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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

My Favorite Rejected Onion Headlines

I work as a contributing writer for "The Onion." That means I write about 15-25 headlines every week, with a large portion of them getting rejected. For good reason. The people in the office are great people.

But sometimes there are headlines that I love that don't make it. Either because there's already been a similar topic explored, the time isn't right, or I'm the only one who finds them funny.

Here are those:

New HD-Camcorder To Make Memories Of Good Times Hurt Even More

Recession Forcing CIA To Lay Off 60% Of Al Qaeda

Ending Changed For Christian High School Production Of “The Laramie Project”

Rebel Who Doesn’t Play By Society’s Rules Needs You To Work On Saturday

Area Man Can’t Tell If British Woman Sarcastic Or Aroused

Study: 73% Of Scientists To Make Them All Pay

Grammar Nazi Was Just Following Strunk & White’s Orders

Programmer Couple Speaking Python Around Child

Cult Members Forced To Switch To Verizon To Save Leader’s Minutes

Girl Fight Less Sexy Than Expected

Gender Inequality Solved In Five-Page, Double-Spaced Undergrad Paper

Childhood Memories Worth $10 Trade-In At GameStop

New Telescope To Help Scientists Create Better Desktop Wallpapers

Renowned Australian Wildlife Expert, Robert Muldoon, Killed By Velociraptors

History Textbook Ends On Vietnam War Cliffhanger

Uncaring Slacker Forced To Read "The Catcher In The Rye"

Bar's Hand Stamp Clearly Bought At Teacher Store

Suit And Tie-Wearing Men In Parked Car Just Enjoying Some Radio

Fat Kid Announces Plan To Be Goalie

Artist Only Making Art For Corporation Until Anti-Corporation Art Takes Off

“I Got You Babe” Cell Phone Ring Repeating As Area Man Ignores Call From Wife

Daughter Of Slain Parents No Longer Grounded

Obama Fails To Enjoy Visit To Colonial Williamsburg

Slaves Not Even Trying Anymore

Area Woman Always Does That Thing Boyfriend Just Thought Of To Break Up With Her

Underground Alcohol Fire Decimates Margaritaville

Method Porn Star Enrolls In College Class With Unaffordable Textbooks

posted by Mike Drucker at 9:36 AM

32 Comments:

Anonymous Brian F. said...

Some of those were brilliant for any time... especially that last one. Maybe they didn't get it.

1:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There were a few good ones in here, but I must say, the ones that I read in the Onion (some of which are yours I'm sure) immediately 'click', that didn't happen so much here...

2:05 PM  
Blogger Mike Drucker said...

Anonymous - you're definitely right. I think some of them are more "works in my head" than actually funny.

Most of them were right for being rejected. But some are just lovely to me.

3:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Loved the al-qaeda one. Total shame that didn't make it.

5:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

New Telescope To Help Scientists Create Better Desktop Wallpapers

Hilarious.

6:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about "Method Porn Star Ordering Pizza Every Night"

11:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of my favorite unpublished headlines was deemed too much/too soon after 9/11: "Everything's Fine, Quadragon Officals Report."

7:56 AM  
Blogger HogieWan said...

Daughter Of Slain Parents No Longer Grounded

this one "clicked" - definitely made me laugh. A couple others were good, too and better than a lot of the ones the Onion posts

8:21 AM  
Anonymous * said...

I usually just read The Onion for the headlines. This was like eating the icing off the cake. I now feel like vomiting.

11:43 AM  
Anonymous Topher said...

I can't tell you how many societal problems I've solved in 5 pages our less in college. These were quite smashing!

6:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

These were great. Unfortunately I cannot imagine why they were rejected, as The Onion — one of my very favorite websites for years — has taken a palpable and unwelcome slide downward the past 3 months or so. WHY ONION WHY.

10:01 AM  
Anonymous video game information archive said...

I didn't get a lot of them. But I'd say around a fourth of them were great, and IDK why were rejected. But others... yeah, definately a no go.

11:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Daughter Of Slain Parents No Longer Grounded

^score

11:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They probably didn't like them because you decided to Capitalize Every Word In All Of Them And That's Annoying!

See?

12:43 AM  
Blogger Mike Drucker said...

You mean capitalize every word, like they do as their style at The Onion? I think that's alright.

5:32 AM  
Blogger Nightmare said...

That is some funny stuff, if you are a thinking man, I see more of the poop and fart joke mentality at the Onion. Kinda like Dennis Miller VS John Madden.....I liked Dennis.

7:00 PM  
Blogger Phil said...

This is excellent, especially the desktop wallpaper and grounded teenager. Absolutely hillarious.

I think that the one about Gamestop should read:

Childhood memories only worth $1 each at Gamestop.

8:50 AM  
Anonymous Bukator said...

Stats Canada reveals Canadian statistics are up 13%

Avid video gamer claims to have beaten the internet

Little leaguer retires after successful baseball career

Wal-Mart granted seat at United Nations conference, demands ‘rollback’ of troops

‘Because I said so’ no longer valid reason for children’s household chores

Chevrolet axes plans for new hybrid truck as gas prices plummet to $1.24/L

Wendy’s launches anti-McMarketing campaign

6:29 PM  
Anonymous crispyfinger said...

i ,ove almost all of these headlines. i can just imagine the story that wil go with some of them

7:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm curious--do you come up with funny headlines, and let the story flow from there, or do you have story concepts first and then write the headlines?

12:29 PM  
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