Onion-skinned

While I still enjoy getting my fake news regularly from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report (both streamable online), I’ve got to say The Onion is doing a bang-up job these days of wielding a satirical razor blade worthy of Un Chien Andalou.

What’s fake news? It’s satire disguised as reality, such as the recent Filipino site SoWhat’sNews (sowhatsnews.wordpress.com), which got some thumbs down because people couldn’t really tell it was a joke. (Hmm… I wonder why?)

The Onion started as a fake newspaper in Chicago back in the ‘90s, and since 2007 its video format has been so successful at parodying newsy-type shows that YouTube viewers constantly react with horror in their online comments. This leads to snarky comeback comments from in-the-know viewers who marvel at the fact that there are “still people out there who don’t know The Onion’s not for real, LMAO.” (That’s “laugh my ass off,” for people new to the Internets.)

With an actual staff of fake reporters and news anchors, The Onion can pull off just about any parody. It’s eerily accurate and on topic. One parody news report is headlined: “Pilot of Crashed Plane Lands in the Kardashian Wilderness.” A straight-faced reporter gives us the facts: “The pilot crashed his plane near the Kardashian Volleyball Court, blacked out and regained consciousness near a Jacuzzi where a large Khloe was bathing.” (Cue stock footage of various Kardashians lazing around a swimming pool.)

“In order to survive,” the reporter continues, “the pilot spent four harrowing days foraging around for half-eaten yogurt cups and covered his scent with vodka so he would blend in.” And here’s the kicker: “The last man to get lost in the Kardashian wilderness, of course, went mad.” (Cue photo of Bruce Jenner.)

You can subscribe to The Onion on YouTube. There, you can stream through short (two- to three-minute) news items like:

• “Jennifer Aniston to Adopt 33-year-old African Man” (“She’s tried unsuccessfully to get a man the natural way,” the reporter wryly notes.)

“Meet the Man Inside the Nicolas Cage Costume.” Puppeteer Glen Soziak plans to “keep trying to push it further and further with more random screaming, more outrageous haircuts.”

•“Leaf From Tree Of Life Frontrunner for Best Actor Oscar” (It didn’t win, obviously.)

• “Final Minutes of Last Harry Potter Movie To Be Split Into Seven Separate Films”

• “Hostages Trapped Inside Walmart Insist They Never Shop At Walmart”

• “NASA Scientists Plan To Approach Girl By 2018”

• “Apple Announces Plans to Release Steve Jobs 2”

A lot of the Onion videos skew towards Hollywood, but parodies of real-life issues are just as sharp — and often pretty un-P.C. Perhaps the cruelest but funniest I’ve seen lately was “Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized.”

“Caitlin Tegart was a beautiful, lively girl who loved playing outside,” the announcer says as meditative piano music plays behind photos of Caitlin smiling, wearing a ballet dress, holding a soccer ball. “But all that changed at the age of 13. Caitlin slipped into a persistent vegetative state, confining herself almost entirely to her bed… and Facebook.”

The Tegarts are at the end of their rope, petitioning the state to allow them to put Caitlin out of her misery.

“She’s totally unresponsive when we talk to her,” the mother says. “Her eyes just roll back in her head.”

Of course, the joke is that Caitlin is simply a normal 13-year-old girl, sullenly texting friends, applying nail polish, watching TV with a blank expression.

The Tegarts, the report continues, want to turn to euthanasia as “a humane way to end Caitlin’s suffering.” (An x-ray profile shows a skull with an iPhone — even then — pressed up against it.)

The doctor assures the Tegarts the procedure will be painless. “Her eyes may flutter a little, or she may murmur, ‘Are you, for real, killing me right now?’”

The mother, close to tears, tries to stay strong: “We just keep reminding ourselves that the real Caitlin is gone; that’s just her body texting.” 

The Onion reporter asks the Tegarts what they would tell other parents out there tonight. “I would tell them to hug their kids… and be thankful that they don’t have such a piss-poor attitude.”

The Onion is razor-sharp funny, like this report on “Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized.”

The dead-on tone of the Onion videos leads to pretty confusing YouTube comments. Some, tongue pressed firmly in cheek, insist the news items are actually real. (Example: “I’m sick of all these doubters who keep saying this is fake. The Onion is the nation’s most dependable news resource. I believe the problem is that other news corporations are too cowardly to report true events.”) Others are horrified, taken in by the spoof. But how can you take seriously a news channel that features a report on military drones titled “Could The Use Of Flying Death Robots Be Hurting America’s Reputation Worldwide?”

And where else can you find a faux Entertainment Tonight-type interview with “The Man Inside the Nicolas Cage Costume”?

This one cracked me up for some reason.

It’s a Hollywood-type chat with Glen Soziak, a puppeteer who reputedly devised the lifelike Nicolas Cage we’ve seen bugging out onscreen for so many years.

“The crazy bug eyes, the big teeth, the gangly limbs,” asks the chatty, breezy interviewer. “How did you come up with such a wild character?”

Soziak says he “got tired of doing animal and monster characters” back in the ‘80s and wanted more of a challenge. The puppeteer says he even came up with a wacky “back story” for his Nic Cage character — having him buy a castle, collect dinosaur bones, adopt a pet octopus — all actual details from Nicolas Cage’s life.

“Was there ever a time when you thought, ‘I’ve gone too far?’” prods the interviewer. (Cue: clips of Cage wildly bugging out in Vampire’s Kiss, Bad Lieutenant, Wicker Man.)

Soziak shrugs: “After Con Air, people thought you can’t possibly make this any nuttier. I just keep trying to push it further and further with more random screaming, more outrageous haircuts.”

Seriously. How can anyone take this seriously?