From an onion sandwich in 1988 to a real bankruptcy court battle for InfoWars
The Onion satire has produced the single most durable format in the genre’s history, running since 1988 and still setting the standard nearly four decades later, which makes its own origin story and recent moves worth understanding beyond the jokes themselves.
The origin, straight from the founders
Founders Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson started the paper as University of Wisconsin-Madison students in 1988, and per Britannica’s account, the name itself came from an onion sandwich the broke founders were eating while brainstorming ideas, a detail suggested by Johnson’s uncle. The paper moved online in 1996 and, per its Wikipedia entry, revived a physical print edition in August 2024 after ending the original run in 2013.
The format that became an industry standard
The recurring “Area Man” trope, using the flattest possible local-newspaper convention to make absurd events sound relatably mundane, became so influential that it is now taught as a case study in satirical technique well beyond The Onion’s own pages, and a 2025 book, Funny Because It’s True, traces the full history of how that house style hardened into modern news satire’s default grammar.
Recent developments worth knowing
The Onion moved beyond pure satire into real media ownership in 2024 when it bid to acquire Alex Jones’s InfoWars through bankruptcy proceedings; the sale was initially approved, then blocked by a bankruptcy judge over auction process concerns, with court decisions since leaving the outcome still unresolved as of 2026.
Disclaimer
The London Prat publishes commentary, analysis and the occasional act of journalism. For the deeper mechanics of British mockery, see newspaper satire, the history of British satire from Swift to social media, the complete guide to defining satire. Reading order optional.
Peter Sellers would have delivered this in increasing tones of cross confusion. The delivery would have been absolutely everything.