Revisiting The Onion’s jokes about "Snakes on a Plane," the Unabomber and more

Welcome to The Onion’s Website: 20 Years Later, a weekly review of what The Onion published online that wasn’t in the print issue. This week, we’re looking at Aug. 16 to 22, 2006.

We’re looking back at a time capsule of mid-2000s culture, including the Unabomber’s latest news, the movie “Snakes On A Plane,” the Paris Hiltons of the world carrying tiny dogs in their purses and much more.

Plus, a ton of audio jokes you can’t find on The Onion’s website today! I’m excited to share this with you.

The Onion created its website in May 1996 to share the print newspaper’s jokes. Beginning Aug. 31, 2005, they added online-only features.

I’ve linked to existing URLs and/or the Internet Archive, depending on what’s available.

I couldn’t find an Internet Archive snapshot of The Onion’s homepage from this time period, but the above screenshot contains multiple jokes we’re covering today.

This week 20 years ago, The Onion turned its focus to the NFL, including a now-eerie joke about the late Junior Seau.

That said, there are still plenty of jokes about baseball, and even a random basketball joke.

Since the early 1990s, the Green Bay Packers have developed back-to-back Hall of Fame quarterbacks who got squirrelly near the end of their careers. They can’t decide whether to retire, they get into feuds with the Packers, they have a bad time with the New York Jets, they briefly redeem themselves with a 3rd team.

We’ve most recently seen that with Aaron Rodgers, but he’s just doing what Brett Favre did — although, so far, Rodgers has avoided any sexting scandals.

But in August 2006, Favre was still a beloved Packer, and thus The Onion could good-naturedly rib him in “Brett Favre Fitted For New Suit Before Sold-Out Lambeau Field Crowd.”

This joke also makes fun of diehard fans who will attend any team event, no matter how inconsequential:

Fans began lining up in mid-afternoon for Favre’s 8 p.m. fitting, a late addition to the Packer preseason calendar made only after Favre purchased the Brooks Brothers suit to wear at upcoming formal occasions and announced his intention to have it altered to fit him more precisely. The $65 tickets sold out within six hours of the fitting’s announcement on July 26, despite the fact that no football would be played, Favre would not be miked for the event, and the tailors in question would be traveling into town from Chicago, home of the hated arch-rival Bears. The stands filled with cheering green-and-gold-clad fans, none of whom wore their own suits to the event, an hour before Favre took the field.

The Onion quotes longtime Packers broadcaster Larry McCarren and sportswriter Cliff Christl, who is now the Packers’ team historian.

“After all these years, the man can still carry a whole suit on his shoulders,” McCarren added.

Other jokes include:

• “Thin Air At Coors Field Blamed As Todd Helton Floats Out Of Ballpark”: Very silly. The Onion mocks the Colorado Rockies to this day.

• “Randy Johnson Asks Chien-Ming Wang For Some Pitching Advice For A Pitcher Friend Of His”: Johnson is an all-time great but was terrible in 2006.

• “Junior Seau Retires To Spend More Time Tackling His Kids”: Seau, like Favre, didn’t actually retire for a few more years. This joke is now tragic, as Seau died by suicide in 2012 amid erratic and sometimes violent behavior.1

• “Cincinnati Reds Volunteer To Win NL Central”: The Onion wrote this when the Reds were 61-58 and 2nd in the division. They closed the season 19-24, finishing 3rd.

• “Dikembe Mutombo Donates $15 Million Sports Arena To Congo”: The Onion cribs the opening of an ESPN/Associated Press article about Mutombo’s donation to build a hospital.

“Great Moments In Little League World Series History” is reasonably well-researched!

• James Neal was on the Auburn, Ala., team in 1955, although I couldn’t find any stats from that series.

• Gary Sheffield played in the 1980 Little League World Series, while Jason Bay played in 1990.

• Michael Memea didn’t play in 2004, but hit a walk-off homer to win the 2005 Little League World Series.

• Little League fraudster Danny Almonte appears for the 3rd time, following a May 2006 Sports Ticker joke and the October 2001 collage “A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again.”

Another callback is to Joe Namath’s drunken advances on Suzy Kolber:

• 2003: Out of his mind on root beer and pop rocks, the East Boynton Beach shortstop tells ESPN’s Suzy Kolber, “I want to hug you”

“Sports Fan On The Street” touches on a timeless ritual — worrying about preseason injuries in the NFL.

The NFL didn’t reduce the preseason schedule until 2021, and then only because they added a 17th regular-season game.

“This Week in Sports History” jokes are no longer online.

For what it’s worth, Pee Wee Reese played on Aug. 20, 1952, for the Dodgers at Cincinnati, but no fielder’s choices occurred.2

These jokes ran across the top of the Onion Sports homepage and are no longer online.3 Each is preceded by “LATEST:”

• “ESPN Veteran Remembers When It Was Just About Broadcasting Sports News”

• “Dodgers Ask Tommy Lasorda For Some Space”

• “Clinton Portis: ‘It’s Unreasonable To Get Hurt Playing Football Until Week Five Of The Regular Season’”

• “Yankees Ask A-Rod To Stop Wearing Derek Jeter\’s Fragrance During Games”

• “Cardinals Switch To Zero-Man Rotation”

Some of these jokes were about real-life incidents, like Portis’ preseason injury or the Cardinals’ injury woes.

By contrast, the ESPN joke is truly timeless — people have criticized the network’s journalistic integrity for decades, including in 1999, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2026.4

I’m not saying ESPN hasn’t declined, just that our nostalgia clouds our judgment.5 It’s like Lorne Michaels said about “Saturday Night Live”: “Everybody’s favorite cast is the cast from when they were in high school.”

In 2006, most of The Onion’s web-only jokes appeared on the homepage. Some were archived (American Voices, Onion Magazine), while others disappeared after a few days.

Here’s what appeared on the homepage from Aug. 16 to 22, 2006.

“All The Questions You Never Cared To Ask Matthew McConaughey” is a solid joke. But it doesn’t hurt that McConaughey is still famous 20 years later and has an Oscar.

The teaser is fun, too: “Inside: Overcoming A Typical Childhood.”

Good lord, I forgot about this Samuel L. Jackson movie!

Lest we forget, the “Snakes on a Plane” trailer in April 2006 broke the internet. It’s one of the first trailers to go viral on the internet6 — and the vociferous fan response forced 5 days of reshoots.

“Snakes on a Plane” walked so the Zach Snyder cut and “Coyote vs. Acme” could run.

For what it’s worth, the film was relatively unsuccessful — making only $33 million domestically.

Anyways, The Onion covered this in an American Voices joke and in the Weekly Presidential Address, both below:

Aug. 18, 2006 | 2026 version

“Cool. What’s it about?”

Alyssa Kornbluth • Volleyball Coach

Aug. 21, 2006 | 2006 Onion version | 2006 Weekly Radio Address version

Bush ostensibly responds to the thwarted London terror plot, covered the week prior.

But there’s a twist: This is really a promo for “Snakes on a Plane,” with a very good Samuel L. Jackson impersonation.

This is one of The Onion’s oldest features. The web-only items have 3 responses from fictional “people on the street.”

Aug. 16, 2006 | 2026 version

This auction didn’t take place until 2011, as Ted Kaczynski sued to try and get his possessions back.

This joke stands out, given that some people in the 2020s think the Unabomber was right about stuff, including AI's dangers:

“Isn’t this Internet auction exactly the type of thing he warned us about in his manifesto?”

Wilhelm Prediger • Plumber

Aug. 17, 2006 | 2026 version

These laptop batteries posed a fire and explosion danger.

20 years later, this problem has migrated to power banks, which the Transportation Security Agency has cracked down on airplanes.

Aug. 21, 2006 | 2026 version

This turned out to be a false confession.

I like this mashup of 1990s true crime:

“Was JonBenet the one who shot Joey Buttafucco because he cut off the penis of Tonya Harding’s husband, OJ Simpson?”

Troy Canzona • Caterer

Aug. 22, 2006 | 2026 version

This was another ultimately fruitless story, as an appeals court in 2007 overturned this ruling and dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing.

Make of this joke what you will:

“Damn activist judges. Who are they to check the powers of another branch of government?”

Mary Bedford • Systems Analyst

Onion Radio News was the long-running feature hosted by fictional radioman Doyle Redland. Unfortunately, you can’t find these jokes on today’s website.

GoDaddy continued as the sponsor, except for Aug. 22, 2006.

Here’s what ran from Aug. 16 to 22, 2006.

Aug. 16, 2006 | 2006 audio version

Maybe a coincidence, but this joke published exactly 6 years after its obvious inspiration, 2000’s “Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids.”

Aug. 17, 2006 | 2006 audio version

This joke is fun, but today’s trading floors are almost entirely virtual.

Aug. 18, 2006 | 2006 audio version

Crazy that AOL dial-up technically lasted another 19 years when it was clearly passé by 2006.

I recently went through my original Gmail account from 2004, and it was wild to see what people were emailing — and what email looked like — 20+ years ago.

Aug. 19, 2006 | 2006 audio version

This headline is a good lesson in the power of words — “liberates” makes it sound like a good, even heroic thing.

“Run, worms! Run! Swim away home now!” the 4-year-old says.

PETA praises the action.

Aug. 20, 2006 | 2006 audio version | Original 2002 article

This joke rests on the idea that a non-alcoholic bar is a ludicrous concept — except that the 2020s have seen an increase in no-alcohol bars.

Doyle Redland’s enthusiastic tone really sells this one.

Aug. 21, 2006 | 2006 audio version

This references all the socialites carrying around their dogs in purses during the 2000s.

Aug. 22, 2006 | 2006 audio version

Yes, this is literally about liking a guy named “Bill.” Praise comes in from Sen. Harry Reid, although Bush threatens a veto.

“National News Highlights” featured a map with 3 pins, each revealing a different joke when your cursor hovers over it. These jokes are not currently online.

• “Rapid City, SD—Jamie Moyer, 14, shot his younger brother in the back with a BB gun for no real good reason other than he looked like he was going to say something smart.”

• “Sarasota, FL—Although he has given careful consideration to all the new information he received in kindergarten class, five-year-old Sam Moses decided Monday that he simply doesn’t want to live in a world without force fields.”

• “Connellsville, PA—Rickey Grove decided that he would only attend the Fayette County Fair on the condition that his friends allowed him to drive drunk.”

Curiously, The Onion named a teen after Jamie Moyer, the longtime baseball pitcher who was traded on Aug. 19, 2006.

I especially like the force fields joke.

This was a weekly parody of a newspaper’s business section. Stock Watch charts are no longer online.

I couldn’t find this joke on The Onion’s Internet Archive collection, but I pulled from the Aug. 16, 2006, print issue, as it seems The Onion was publishing this online the same day it showed up in print.

Also, you can still buy the Clapper.

What a trip down memory lane for me! I hope y’all got some good laughs and discovered some Onion jokes, maybe for the 1st time.

As always, please like, comment and share. Let me know what I missed or what else you’d like to see.

See you next time!