The Onion: 20 Years Later

The Onion: 20 Years Later | James daSilva | Substack A weekly review of The Onion from exactly 20 years ago to laugh, see what holds up and revisit cultural references we forgot about. Click to read The Onion: 20 Years Later, by James daSilva, a…

5. Ask people to sign up, even when you don’t want to! Like this: Please sign up for my newsletter! onion20.substack.com

A few things I’ve learned from writing over 250 reviews of The Onion’s print newspaper:

1. Write. Hit the deadline. Keep writing.
2. Plan out your structure well so when you inevitably deviate, it's not the end of the world.
3. Figure out why you enjoy it, and keep that close.

Flour Sack Still Dealing With Trauma Of Being Raised By Single Teenage Mother CLEVELAND—Revealing a vulnerable side while sharing the traumatic experience with a therapist, a 5-pound sack of flour confirmed Thursday that it was still processing the lasting emotional fallout of…

Today’s reminder that The Onion still does some weird, delightful “Mad Libs” shit where they take a normal scenario, replace one word, and make it ridiculous:

theonion.com/flour-sack-s...

20 years ago in @TheOnion.com, a male novelist tried to write women.

Plus, The Onion discusses terrorism and high school dropouts, PepsiCo tries to connect with youths, and lesser-known "Get Smart" agents.

Let's revisit the issue of Aug. 3, 2005, together!
onion20.substack.com/p/2005-the-o...

Man Knows Exactly Which Asshole Got Him Sick

Man Knows Exactly Which Asshole Got Him Sick theonion.com/man-kno...

20 years ago in @TheOnion.com, a male novelist tried to write women.

Plus, The Onion discusses terrorism and high school dropouts, PepsiCo tries to connect with youths, and lesser-known "Get Smart" agents.

Let's revisit the issue of Aug. 3, 2005, together!
onion20.substack.com/p/2005-the-o...

What did print advertisements look like 20 years ago? Here are some examples from @TheOnion.com from July 27, 2005:

1. A cigarette ad!
2. Gen Con, which continues to this day
3. Pabst Blue Ribbon and Ragstock
4. A bunch of ads, including Onion radioman Doyle Redland

20 years ago, The Onion featured a cat general and Tom Cruise Plus, The Onion comments on Burger King, Sandra Day O'Conner, the London bombings, Joe Scarborough and Jean Teasdale getting drunk

20 years ago, The Onion featured a cat general and Tom Cruise
open.substack.com/pub/onion20/...

One of the classic Onion headlines from this issue is "War On String May Be Unwinnable, Says Cat General."

I wrote much of this newsletter from my mom's house, where she has that headline as a refrigerator magnet.

20 years ago, @TheOnion.com featured a cat general and Tom Cruise.

Plus, The Onion comments on Burger King, Sandra Day O'Conner, the London bombings, Joe Scarborough, Jean Teasdale getting drunk and more.

tinyurl.com/p858zjun

As a Maryland resident whose uncle went to school with then-Gov. Ehrlich, I was delighted to revisit this 2003 issue of @TheOnion.com in which Maryland ceases to exist.

Plus, stuff about the Olsen siblings, Iraq, the Secretary of Transportation and much more.

onion20.substack.com/p/20-years-a...

23 years ago, @TheOnion.com redesigned its website and wrote about Vice President Cheney getting busted for having a 2nd job.

Check out this look back at The Onion from July 17, 2002!
onion20.substack.com/p/20-years-a... #theonion #satire

20 years ago in @theonion.com, Congress got a new puppy!

Let's look back at the print issue from July 20, 2005.
open.substack.com/pub/onion20/...

Those book collections are so good! Almost an overwhelming number of jokes, in the best possible way

The campaign page, sitting at $13642

THIS IS IT! In just a few days, the campaign for Who's A Good Boy? comes to a close! If we hit our flex goal of $15,000 in time, we’ll be adding a ten card bonus pack to every copy of the game!

CAMPAIGN HERE: www.kickstarter.com/projects/its...

I agonized so much that I didn't even catch my typo above!

Help me figure out the future of The Onion: 20 Years Later! I'm considering expanding this newsletter, but I need your thoughts.

I'm cautiously asking folks to financially support my Onion newsletter, although all content will remain free.

I'm hoping to dig even deeper into the publications history, and that takes time!

Anyways, I agonized over this but am just doing it. We'll see!
open.substack.com/pub/onion20/...

20 years ago, The Onion mocked Bill Maher The Onion discusses obesity, the serial killer serial killer, The Hulk asking for a sequel and ringtones. Plus, random references to James Comey and Neil Gaiman.

21 years ago this week, The Onion gave us the classic article “Bill Maher Spends All Night Arguing With Republican Hooker,” which included some … interesting photoshopping of Maher’s real-life ex-girlfriend.

All this and much more in my review from 2024.

onion20.substack.com/p/20-years-a...

I was not alive when "Barney Miller" was on the air, but it's one of my mom's favorites and thus I've seen almost the entire run multiple times.

I love this, even if my snap reaction was thinking it was Jack Soo from "Barney Miller," not Trump.

I work as an elder and hospice caregiver, which I am oddly passionate about. I can love on them shamelessly and no one complains about my codependence. It's a win-win situation. Many of my caregiving colleagues complain about the repetitive questions and, sometimes reactions, of the elderly, especially when those patients happen to read the newspaper, especially with the current downward spiral of our country — as if these people haven't lived through enough horror... I love my dementia peeps, but sometimes wonder if there's a Guinness Book World Record for how many times an hour a dementia patient can repeat the same question — it's got to be in the hundreds. At least with small children, they ask different questions. Dementia patients will get stuck on one short question and ask it until you can interrupt their train(carousel) of thought and successfully redirect their attention. That carousel is pretty manic sometimes. A couple days ago, I picked up my mail from the post office and drove over to the nursing home to take (let's call her "Miss Daisy") Miss Daisy out for a drive. Before we took off on our road trip, to the end of The Road and back, in our landlocked little town (Juneau, Alaska), I set my copy of The Onion down in front of her. Over our two-hour excursion, tiny Miss Daisy read that front page at least a dozen times and each time she would snicker, giggle, and guffaw, then put it down on the dash board and, a minute later, discover it anew. I think it was the best afternoon of my life. We don't often hear them laugh and when they do, it's the sweetest thing you've ever heard. ... Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the really important work all of you do. You make the world a better place.

I got permission to share this, and I'm extremely grateful for that.

The Onion got this letter from one of our subscribers in Alaska. She works with dementia patients and decided to leave a copy in the car for each one.

This email made my year. Read it and you'll see what I mean. People are good.

20 years ago, @TheOnion.com turned Us Weekly into Harper's magazine — cribbing off another parodist's joke!

The Onion also mocks the Catholic Church, John Bolton, iPods and NASCAR.

Plus, Jackie Harvey and Don Turnbee show up.

onion20.substack.com/p/20-years-a...

20 years ago, The Onion combined climate change fears with Vatican purity:

"Vatican scientists believe the increase in emissions contributes to the Hothouse Effect, a steady rise in the overall temperature of the average Catholic male’s genitals."

open.substack.com/pub/onion20/...

Hardcore Weezer Fan Hates Everything Band Has Released Since Forming

Hardcore Weezer Fan Hates Everything Band Has Released Since Forming
theonion.com/hardcor...

At left is The Onion’s take on Us Weekly as a "serious" magazine. At right is a version earlier in 2005 by Andrew Hearst.

20 years ago, @TheOnion.com turned Us Weekly into Harper's magazine — cribbing off another parodist's joke!

The Onion also mocks the Catholic Church, John Bolton, iPods and NASCAR.

Plus, Jackie Harvey and Don Turnbee show up.

onion20.substack.com/p/20-years-a...

Bush Bravely Leads 3rd Infantry Into Battle IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER—As the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division began its ground assault on Iraq Monday, President Bush marched alongside the front-line soldiers, bravely putting his own life on the line ...

I thought the Congress message was somewhat reminiscent of how The Onion reacted to the Iraq invasion by "praising" Bush for leading a division into battle.

Mocking praise is less common (and harder, IMO) than direct attacks, and having both in the mix is good!
theonion.com/bush-bravely...

It’s also fun to do it in the in the New York Times, since their editorial section has advocated for some questionable things over the decades. Yeah, I mean, we’re right back in 2003. The timing is crazy in terms of the the the Iran bombing — I almost called it Iraq, because the language and the op-eds are the same as when I was growing up. I read a David Shields book called War Is Beautiful, it’s a collection of New York Times photos of Iraq and Afghanistan where they made war look like this beautiful Disneyfied fireworks display, and that’s not what it is. War is fucking brutal and horrible and evil. And it does feel like we’re back in this mode where completely disconnected elites are killing people for sadomasochistic enjoyment. I grew up with this, and so did The Onion. This is where The Onion is at its at its best, when they are fully lined up against what is very clearly “The Man,” and the machine is in full swing, from cable news to the Times op-ed page to the government itself, with every Republican in Congress and some Democrats [embracing] the idea that if we just annihilate some of these people, there will be no consequences. We’ve been through this before. During the Iraq War, The Onion was one of the only places to stand up against it. It was just, like, The Onion and the fucking Dixie Chicks, and now we’re right back in that moment. Thankfully, I think more people can smell that this reeks and are not buying the party line of lobbyists that appear in the mainstream news saying that this will end all of our problems in the Middle East. We’re just doing what we did 20 years ago.

The Onion is also at its best when it's directly opposite The Machine, especially when the The Machine thinks it's impermeable and has buy-in from cable news, op-ed pages, and other people who confuse bloodlust with objectivity.

Which is, unfortunately, now.

www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

I've never replied to someone online with simply "tu stultus es," but they doubled down by calling me stupid, so ... it felt like the right time

Someone on this Instagram post is insisting @TheOnion.com apologize for using AI because, in their words, “there is no photo of Taylor OR Travis to edit.”

On the right is the Getty Images photo this is based on.

Imagine assuming there are no photos of TAYLOR SWIFT for a designer to work with