I fucking love The Onion. Although most people seem to view it as America's Private Eye, to me, it's always seemed to be closer in spirit to the early works of Chris Morris, it's combination of utter ludicrousness, bitingly sharp satire, idiotic (but deceptively clever) wordplay and pinpoint piss-taking of (global to local) media tropes giving it the air of a print/online equivalent of The Day Today/On The Hour/Brass Eye*. I've gobbed so many drinks over my computer through reading an Onion headline at the wrong moment I've lost count**
And then they started Onion Radio, which is as good as you'd expect, and The Onion News Network, which is the funniest fucking thing I have seen in a while. News stories so stupid that they could rip spacetime treated with that special American News Reader grave seriousness, played totally and utterly straight, from O-Span's political coverage (Congress To Hide Nations' Porn From Future Generations...) to the sublime Today Now, a pinpoint demolition of daytime TV featuring the astonishingly mental Tracy Gill, who in one fantastic segment, interviews the author of her own biography with seemingly no awareness of the book's subject or content.
Anyways, here's three of my favourite clips. And try not to spit all over yr keyboards...
*Although they don't have CM's sheer fucking balls, I mean witness CM and Armando Ianucci's fantastically offensive post-9/11 special which came free with the Observer back in 2002. Can you really see the New York Times or any other big US broadsheet even contemplating printing that for the edification and enjoyment of it's readers? Can't see it myself.
**Note to Mr Jobs: Apple, I love yr computers and the way they don't crash mid-whateverI'mcuntingdoing all the fucking time, but I do feel that yr keyboards leave a little to be desired in the ability to withstand accidentally-sprayed alcoholic beverages. The only good thing I could say about my old PC is that I could throw the keyboard at a brick wall, accidentally use it as an ashtray, spill all sorts on it, and after a few hours drying upside down, the fucker would work. Just a thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment