What are some of your favorite Onion articles?
I love the articles but, for whatever reason, I never actually visit the website unless following a link posted here.
However, I went today and this one is not bad at all.
Some of their frontpage article titles (with no article at all, sometimes with a small picture) are the funniest things ever.
Jewish Stock Car Booed Off Track
Deviant Kellogg’s Worker Comes In Specially Marked Boxes
Head Deadhead Dead (in reference to the death of Jerry Garcia)
Brown Workers Put Company in Black
Aspiring Film Director Can Help Next Person In Line
Like Boxes Of Shit In Your House? Get A Cat
Some favorite articles that actually have text with them:
Amish Give Up: “This is Bullshit,” Say Elders
Asians Defying Stereotypes: More and More Are Becoming Stupid Lazy-Asses
Supreme Court Overturns Car
Their first edition after 9/11 was a keeper. “Life Turns into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie,” with dramatic photos of the impact/fireball, and of the post-collapse debris cloud roiling down a street (caption: “another scene not from a movie.”) , and interviews of shocked witnesses who were distraught at seeing (in real life) all of the over-the-top violence they normally received from Hollywood, but without the victorious hero or happy ending. And another article, with the hijackers finding themselves not in Paradise, but in Hell, being tortured in imaginative ways by a pantheon of demons.
I’ve been anticipating something, if “anticipate” is the right word. Jean Teasdale is established as a devoted Patrick Swayze fan. I daresay the woman who writes JT (and Jim Anchower; oddly enough, those are my two favorites) has long since composed Jean’s tribute to Swayze, and it will appear in the next issue after he finally succumbs. At any rate, I don’t see how she can’t acknowledge his death. And it’ll be interesting to see how Jean honors him.
Re: the 9/11 issue. I liked “Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American Flag Cake.” On 9/11, I made pancakes for dinner. “Not knowing what else to do” is a fairly accurate description of my mood that evening.
This is my favorite and every time one of these threads come around I post it again in the hopes at least just more more person reads it.
One of my favorites: Neighbors Remember Serial Killer as Serial Killer
A more recent entry from the Onion News Network (video): Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film as ‘Fun’, ‘Watchable’
I like the “In The Know” panel discussion videos.
Not a Crack House, a Crack Home
There was a great headline from WWII in the Dumb Century book that was giant capital letters WA- with “Continued on Page 2” underneath.
The whole issue after 9/11 was pretty damn funny, especially considering what was going on.
This one is probably my all-time favorite.
Other memorably hilarious ones:
Nation’s Dog Owners Demand To Know Who’s A Good Boy
Cat Fancy Magazine Blasts Area Kitten
California Recall Candidates - the last one just kills me.
That one’s great.
A friend of a friend of mine once worked for the Onion in Madison and she had a great story about it.
She used to answer the letters and/or emails as part of her job and most of them were from people who got it. Readers typically get the joke, but occasionally one story will slip through. Her example was this one. She got a lot of requests for that story so people could share it with their Sunday school class and bible camp and whatnot.
Earlier this year, the paper was taken over by a Chinese business, which led to amusing headlines. Their website is pretty good, too.
There are so many classics, it’s hard to make up my mind. But I’m going to with Five or Six Dudes Jump Out of Nowhere and Just Start Whaling on This One Guy, which perfectly nails the BS’ers we all love to hate.
My favorite headline without a story is “Gender of Person in Clown Costume Unclear”.
My all time favorite is Visting Gore Calls Pennsylvania a ‘Hellhole’
I’m annoyed that they stopped publishing the annual collections in book format.
This was my first introduction to The Onion: Community Outrage
It is still one of my favorites.
One of the greatest moments in the history of fake news and unbelievably needed after the events.
Speaking of: pretty much all of Our Dumb History (the collection of The Onion throughout history featuring such articles as World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg and Holy Shit: Man Walks on Fucking Moon!.
And their Atlas is also hysterical. One of my favorites is the entry for Alabama (something akin to "quietly relegalized slavery on a school funding bill that passed by a vote of 212 to 2 3/5).
Favorite advice columns include Ask the Faulknerian Idiot Manchild and Ask a Woman Who May Be Poor, But She Has Her Pride, And No One Will Ever Take That Away From Her, and of course I’m a “Jeanketeer of the First Order” (how many real life Jeans are there?) and I’m especially a fan of her personal website.
Some of the funniest lines though have been in their ‘person on the street’ interviews. One that comes to mind was when Anna Nicole Smith’s son died: "“I’m just surprised a child raised by Anna Nicole Smith made it to 20” (so tasteless I tried not to laugh out loud).
And their videos can be spot on:
Should we be doing more to curb the graphic violence in our dreams? (“But I don’t need a dead baby…” made me choke the first time I saw it)
Some of my favorites …
‘85 Chicago Bears Return To Studio:
Shufflin’ Crew begins work on long- awaited follow-up album
Point-Counterpoint: My Computer Totally Hates Me! vs. God, Do I Hate That Bitch
Some of my faves:
Nation In Frenzy About Little Wizard Boy And All His Little Wizard Friends
DOT: Dangerous Intersection Causing Some Pretty Cool Accidents
Massive Tag Body Spray Slick Spreading From Jersey Shore
Basketball Rolls To Stop At Cheney’s Foot
Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars
U.S. Populace Lurches Methodically Through The Motions For Yet Another Day