potter Craze” both holds up well and is also disturbing to read. That’s as it should be, even if it’s not the most quotable story 20 years later. In short, The Onion talks to (mostly) dudes who are spending too much of their money, time and brainpower on “Harry Potter.” Here’s an example:
"There's never been anything like Harry—it's simply a phenomenon," said Minton, creator of the "Unofficial Hermione Granger Fan Page" and whose house neighborhood children have been warned never to enter. "And the movie is perfect, especially the casting of Emma Watson as Hermione. She's even prettier than I imagined. I hope she reads the Hermione Granger fan fiction I sent her."
Poor Emma Watson, for whom this is probably not fiction. And it’s not just men:
And you can see it in Denver's Lynne Ritchie, a childless, 42-year-old legal secretary who named all six of her cats after students in the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff houses.
As The Onion was doing nearly every week in last 2001, these types of “news” stories quote a doctor or academic at the end. This doctor diagnoses the man-children’s problems and then asks:
"Incidentally, do you think Snape is a Death Eater? I know he helped Harry out in Book One, but I have this theory."
I’ve never read or watched Harry Potter, so I don’t understand any of those words.
9/11 and the War on Terror
Nearly 3 months after 9/11, The Onion dialed back its coverage to only one story that’s explicitly about 9/11 — “All Proceeds No Longer Going To Charity,” with The Onion reminding us that if corporate America’s moved on, it really is over.
There are 2 stories, however, that show The Onion continuing to fold 9/11 into its regular news coverage. These articles are cultural reactions to 9.11 (and very 2001 in their sensibilities).
Arguably, “Woman In Burqa Condemns Woman In Chador” is a War on Terror story, because it seems unlikely The Onion would feature a story set in Afghanistan if not for 9/11.
This story … it’s tough to know what to think of it now. It’s dealing in stereotypes that Americans in 2001 might understand, while also trying to challenge them. It’s making fun of American ignorance, the Taliban and of conservative religion. And it’s trying to do this without appearing jingoistic or too high-brow.
Additionally, it’s also a standard story of two women jockeying for social standing, fighting for the crumbs in a male-dominated society.
The Onion has the difficult task of trying to make fun of everyone without seeming aimless or craven. And it does OK — writing like this is concise and cutting:
"Just look how she dresses, the bridge of her nose visible for all the world to see," said Salah, watching Asaad walk past her in downtown Ghazni. "Has she no shame?"
Not wanting to risk the chance that a stranger might be forced to hear a woman's voice, Salah whispered her indignant remarks through the small mesh square in her garment.
This is not necessarily a memorable story. But being forgettable with a story about politics and religion is sometimes better than getting it terribly wrong.
The third story is “America Is Ready To Laugh At Me Again,” is an editorial that in 2001 carried the byline “Patrick Hoff, fat kid.”
There’s been a shift in the past 20 years in how many people talk about weight, Fat jokes have become less acceptable to many people and even considered less clever and creative even among proponents. That attitude shift understandably diminishes the power of these articles, where no matter how well they are written.
Patrick Hoff has something akin to the Hollywood misconception of Stockholm syndrome, where the lack of insults leaves him feeling unnoticed and unappreciated.
Again, it’s written well enough, but it’s more of a running commentary than a laugh riot — maybe even in 2001.
Over the weekend, a man at the park, no doubt heartened by our nation's military successes against the Taliban, literally doubled over laughing at the sight of me trying to throw a football, only to have it land in a pathetic thud just eight feet away. Then, last night, while in line at Burger King, a group of teenagers cracked up upon overhearing me beg my parents for a vanilla shake.
Politics!
I had to double-check that “Area Liberal Worried His Asian Dry Cleaner Doesn't Like Him” wasn’t written this year. Our protagonist, Steve Bern, works at the local alternative newspaper, is very worried that his Made in China clothes are offending his Asian dry cleaner, whom he chose specifically to support a minority-owned business.
This is in the Will Rogers tradition of liberals making fun of liberals. For being a journalist, Bern asks few questions, choosing instead to psychoanalyze himself:
"I brought Rei a pair of gabardine pants with a salsa stain on the left leg," Bern said. "But when I got the pants back, the stain was still kind of there. It was faint, but if you held it up to a bright light, you could see it. I wonder if maybe not getting rid of the stain was her way of telling a white, middle-class oppressor like myself to mind my own business."
This is also a story based on stereotypes, but here, it’s a part of American society telling on itself.
We also have “Aspiring Legislator Keeps Sending Unsolicited Bills To House Of Representatives,” in which then-Speaker and future felon Dennis Hastert is annoyed at an Ohio man regularly sending him bills. It’s a pleasant joke, if quaint.
The Onion also interviewed people about “The Human-Cloning Controversy,” which was a huge deal 20 years ago in the real news and in The Onion. A human embryo had been cloned for the first time — and apparently, it’s technically been possible to clone an entire human since 2013.
Here, we have jokes about Dolly the sheep, Christians and clones taking jobs, but I most liked this one. Remember catalogs?
"A whole population of identical-looking human beings? This chilling dystopian vision has already come to pass in the fall J. Crew catalog."
Leslie Jong • Massage Therapist
Area People doing Area Things
One important thing to realize about the Elkhart, Ind., setting of “Lone Smart Aleck Ruins RV Hall Of Fame For Serious Visitors” is that most RVs are made in Elkhart. Good research by The Onion on this one!
The setting really doesn’t matter, however, because this is just The Onion having fun with the idea of a guy disrupting an event with his “humor.” As angry museum patrons report:
By the end of his visit, however, Weed's showboating had escalated to the point of disruption. Lying down in the middle of the museum's green, all-weather carpet, he loudly exclaimed, "I think I'll just take a little ol' rest in the grass here." Those wanting to enter the 1954 Holiday Rambler were forced to walk around him.
Moments later, Weed yelled "Bad dog!" at a ceramic dalmatian displayed next to the 1964 Coachmen Cadet. After loudly repeating the faux admonishment several times, Weed began to bark at the statue. The scene so vexed visitor Annalee Taylor, 64, that she retreated upstairs to the center's archival library.
This is silly and fun and that’s all it has to be.
Other Area People stories in this issue:
“Man Surprised To Hear Himself Tell Matt Damon He's A 'Big Fan’”: We’re all like this when confronted with celebrity, I’m sure. I love this line: “In April 1998, Waller was stunned to hear himself tell Kevin Nealon that he ‘love[s] Hiller & Diller.’”
“Guy At Bank Has Weird Hair For Guy Who Works At Bank”: Love the headline, but there’s no joke here.
Were the infographics good?
This infographic isn’t necessarily the “security theater” it might seem now. Everything was scrutinized after 9/11, and it was only 6 years since the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics.
That said, these jokes are mostly lowest-common denominator, and even the background imagery doesn’t add much.
Much stupider, but much better 20 years later is “How Hard Are We Rocking?” I’m not on the floor laughing, but I enjoyed every one of these. Find a human experience, tap into the excitement, and write some jokes. It’s a simple formula, even if it’s not so simple to execute.
What columnists ran?
Besides the column for our resident “fat kid,” we also had “Who Says Java Programmers Don't Have A Sense Of Humor?”
Sadly, this programmer’s idea of a joke is swapping out someone’s desktop background when they aren’t near their computer. To be fair, this was a very common prank when I was in college from 2001-05.
There’s also a long section about the funnies happening at Slashdot, one of the early great websites that happily is still active today.
The joke here is simple: This Java programmer protests that he’s funny, but all his examples aren’t that clever. What we get in 2021 is a wonderful walk down memory lane of Web 1.0.
For example, this mention of Shockwave (RIP):
Mass e-mailing jokes is another way Java programmers share laughs. If something is funny—I mean really funny—we like to spread it around. For example, when I found this hilarious Shockwave game where you do target practice on The Backstreet Boys, I made sure to e-mail the link to all my friends. And have you seen those e-mail "snowball fights"? The ones where you get splotched with a virtual ASCII snowball? Well, I've started more than my share of those, believe you me.
Most “Hey, it’s 2001!” reference
Of all the quaint references in this issue, my favorite might be the Java programmer citing “The Simpsons” as evidence that he’s also funny. This entire passage is from another era:
The laughs don't stop at quitting time. When I get home from work, the first thing I do is turn on Channel 27 for The Simpsons. There are no less than three reruns a night, and if I get home before 6 p.m., I usually catch them all. To me, The Simpsons is the comedic holy grail. (No offense, MPFC!) It's filled with smart jokes, like references to The Prisoner and Logan's Run. Plus, they poke fun at nerds. And, hey, as a nerd, I can take it. If you can't laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?
What was the best horoscope?
Cancer makes me laugh on its merits and also because Americans apparently thought the Marv Albert scandal would be memorable, Instead, Albert finally retired from broadcasting just a few months ago, with great fanfare and no mention of his wig, sexual proclivities or possible crimes.
Cancer | June 21 to July 22
You think you're embroiled in an unprecedented scandal, but you forgot that Catherine The Great, Fatty Arbuckle, and Marv Albert all came before you.
What holds up best?
It’s a short, simple article, but “All Proceeds No Longer Going To Charity” is as American as you get — the bookend to the wonderful American impulse to help when tragedy strikes.
The Harry Potter and Area Liberal stories are also strong, although to invoke J.K. Rowling or political humor is a much different game in 2021 than in 2001.
What holds up worst?
As was common for The Onion (and a lot of other pop culture) in the early 20th century, it’s the casual use of a slur against gay people.
What would be done differently today?
I think a lot of these subjects would be approached more cautiously. And that’s a mixed bag.
I mean, let’s not use slurs, and let’s not make cheap jokes about kids’ weight — in their voice, no less. Those are easy improvements. In general, I’d rather see The Onion avoid a difficult or tricky topic rather than address those topics in a muted, scared way. For example, go after weird Harry Potter fans, or write about Taylor Swift or Marvel — don’t avoid good satire because the fandom will get mad.
The Onion was — and is — smart and sophisticated enough to err on the side of too much, and that’s usually better than pulling punches.