The Onion on Heller

Nick Gillespie | June 30, 2008

"Our most intelligent newspaper" has once again spoofed the names of reason staffers in its "American Voices" survey section. Among the reactions, a customs agent named "Kari Welch" says, "'Great! Now I can finally shoot the Statue of Freedom off the top of the Capitol building. Goddamned allegorical figure.'"

More here.

Comments

|6.30.08 @ 2:32PM|#

Congrats to "reason" "First in Guns" magazine for its big win! And, hey, I love the "hot Asian chicks" ads. Nothing but class all the way! I like 'em about 47 kg myself.

|6.30.08 @ 2:32PM|#

You realize, of course, that this means war.

|6.30.08 @ 2:36PM|#

It's not clear why, when the Onion and reason find themselves on the opposite side of most issues, the gun issue is where the Onion gets nasty.

Naga Sadow|6.30.08 @ 2:38PM|#

If I recall my Family Guy quotes correctly: "A chicken in every pot, and a cap in every ass"!

Naga Sadow|6.30.08 @ 2:42PM|#

Will the Reason staff engage in a petty pranks to give The Onion's staff their comeupance?

|6.30.08 @ 2:43PM|#

The abysmal failure of the Onion movie is prank enough.

dhex|6.30.08 @ 2:44PM|#

jesus yeah. just watch the trailer and pretend you saw the movie.

Guy Montag|6.30.08 @ 2:45PM|#

For some reason there were no print copies of The Onion in any of the distribution boxes around here this weekend.

Anti-gun-freedom forces stealing them?

Pro-gun-freedom forces stealing them?

Insane attempt to prevent reason staff from discovering this development over the weekend?

I report, you decide.

|6.30.08 @ 2:46PM|#

What happened to The Onion, anyway? Used to be much more consistently funny. I hardly ever read it any more.

|6.30.08 @ 2:48PM|#

I used to love their extraordinarily mean movie reviews, but they went soft.

"I remember when you used to be cool."

|6.30.08 @ 2:49PM|#

This is nasty? This is war? The last name thing?

I was going to write a snarky post about somebody managing to get offended, but decided it would be unfair.

|6.30.08 @ 2:50PM|#

Pro Lib, I think there are just so many times the same joke can be funny.

If we'd never seen the Onion before, I'll bet the first five issues of 2008 would be just as funny as the first five issues we ever read.

Guy Montag|6.30.08 @ 2:51PM|#

When they have a picture of Don Prudhomme and call him 'Don Flynn', then they will have gone too far.

|6.30.08 @ 2:55PM|#

joe,

Perhaps. I think it's more attributable to a drop in quality, though.

Taktix&#174|6.30.08 @ 3:00PM|#

jesus yeah. just watch the trailer and pretend you saw the movie.

I simply observed the DVD on the shelf at Blockbuster and had my fill...

|6.30.08 @ 3:05PM|#

They really need to get rid of the editorial cartoonist. The rest of the "newspaper" is at least gentler, but the editorial cartoons are just dripping with contempt

|6.30.08 @ 3:06PM|#

"What happened to The Onion, anyway? Used to be much more consistently funny. I hardly ever read it any more."

Some time in the late 1990s the world moved beyond parody. Reality has gotten so strange that you just can't make fun of it effectively anymore.

|6.30.08 @ 3:07PM|#

Hey, fellows. Won't someone be a sport and post the humorous jibes and monikers?

Guy Montag|6.30.08 @ 3:08PM|#

Actually, the funniest I ever laughed at The Onion at their staff's appearance in The Aristrocrats.

Guy Montag|6.30.08 @ 3:09PM|#

CB,

I wear my moniker over my eye, for all to see, while the top hat is on my head and I am lighting cigars with money.

|6.30.08 @ 3:09PM|#

Perhaps. I think it's more attributable to a drop in quality, though.

I thought the spoofs were funny.

Neil Armstrong|6.30.08 @ 3:16PM|#

The Onion hasn't been funny since I fucking walked on the fucking moon. Holy shit! I walked on the fucking moon!

|6.30.08 @ 3:21PM|#

Guy Montag:

While your top hat is on your head? Where else would you wear it? I assume on your posterior, as, judging from your lack of sophistication, you are most certainly a vagrant. Who still wears top hats, now that fedoras are all the rage? Go soil your hat.

thoreau|6.30.08 @ 3:23PM|#

The thing is, the funniest part of most Onion articles is and always has been the title and the first few sentences. Most trail off after that. We remember the best ones from the past, while forgetting that for every "Tony's Law Requires Marijuana Offenders to Notify Neighbors That They Know Where to Score Weed" there's a bunch of crap.

thoreau|6.30.08 @ 3:27PM|#

BTW, there's a lot of libertarian-friendly stuff in the Onion.

robc|6.30.08 @ 3:27PM|#

"Smells Like Splattered Brains" was such a good joke that they didnt even write an article to go with it. I nearly died from laughing over that one.

|6.30.08 @ 3:37PM|#

Fine Onion article that's funny all the way through.

I think a lot of it has to do with them parodying news style writing. News stories front-load articles, so they do too.

|6.30.08 @ 3:47PM|#

This is a real classic

|6.30.08 @ 3:51PM|#

My favorite headline was always "Head Dead-Head Dead".

|6.30.08 @ 3:53PM|#

I think a lot of the sports articles are pretty funny. I got a kick out of this one:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/report_cheap_chinese_nba

|6.30.08 @ 3:56PM|#

For some reason there were no print copies of The Onion in any of the distribution boxes around here this weekend.

I found a copy in Crystal City; it was the gay pride issue.** So, I suspect that one of the squares decided to take matters into his own hands.

**No idea if it was ironic or not. Didn't get the chance to read it.

|6.30.08 @ 4:00PM|#

I always thought the Onion was at its best when they are parodying college students and university life. I will never forget a classic article to the effect of "roomates' experiment with socialism fails after everyone refuses to cleanup afterthemselves or do anything beyond lay around and talk leftist politics".

|6.30.08 @ 4:01PM|#

I think you're supposed to be honored when they make fun of you, not offended.

thoreau|6.30.08 @ 4:02PM|#

John-

Don't forget "Marxist Student Has Capitalist Parents."

|6.30.08 @ 4:12PM|#

Another classic Thoreau. The Onion really is at its best in those kinds of articles. They are also timeless. College kids never change. The ones from the 80s are just as funny and true now as they were then.

|6.30.08 @ 4:15PM|#

Or the one about the goth/lesbian/Marxist college student who discovers she's preppy after meeting her father's business partners's son?

|6.30.08 @ 4:24PM|#

They really need to get rid of the editorial cartoonist. The rest of the "newspaper" is at least gentler, but the editorial cartoons are just dripping with contempt

That's what I love about it! The irony. The cartoonist is so bitter that anything he does precludes any sort of real humor.

thoreau|6.30.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Honestly, the Onion issue right after 9/11 was pretty good.

"A shattered nation longs to care about stupid bullshit again" with quotes from people who wish that the most important news items were shark attacks and Gary Condit and that kid who was too old for Little League and Tom Cruise.

|6.30.08 @ 4:35PM|#

That and the article about the 9-11 highjackers being shocked that they went to hell. The article was complete with a spokesman for hell saying that while most people are shocked to be there, Mahamad Atta was more shocked than most.

|6.30.08 @ 4:40PM|#

I liked the "Breaking News" logo they put together for that issue:

Twin Towers, Flames, Crosshairs, and the caption: Holy Fucking Shit

Marcvs|6.30.08 @ 4:43PM|#

I've never thought their articles were especially funny, but their new video section has been pretty good.

cgee|6.30.08 @ 4:45PM|#

Twice in one month? DRINK!

Btw, where is Paulina Gillespie's leather jacket?

|6.30.08 @ 4:46PM|#

You know, all this 9/11 talk has me all pissed off again. Why isn't Osama's head on a pike at the WTC site? Did I miss something? Or, if that's too uncivilized, why isn't he in a cage hanging from the WTC site?

Disclosure: I actually typed "Obama" the first time I wrote this. I don't know what that means. Guess I dislike his candidacy more than I thought.

|6.30.08 @ 5:06PM|#

I will never forget a classic article to the effect of "roomates' experiment with socialism fails after everyone refuses to cleanup afterthemselves or do anything beyond lay around and talk leftist politics".

That would be Marxists' Apartment A Microcosm Of Why Marxism Doesn't Work

|6.30.08 @ 5:40PM|#

Disclosure: I actually typed "Obama" the first time I wrote this. I don't know what that means. Guess I dislike his candidacy more than I thought.

Or simply their names are similar and they are both in the news.

|6.30.08 @ 5:43PM|#

Gosh, in that case, I hope I don't accidentally vote for Osama bin Laden. Or, though with less horror, for Barry Obama.

|6.30.08 @ 6:11PM|#

Could be because Obama is also a Muslim, and a prostrate atheist Jew.

jtuf|6.30.08 @ 7:50PM|#

Wait a second, a reason staffer wouldn't vandalize.

|7.1.08 @ 12:30AM|#

Guy Montag wrote: "For some reason there were no print copies of The Onion in any of the distribution boxes around here this weekend."

I was thinking that myself, but then I looked at a newsrack more closely and saw that it was there, they just re-styled their entire front page for a gay pride issue (which mostly consisted of reprints of old gay-related articles).

|7.1.08 @ 5:01AM|#

lol

Guy Montag|7.1.08 @ 8:59AM|#

Jack,

Unless the restyling is a front page that looks just like an empty box, with random variations for different boxes, then I think something else happened in Crystal City.

|7.1.08 @ 9:29AM|#

Unless the restyling is a front page that looks just like an empty box, with random variations for different boxes, then I think something else happened in Crystal City.

Huh? I told you, they had copies there. And in West Falls Church, too. Makes me more inclined to think that someone around your neck of the woods didn't like the idea of so much gayness in their neighborhood.

|7.1.08 @ 9:45AM|#

I thought the spoofs were homages to the Reason staff. YMMV.

My favorite Onion headline/article was Lilith Fair Performers, Attendees Achieve Largest-Ever Synchronized Ovulation.

|7.1.08 @ 11:19AM|#

Is D.C. delaying compliance with Heller? Councilman Phil Mendelson is introducing legislation calling for a 'waiting period' before anyone can keep a handgun in their home.

Guy Montag|7.1.08 @ 11:59AM|#

Is D.C. delaying compliance with Heller? Councilman Phil Mendelson is introducing legislation calling for a 'waiting period' before anyone can keep a handgun in their home.

We will not know for sure (but yes is a good guess answer) until after the appeals court issues its injunction to the city, or they send it down to the lower court to issue guidance to the city.

Guy Montag|7.1.08 @ 12:02PM|#

Huh? I told you, they had copies there. And in West Falls Church, too. Makes me more inclined to think that someone around your neck of the woods didn't like the idea of so much gayness in their neighborhood.

Well, Freddie's is more than enough of that here, plus two stage theaters, plus a huge PBS office . . .

But my real first guess is that somehow a delivery was missed that extended from 23rd ST S. to Pentagon Row.

|7.1.08 @ 5:04PM|#

Pro Libertate and joe

I find The Onion less funny now that I see the same sort of headlines in the "real" news media. Only for true stories.

Is D.C. delaying compliance with Heller? Councilman Phil Mendelson is introducing legislation calling for a 'waiting period' before anyone can keep a handgun in their home.

We will not know for sure (but yes is a good guess answer) until after the appeals court issues its injunction to the city, or they send it down to the lower court to issue guidance to the city.

Heard the DC police chief on NPR this morning say that they will pretty much just extend the registration system for long guns with the same restrictions. So handgun ownership in DC will be limited to revolvers since semiautomatic long guns are already illegal and that prohibition will extend to handguns if the powers that be get their wish.

She also managed to say something about automatic weapons without mentioning that they are already effectively illegal for most ordinary gun buyers in the entire country. But no need to let truth get in the way of the scary legends, is there?