Onion headline from 1993: Roy The Forklift Driver addresses nation
The May 29, 1993 edition of The Onion has a preposterous fake story about a character named Roy the Forklift driver becoming a media darling of the conservative movement.
"Nation Eagerly awaits Ohio Man's Profound Insights into Current Events."
As if!
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OK...That's freaky. Not because of the content. Onion backdated stories are awesome.
The picture of Joe looks exactly like my cousin David who is from Ohio, and who has probably driven a forklift in one of his many careers. He was once almost killed by a bowling pin setter...but that's another story.
There was a parody commercial in the first years of Saturday Night Live for a three-blade shaving razor, after the two-blade razor was introduced. Then they did essentially the same sketch again about 20 years later, but found it necessary for some reason to up the number to 12 blades. Hmmm.
Wow.
What's really surprising is that Flush Limbaugh is still alive.
This may be a backdated piece and not a scan of an actual Onion issue from 1993, but the Wayback Machine shows that it was posted at least two years ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060919170436/http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48941
So, yes. Life imitates art. Again.
@DBARAK: Why is that amazing? Billions of other people are alive too. It's rather common.
The most consistently funny writing in writing. Bless the O.
@Micah... All of these those old pages are from the Onion book, "Our Dumb Century"
I think the original paperback is out of print, but this looks like a hardcover reprint http://www.amazon.com/Our-Dumb-Century-Presents-Headlines/dp/0307393577/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225403496&sr=8-1
#6 posted by macegr
His drug abuse and obesity.
The Onion keeps staying just one step ahead of reality, which tries very hard to be more absurd than fiction!
But, I think the Joe Plumber wasn't applauded for his "insights" as much as how Obama reacts to difficult questions from anyone who dares ask them: using State PCs to rummage in his financial background, Biden ridiculing him on Letterman, or banning small TV stations from future interviews. It don't look very good.
Go Onion!
"His drug abuse and obesity."
Great research there, slick.
#6 posted by macegr and #11 posted by Chas44, give it a rest.
what's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
I can't go to the Hindenburg to borrow a cup of vicodin?
But, I think the Joe Plumber wasn't applauded for his "insights" as much as how Obama reacts to difficult questions from anyone who dares ask them: using State PCs to rummage in his financial background, Biden ridiculing him on Letterman, or banning small TV stations from future interviews. It don't look very good.
Did you actually watch the tape? Obama reacted to this "difficult" question by talking to Joe for a couple of minutes and trying to rationally explain his justification for progressive income tax rates, something supported by many politicians on both sides of the aisle. Joe, having already unleashed his one "gotcha," didn't actually seem very interested in Obama's response to his question.
None of the things you cite as "reactions" are things that Obama did. It was John McCain and the Republican party who started holding up Joe as some sort of paragon and pulled him into the public eye before the 3rd debate, and John McCain who mentioned him twenty times in that debate. It's the Republicans who decided that Joe the Plumber was someone they could hang a huge portion of their campaign on, and for them to complain about the fact that the media decided to actually take a look at Joe to see what he was all about is utterly ridiculous.
@13 Well... they are both huge explosive fascist gas bags. I don't really see a difference.
I dunno' Takuan, what's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
Wait, let me guess... The Hindenburg doesn't go on vacation in the Dominican Republic for Viagra fueled sex tourism trips?
AHAH! I think I figured it out. The Hindenburg had a rigid spine, right?
One elicited: "Oh, the humanity."
The other: "Blow Sean Hannity."
#20 posted by Teller:
BEST ONE YET!!!
#20 wins, but: "one's a flaming nazi gas bag and the other is a zeppelin"
"what's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?"
My grandchildren will have heard of the Hindenburg.
oooh! new contender!
I love the fact that the stock photo they used was the same one they used for this piece (NSFW), except that it's mirrored left to right and the background's been clipped out of the latter story.
If you squint and read the article, it's not exactly the uncanny prediction it's being made out to be, since this guy's "address" is of the call-in variety, like any other (stupid) listener of the show.
It reminds me more of "Crazy Man Announces Plan to Stand in Doorway, Yell at Cars All Day" or "Local Idiot to Post Comment on Internet" they published recently:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on
Those of you who may still have remembrance of the 1980 Presidential election will remember this headline from the 'Village Voice':
"Bozo Mania: Millions in Despair as Fools Vie for Office."
I wish that they had that front page in their archive.
Wow...between this and the Batman/Penguin debate...I don't know. It's like there's been a rip in the fabric of spacetime continuum or something.
#18 you don't know how right you are about Limbaugh and his trip's to the LBFM's in the Dominican Republic. Let's just say I know someone who knows someone.
"Well, you’re all Roy the Forklift Driver, so all of you stand up!"
No one cares what regular people think about politics!
Unless Errol Morris films them talking about why they're voting for Obama. That's cool, obviously.
But the rest of those regular people? Ignorant hicks.
That is really bizarre, Joe the plummer and Roy the forklift driver should hang out, haha. God I love the Onion.
#22 "one's a flaming nazi gas bag and the other is a zeppelin"
I just peed myself.
to #25
I thought the same thing. "Why Do All These Homosexuals..." is the funniest thing I have ever read in the Onion.
Proving once again that there is no such thing as fiction. Anything that an observer can imagine happening, will happen somewhere in the multiverse.
good,I want to live in one where he meets the gallows for calling global warming a con game.
So now we know that the Republicans are using old issues of the Onion to plan their campaign. I'd expect it to be funnier though.