# Best newspaper headline puns **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 3, 2002, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796 "2002-09-03T13:09:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SpectBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@SpectBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpectBrain)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/21 "2002-09-04T21:26:52Z")
I don’t know if this was ever a headline, but I know that it was a bumber sticker, back in the days of Tricky Dick, when he dismissed Archibald Cox as a special prosecuter… “Impeach the Cox sacker” ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/22 "2002-09-07T18:29:43Z")
Well, as long as this has metamorphosed into best _accidental_ newspaper headline… An article in the leftie _Link_ newspaper at Concordia University commenting on the continued lack of women in top administrative positions: “Vice Rector Services another male” ---
**Author:** ![Blunt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Blunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blunt)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/23 "2002-09-07T20:22:35Z")
Earlier this summer, Najeh Davenport of the Green Bay Packers was arrested for allegedly taking a crap in the closet of some girl’s dorm room in Maimi. The headline for the article at [espn.com](http://espn.com) when this happened was: [“Packers’ Davenport gets into load of trouble in Miami”](http://espn.go.com/nfl/news/2002/0708/1403417.html) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/24 "2002-09-08T03:22:51Z")
**matt** : not to put too fine a head on it, but the _Link_ is a semiliterate rag. I read the _Concordian_, myself. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2002, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/25 "2002-09-08T11:04:19Z")
Allegedly a UK politician called Michael Foot was being considered as Chairman of a military organisation, and the Guardian (newspaper that loves puns) was ready with: ‘Foot heads arms body’ :eek: ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2002, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/26 "2002-09-09T06:40:05Z")
Accidental, but worth it. An editorial, by the copy editor, in my college newspaper once read: Thank You Pubic Safety. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/27 "2002-09-10T01:41:10Z")
Reported in “Anguished English” by Richard Lederer was the following headling snafu, my all-time favorite: REAGAN SAYS MORE LIES AHEAD ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/28 "2002-09-10T06:16:45Z")
One that made me look twice, from either The Daily Yomiuri or The Asahi Evening News: Dyke Overwhelmed by Oder Turned out it was about flooding on a German river. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/29 "2002-09-10T22:38:16Z")
My wife and I were personally acquainted with the young man who perpetrated my favorite. About 30 years ago St. Lawrence University, in Canton, NY, had a truly execrable football team. After one extremely lopsided defeat, the Watertown Daily Times, published in our hometown, carried a story reporting the game written by our friend, who was a dropout from the Wadhams Hall Seminary program training Catholic priests. His suggested headline was run as he wrote it – as being too good a pun to resist: [St. Lawrence Martyred on Gridiron](http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/08/10.html) …which makes the Times the first newspaper to report that story in headline form, albeit about 1700 years after the fact. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/30 "2002-09-10T23:07:33Z")
When the death penalty was being reinstituted in America about 25 years ago, Utah decided they’d use the firing squad as their sole means of execution. This resulted in the _Washington Post_ headline: _All Utah Sentenced To Be Shot_ ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/31 "2002-09-11T05:19:59Z")
I just found one on _Japan Today_ from last year, regarding students going back to class at the school where a man with a knife had killed 8 children: _Kids Return to Massacre School_ ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/32 "2002-09-11T07:11:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*When the death penalty was being reinstituted in America about 25 years ago, Utah decided they’d use the firing squad as their sole means of execution. This resulted in the _Washington Post_ headline: > > _All Utah Sentenced To Be Shot_ \*\* Sorry, I don’t get this one - please can someone explain? :o ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/33 "2002-09-11T07:40:31Z")
It’s the difference between “All those sentenced [to death] in Utah to be shot” and “All Utah [residents] sentenced to be shot”. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/34 "2002-09-11T13:39:30Z")
I don’t know if it was ever actually published, but The Colonel Kicks The Bucket went around a lot when Colonel Sanders died back when. ---
**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/35 "2002-09-11T13:42:31Z")
This one may be a reach because it was on TV and was surely intentional: Last week here in Boston a car lost control and crashed through the noise abatement wall on the side of the highway, so naturally, rather than call it a noise abatement wall, the reporter solemnly said: “While traveling north on 93 the vehicle lost control, crossed the median and then broke the sound barrier.” ---
**Author:** ![Marcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Marcus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/36 "2002-09-11T14:40:52Z")
From a food review: “What a Friend We Have in Cheeses”. ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/37 "2002-09-12T05:33:01Z")
During a British heatwave: London Broils ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/38 "2002-09-12T05:50:43Z")
Dunno if its been mentioned, but there was an incident that occured some time ago where a man was leaving from work and after kissing her husband goodbye, she flashed her breasts at him. Well, a taxi driver was distracted by the boobies and happened to crash through the wall of a nearby dentist’s office. A man was getting dental work and the car crashing into the building made the hygenist arm jerk, which tore at the man’s gums, which caused him to bite down, biting off the woman’s fingers. Someone in the next room was also injured I believe. The headline? Bears two, rams four ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/39 "2002-09-12T14:57:14Z")
Jay Leno has some classics, but my favorite was **The Teenage Sex Problem is Mounting** What, do they keep on slipping off? Time Magazine had a feature story years ago about an evil wench named Leona Helmsley (a quote attributed to her was “Taxes are for the working class, not for people like me”). The cover had a picture of her, and a beautifly written, short and to the point headline: **Rhymes with Rich** ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796/40 "2002-09-12T16:07:18Z")
Try and try again to find copies of the paperbacks _Red Tape Holds Up Bridge_ and _Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim_, two collections of funny newspaper headlines from the _Columbia Journalism Review_’s “Lower Case” column. Hilarous, and unlike the thudding Jay Leno books, they let the headline carry the comedy without adding thick-headed commentary. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-newspaper-headline-puns/126796.md?page=3)