The Onion hits up the AltCom Fest

The Onion hits up the AltCom Fest - May 7, 2009

The thing I like about the printed paper is you have to search for all the jokes because they’re all tucked away. I specifically remember buying an Onion off of a homeless person in Chicago, even though they’re totally free, I didn’t know that, but I was 12. I bought one for $5 because I wanted one so bad.
-Ganz on the wonder of the printed page, and being ripped off for it

INTERVIEW. The most trusted name in news that can’t be trusted, The Onion is a weekly paper that prides itself on print journalism parody. With humorous headlines and satirical, scripted stories written in a dry journalistic style, The Onion provides its audience with a funny and fictional departure from the daily gloom and doom realities of those other papers. Founded in Madison, Wisconsin in 1988, the Onion is now published in 10 cities and has expanded their media empire to include online TV and radio channels, as well as a collection of books like “Our Dumb World,” which provides a hysterical, yet educational look at the history of every country. The Onion’s Associate Editor, Megan Ganz, was nice enough to give us a glimpse into The Onion empire, and tell us how a newspaper can get booked at a comedy show.

How does a newspaper perform at a comedy festival? What will The Onion be doing while onstage?
I guess you could say we’re having a panel. We’re doing a multimedia panel talking about the Onion as a whole and talking about our web videos, our radio news and a history of the Onion and showing outtakes and probably a Q and A.

How often does The Onion deliver an out-of-paper experience?
[Laughs] You know, not that often. A lot of us don’t like leaving our houses that much. It’s funny because the event was originally billed as “The Onion Live.” And we knew they had to take that down, because “The Onion Live” would be the 10 of us in a back room eating Snickers being quiet and awkward. We do it by request. Maybe five times a year. We try to keep it small. We don’t like putting a face to the newspaper so much. Plus the faces are… well; let’s just say you all should be happy we don’t put a face to the paper.

Boston is filled with some extremely grumpy people. Has The Onion considered doing a Boston edition of the paper?
Yeah, I think it’s very much considered. I think it’s on the table as one of the next places we’d like to go. I know Boston is on a very short list. It seems like a place that’s very receptive to that kind of humor.

Given the recent threats of closure of our city’s paper of record, how is The Onion faring in these tough print times?
We just found out from our headquarters in Chicago, I believe that currently we’re the only newspaper in Chicago that isn’t bankrupt.

The Onion is the only financially solvent newspaper in Chicago? That’s amazing.
I think in times like these people demand fake news. Times are bad and there’s trouble around every corner, people just want made up scenarios.

The Onion seems to have moved to more educational, yet still humorous things, like “Our Dumb World.” Is that part of the evolution of The Onion?
I think that the paper has always been pitching to a more educated demographic, but I think a book like that doesn’t come from education, but from expanding the empire of The Onion. There’s something about The Onion and completist things. Like 'Let’s do all of time, or all countries.' There’s a joke around the office that we’re going to do a physics textbook. The kind of people who pick up a newspaper and read a dry news parody tend to go toward smart, intelligent stuff. Not like that’s all we do. Last issue we had a crab with a $20 bill in its claw, just because we thought it was funny.

Are there any topics The Onion won’t touch and why?
No, the truthful answer is, if there’s a point to it and it’s funny we will run it. There’s nothing off limits. As a joke we have a “no-no” list of things that are too hacky and topics covered too much.

Do you get a lot of complaint letters? Do you have favorites?
Oh yeah. I loved the ones where people don’t understand that it’s not real. I wrote an opinion piece as if written by a 6-year-old boy called “You’re not my real Step Dad” and I got a really nice handmade greeting card written to the “boy” who wrote the story telling him how mean all of the things he said were. We never respond to those because you just assume he’ll remain angry and go up to somebody who will say “You know that’s not real, right?” We also get a lot of mail that begins, “Usually I like The Onion, but this time you went too far.” Which generally means they like when you make fun of fat people or Texans, but you’ve insulted something that they care about and you’ve now crossed the line. I think the most hate mail we’ve ever received was about a column we wrote saying, “Mary Kate is dragging Ashley down.” People just lost their minds. They were so offended. It’s funny what the last straw is with people.

I’m curious why this is called AltComedyFest…
I always thought that AltComedy meant comedy that isn’t getting booked at places. It’s the underground comedy, but now it’s like any other subculture. There once was AltComedy and now so many people are claiming to be Alt-comics, but people are latching onto it. Now that Patton Oswalt and David Cross are… famous… and doing well, people know it’s the new comedy. I guess there’s going to have to be alt-alt-comedy. I think it’s distinguishing from what people think of sellout comics, but are actually just people making the money.

Do you guys brainstorm together? Are you ever strapped for ideas?
We spend most of our time in the same room together. We do our writing separately. In every issue we have a dozen headlines and every member on staff writes 20 headlines a week, so we always have material.

AltCom Festival
All weekend
Various locations
The Onion appears Sunday at the Somerville Armory
(191 Highland Ave., Somerville)
www.altcomfestival.com