"God clearly did not mean for humans to eat chicken, bacon, and low-quality, gelatinous cheese at the same time." Nathan Rabin tackles KFC's Double Down combo.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey on Sep 15, 2009 - 113 comments

"The subjects vary... but there is an ideological approach in America that is distinguished by one common characteristic: words and deeds utterly lacking in the quality of mercy," by Charles Stross. Or, in other words, is using a minotaur to gore detainees a form of torture?
posted by geos on Aug 29, 2009 - 88 comments

In rather unsettling news, it appears that a chinese corporation bought one of America's most reliable news sources. For now, the editorial line doesn't seem to have changed, but will it last?
posted by vivelame on Jul 21, 2009 - 90 comments

Miss Universe goes to Guantánamo Bay!
posted by geos on Mar 31, 2009 - 42 comments

When life imitates Simpsons (i.e. skittlebrau), it's generally funny. With the Onion, not so much.
posted by 445supermag on Oct 28, 2007 - 17 comments

Amusing Ourselves to Depth: Is The Onion our most intelligent newspaper?: "While other newspapers desperately add gardening sections, ask readers to share their favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers for online question-and-answer sessions, The Onion has focused on reporting the news. The fake news, sure, but still the news. It doesn’t ask readers to post their comments at the end of stories, allow them to rate stories on a scale of one to five, or encourage citizen-satire. It makes no effort to convince readers that it really does understand their needs and exists only to serve them. The Onion’s journalists concentrate on writing stories and then getting them out there in a variety of formats, and this relatively old-fashioned approach to newspapering has been tremendously successful." The article is based on the premises of the late media critic Neil Postman, especially from his book "Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business."
posted by amyms on Oct 20, 2007 - 47 comments

U.S. Representative Benjamin Sinclair (R-Ohio) announces the Ocular Penetration Restriction Act of 2007 [NSFW].
posted by dhammond on Aug 23, 2007 - 62 comments

Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence. Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored.
posted by Afroblanco on Aug 5, 2006 - 60 comments

Canadian PM Stephen Harper eats babies. Or at least that's what many Toronto commuters read on their commutes Thursday, Friday, and Monday (they decided to leave the news up over the weekend). Another case for real news becoming more like The Onion?
posted by patr1ck on May 3, 2006 - 58 comments

"If ever a company needed a marketing department, it's New Choice, whose Original Flavor Round Crackers take the cake for stating the obvious. Points should be awarded for attempts to woo health-conscious consumers with facts about added DHA ("prevents heart attack, enhances eye sight"), but there's no two ways to look at Round Crackers: It's a badly executed Ritz rip-off." So sayeth the wits at the Onion A.V. Club, who scour the nation's dollar stores for food products to evaluate in their sporadic feature "Dining for a Dollar." Round crackers too boring? You might prefer Freakin' Nuts (tagline: Is it a chip? Is it a nut? Yes!), Thick Mints, or maybe just a handful of Balls. Their annual Cheap Toy Roundup is just as good; last year's featured products such as Preeminent Car ($1), Stretchy Body Bits ($1.19), and a DVD titled Clothes That Went to a Party ($2). Perhaps the all-time best, though, is the Mini Wooden Furniture: Table: a "plain, unadorned wooden table." ($1)
posted by anjamu on Mar 4, 2006 - 12 comments

I am stuck on The Borowitz Report and The Onion when it comes to favorite regularly updated satire on the Internet. I also enjoy the Slate cartoons, the JibJab animated cartoons, and Mark Fiore's flash. There is also the Specious Report, and the very meta SatireSearch. I am sure that I am still missing some good satire. MeFi'ers, where do you go for your satire?
posted by Adamchik on Feb 18, 2006 - 37 comments

White House orders The Onion to stop using Presidential Seal. Via The Trademark Blog. see also 18 USC §713
posted by anathema on Oct 24, 2005 - 66 comments

Draft legislation was published today that proposes that fifteen parcels in the National Park System be sold off for "purposes of commercial and residential development." Many of the parcels are in Alaska, but one is Theodore Roosevelt Island park, developed to honor one of our country's most recognizable environmentalists. It seems the Onion gives us the news from the future once again...Way to go, DCist for breaking the story!
posted by chinese_fashion on Sep 23, 2005 - 14 comments

How the Onion Got a Facelift , and in the process offered their full news archives from 1996 to the present available online for free. The Onion A.V. Club also finds a new home.
posted by Robot Johnny on Aug 31, 2005 - 58 comments

Final Installment of Frogger Poised to Sweep Oscars All the regular cast of characters return remain in this 2056 A.D. edition of Americorp.biz's Finest News Source. If you haven't visited lately, you can easily catch up on the last 51 years.
posted by hal9k on Jun 21, 2005 - 45 comments

The end of peace and prosperity. So, remember the Onion's parody of Bush that was published on January 18, 2001, "Bush: Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over"? Ha Ha, very funny. Three years later they've published an updated article complete with links. Oh baby, not so funny anymore... via Daily Kos
posted by sic on Sep 8, 2004 - 56 comments

I'm done with The Onion. I trusted The Onion and read their comedy for free for years -- but after hundreds of issues of unbelievable comedy The Onion is now a "pay site" that charges $30 a year for earlier access to each week's issue, plus awesome-sounding online news radio and special election coverage! I'm mad! Oh yeah!!!
posted by josh on May 19, 2004 - 39 comments

This would be funny... if it weren't so very, very sad.
posted by pizzasub on Apr 8, 2004 - 25 comments

Why Poor People are pretty much f*cked. No one can make reading about the growing gap between the rich and the poor as fun as the Onion; but other than describing the issue in humorous terms, the story makes it more accessible than your typical article in a newsmagazine.
posted by gregb1007 on Dec 9, 2003 - 33 comments

Take an online newspaper template, add some AP photos, and populate it with random LiveJournal entires and the end result is the LJ Times. Its like the real-life Onion, except I'm not sure if I should be amused or scared. Currently the Analysis section reads: I have a zit so big on my forehead that it is throbbing. Its updated every half-hour.
posted by skallas on Aug 24, 2003 - 12 comments

Sir Mix-A-Lot is a very smart cat. An Onion link, I suppose - but their AV Club interviews are missed more often than they should be. In this one, Sir Mix-A-Lot shows that he is a very thoughtful man, who has been handling the lot of a 'one-hit-wonder' very well, thank you.
posted by GriffX on Jul 17, 2003 - 12 comments

The Onion keeps getting funnier In this week's edition, Antonin Scalia bans the media from covering his acceptance of a free-speech award, and also tells Americans "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." Haw-haw! Get it? Oh, wait a second...
posted by soyjoy on Mar 19, 2003 - 23 comments

There's been a lot of smack-talking in here lately. The Onion AV Club runs with that concept and asks various celebrities, "Who could you take in a fight?". So who could you take in a fight?
posted by patrickje on Feb 13, 2003 - 56 comments

Does the eBay fun ever stop? Apparently not. Sometimes, auctions like these are even more hilarious than The Onion. Sometimes.
posted by cinematique on Jan 29, 2003 - 26 comments

A Mad Parody Of The Onion Well, if this isn't Meta, I don't know what is. Certainly, we all know about The Onion (and, indeed, our consensus is that we don't post Onion links here). The fine fellows at MAD magazine have hoisted the Area Men by their own petard. I hate to say it, 'cuz I think The Onion is often quite funny, but they've got it nailed. (via Heath Row's Media Diet)
posted by briank on Nov 13, 2002 - 58 comments

SPPLAT Attack!--the largest ever paintball game. Tomorrow hundreds of Federation paintballers will take the field for eight hours of glory against Klingon hordes and Borg legions outside of Chicago (details) led by the inimitable Cap'n James T. Kirk himself! (Onion interview :) "If the weather holds, I will set sail with this 70-pound lawn mower engine on my back, run like hell, float the parasail, gain flying speed and fly into the venue," wow :)
posted by kliuless on Aug 30, 2002 - 4 comments

Subtleties of American Satire Lost on the Chinese. Bejing's most popular newspaper runs an article from The Onion as fact.
posted by crunchland on Jun 7, 2002 - 56 comments

The Onion's lead story this week is about as succinct an indictment of the drug war as you can get. "If you are paying taxes and keeping your yard tidy, we're not going to hassle you if you come home from a hard day of work and want to enjoy a little pot or blow. But if, on the other hand, you're one of these lazy, shiftless types hanging out on the street all day looking for your next high, we're coming after you."
posted by McBain on Mar 26, 2002 - 18 comments

Modern Humorist's "Rough Draft: Pop Culture the Way it Almost Was" is finally available. A few samples are here. And while I like the Modern Humorist and enjoyed their first book I'm partial to The Onion's "Our Dumb Century" as the funniest.book.ever. As I brace for the sarcastic responses, what do you think is the funniest book ever written?
posted by Sinner on Oct 22, 2001 - 60 comments

Someone (in this case, Steven Zeitchik of the [What's Left of] Online Journalism Review) finally has the guts to say it: The post-911 Onion isn't funny. It's preachy, obvious, desperate to give off the impression that it's still ironic without actually being so ... but not funny. Unfortunately, it doesn't delve into the intriguing psychological question of why so many were so eager to laud its return when it's never really returned at all, but hey, it's not the Online Psychology Review, now is it?
posted by aaron on Oct 22, 2001 - 61 comments

Plagiarism in this week's Onion! Their story "NBC To Add Dateline: Flursday" is a direct ripoff of the "Dateline: Katilsday" joke from Family Guy Episode 14, where Lois explains "Oh, NBC invented another day so they could air another episode of Dateline." (Here's the audio file.)
posted by geegaw on Oct 18, 2001 - 19 comments

Yes, it's an Onion link, but with lines like "It is therefore urgent," Rumsfeld continued, "that all Americans be quiet, stop asking questions, accept the orders of authorities, and let us get on with the important work of defending liberty, so that America can continue to be a beacon of freedom to all the world.", they really nail the problem with the prevailing attitude (one that comes up in many MeFi threads as well). Does anyone else think Fleischer is especially creepy in this regard? And how do you attempt to instill reason into the debates around you? Any luck so far?
posted by cps on Oct 11, 2001 - 17 comments

Never post another Onion link again! Because now you can be certain we've all seen it, and others like it. Gagpipe is a satire and humor headline aggregator. Includes American, British, Australian, Canadian and French sites. Link stolen from Need To Know.
posted by Mo Nickels on Sep 28, 2001 - 11 comments

the ONION to the rescue! America's most trusted insightful ironists seem to have risen to the challenge. Dinty Moore beef stew condemns terrorism.
posted by Zurishaddai on Sep 25, 2001 - 89 comments

Onion saving new jokes for another day The Onion's on hold for a bit. An interesting quote from one of the writers- "'The age of irony is over." Does anyone agree?
posted by ice_cream_motor on Sep 17, 2001 - 47 comments

The Onion: The Movie? In an internal memo posted to Fucked Company this morning, The Onion's Publisher/President Peter Haise (allegedly) says they're working on a sketch comedy movie with David Zucker. Considering Zucker's filmography, this could be really, really great, or really, really terrible.
posted by waxpancake on Aug 27, 2001 - 20 comments

Legalization?!? Try "zero tolerance" taken to a whole new level

"Older Americans tend to give in to peer pressure," Lakewood said. "They just do what their doctor tells them because they want to 'be cool' or 'live,' and win their doctor's approval.

In my own defense, I got this via email rather than directly from the source, but I was four paragraphs in before the light went on. Is there any idea so unbelievable that you immediately know Bush wouldn't support it?
posted by ToasterKing on Aug 24, 2001 - 15 comments

"Hello. I'm Christopher Walken. If my video, Weapon of Choice, featuring the Fat Boy Slims, does not take at least seven of the nine moon men, I will personally journey to each of the voters' homes and I will ask them to explain themselves. Then I will slice off extremities until they suffer as I will suffer if my dance moves are thus summarily dismissed." Pause. "I could really go for a hot dog."
posted by solistrato on Jul 24, 2001 - 21 comments

The Onion returns! Now, if only they'll print more Smoove B...
posted by solistrato on Jul 17, 2001 - 20 comments

I wish I lived in Europe, if only for the month-long summer vacations people get on the continent. But I'm here at work in the U.S., surfing the net, only to find two of my favorite sites, The Onion and Satire Wire, are taking siestas at the same time. I wish I could get July off.
posted by msacheson on Jul 10, 2001 - 21 comments

Our Dumb Cinema : Miramax Films signed the popular satirical newspaper writers for The Onion, promising to purchase some undisclosed number of screenplays from Onion writers. But what will they write?
posted by tallman on Jun 25, 2001 - 41 comments

Don't you just love Spring in a cold climate? (Courtesy of The Onion and Dack.com)
posted by leafy on Apr 19, 2001 - 10 comments

The Onion joins the AYBABTU bandwagon with this article:

Congress Adds 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' Amendment To Bankruptcy Bill
WASHINGTON, DC-- Seeking to increase fiscal accountability among citizens who have no chance to survive make their time, the House of Representatives added an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" amendment Monday to H.R. 333, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2001. "What you say!!!" shouted the bill's sponsor, Rep. George Gekas (R-PA), following the amendment's approval. "This bill will not only make debt-ridden Americans more accountable, but it has the added benefit of taking off every 'zig' for great justice." Opponents of the amendment protested that it would potentially set up U.S. the bomb.
posted by Maxor on Mar 21, 2001 - 10 comments

Salon is not known for their satire, but this "Bushonics"article gives the Onion a run for its money. Or at least, I hope it's satirical: "Among the military's top brass, the dialect is considered to be the unofficial language of the Pentagon."
posted by bison on Mar 19, 2001 - 27 comments

This is, of course, intended as humor, albeit rather coarse humor, but it's all too depressingly accurate. Why does customer service suck so badly these days? [Spotted at Joel on Software, whom I haven't disagreed with much lately... probably because he hasn't said much lately. :-)]
posted by baylink on Jan 24, 2001 - 58 comments

This would be funnier if it wasn't so close to the truth. And I thought the Onion made up their fake news.
posted by norm on Dec 6, 2000 - 15 comments

Mayhem 2000. Is this the best edition of The Onion ever?
posted by lescour on Nov 15, 2000 - 14 comments

Viva El Presidente! I wanted to install myself as El Presidente in a bloody coup. Guess i'm too late.
posted by jbelshaw on Nov 15, 2000 - 2 comments

The Onion, as usual. 'Nuff said.
posted by highindustrial on Nov 7, 2000 - 5 comments

What's The Bunion? It's a parody of The Onion. That's right, a parody of a parody. Sheesh! Funny, though.
posted by miamirelative on Sep 29, 2000 - 7 comments