# National Lampoon, Spy magazine; Is The Onion next? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151 "2003-01-02T04:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/21 "2003-01-04T00:05:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MsRobyn \* > \*\*One of Spy’s biggest problems, IMO, was that it was usually too smart for its own good. When I could find it (not an easy task in Norfolk, Virginia), it was like reading pages of in-jokes. \*\* Not just in-jokes, but in-jokes that you had to be an up-and-coming young, hip, with-it Manhattanite to understand. I used to enjoy reading it, too, but the attitude of the magazine was similar to that of the infamous “A New Yorker’s View of the World” poster. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/22 "2003-01-04T00:09:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 21Twelve \* > \*\*Maybe The Onion can help themselves by ditching the newspaper they print. I don’t know anybody that reads it and the one time I flipped through it, I was dismayed to find out that its pretty much exactly the same as the website, only with a bunch of annoying ads for small stores in and around the area of the University of Wisconsin. \*\* There’s a few places where The Onion can be found for free in curbside newspaper boxes, right alongside the local Thursday freesheet and the new home guides. In Denver, the paper Onion was free, and it contained ads for businesses in the Boulder area. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/23 "2003-01-04T00:13:55Z")
My favorite: “Area Man Dies After Short, Cowardly Battle With Cancer.” ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/24 "2003-01-04T00:21:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by partly\_warmer \* > **Definitely agree that _Punch_ was trying some crazy things toward the end. Pages largely taken up with sketches that took two minutes for someone with marginal talent to draw. But the graphs of pop music, etc. using time along the X-axis, and things like “Grave (Unacceptable level of seriousness), Sober, Silly, Daft, Asinine” along the Y-axis were hysterical. So some of their new ideas were good.** Yes, _Punch_ had good points to it even near the end. Why, I even liked their “Photo-Synthesis” series, which were after all political cartoons made by somebody too lazy to draw. I was thinking about this and I remembered another part of the downfall of Punch. Near the end, it seemed like every “Letter to the Editor,” comedy submission, etc. was made by someone outside of England. It appeared that no-one in England was actually reading Punch–that might not have been the truth, natch, but that was the perception. Furthermore, their humour, while unfailingly Anglophilic, sometimes was more geared to foreigners than Englishmen. The publishers didn’t help things by slashing the foreign subscription rates to a level even I could afford, while the domestic rates looked high to me. Perhaps they just lost their way with the English population. A couple of years later, when I was living in England full-time, I mentioned to someone that Punch was no longer printing, and she said, “Yes, they stopped making that magazine in the sixties.” ---
**Author:** ![raisinbread](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8491ac/32.png) [@raisinbread](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raisinbread)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/25 "2003-01-04T00:37:11Z")
The Onion is already boring and tired like National Lampoon. How many times can they do “Area Man Engages in Mundane Act”. The Daily Show is much better, even though their news is much slower. It’s sad to be watching a new episode and hear Jon Stewart reading stories that I read about on the internet one week ago. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/26 "2003-01-04T05:03:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Heh. It’s too bad their archives don’t keep **all** of their articles. My favorite by-gone headline was “Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court _Rules!_”. \*\* Yeah! With all the archives and reprints, I still have never seen “Ask the Dungeonmaster” reprinted anywhere. Second best thing _The Onion_ ever wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/27 "2003-01-04T05:55:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Heh. It’s too bad their archives don’t keep **all** of their articles. My favorite by-gone headline was “Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court _Rules!_”. \*\* Preach it, Brother. A while back, I made a concerted effort to find “Congress Revises Food-Crime Equivilency Ratings”. No dice. I’d love to read that one again… ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/28 "2003-01-04T17:35:48Z")
The Onion has had some true classics, but I tire of stories that rely entirely on shock value (good satire isn’t necessarily bitter and cruel) or the above mentioned “Area Man Does Something Mundane” shtick. Another weakness is that they’re sometimes saddled with the burden of having to write stories that can’t possibly be funnier than the headline alone. (Ironically, the more hilarious the headline, the less there is to say in the story!) Kind of like people who tell a funny joke and then ruin it by explaining the punchline. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/29 "2003-01-04T23:11:18Z")
Check out [www.nationallampoon.com](http://www.nationallampoon.com) ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/30 "2003-01-04T23:14:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Winston Bongo \* > \*\*Another weakness is that they’re sometimes saddled with the burden of having to write stories that can’t possibly be funnier than the headline alone. (Ironically, the more hilarious the headline, the less there is to say in the story!) Kind of like people who tell a funny joke and then ruin it by explaining the punchline. \*\* Example: _ **Do You Want a Piece of Me?** _ by A Pie ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2003, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151/31 "2003-01-05T03:24:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Revtim \* > \*\*“Cracked” lives! > [http://www.crackedmag.com/home.htm](http://www.crackedmag.com/home.htm) \*\* Is that all they have, a web site? I haven’t seen an actual Cracked Magazine on the news stands for years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-lampoon-spy-magazine-is-the-onion-next/146151.md?page=1)