The Onion’s Finest News Reporting

Volume One

edited by Scott Dikkers and Robert Siegel

Three Rivers Press, 176 pp., $16 (paper)

If you’re among those who missed The Onion‘s (http://www.theonion.com) formative years, you’re in luck. This new collection includes the funniest and most subversive news stories dating to the humor publication’s earliest years online. Some of the headlines are inevitably dated (“Christ returns to the NBA”; “Christopher Reeve placed atop Washington Monument”; “Lyndon Johnson Jr. sworn in as George editor”), but many more remain perennial favorites (“Perky ‘Canada’ has own government, laws”; “New remote control can be operated by remote”; “Borrowed CD slowly integrated into own collection”). Either way, the writing is sharp and the humor largely avoids heavy-handed commentary. Though some would say this joke has run its course, no one does fake news better.

This article appears in April 28 • 2000.

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