Rating: 
Summary: Great Bathroom Read
Review: How can you not laugh at most of the stuff in here. My favorite: "Joe Piscapo - Will His Star Ever Stop Rising?"Always a funny read - and definately worth just having around for laughs.
Rating: 
Summary: Sharp-minded Hysterics
Review: Sharp-minded Hysterics "Our Dumb Century" is 100 years of the New York Times-esq newspaper doing April Fools editions. The effect is brilliant. I think the farther back they went in history, the funnier the effect. Stories like "Japan Forms Alliance with White Supremacists in Well-Thought-Out Scheme," "India's Nationalist Leader Pummeled Senseless By Practitioners of British 'Violence' Movement," and "Cubist Regiment Decimated," are just but a few of the Onion's take on history. I've don't think I've read anything as utterly hilarious. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: political and social satire at its very best
Review: From the straight-faced introduction and through approximately 150 mock newspaper front pages dated from 01/01/1900 through 01/01/2000, the Onion's comic geniuses demystify, debunk and demythologize real and surreal events and people. This is a book that can be browsed through many times; you'll always find some new detail to make you laugh or an insight that takes your breath away. Every detail, from headlines to advertisements, is hilarious: 04/13/1916 -- Cubist Regiment Decimated -- skewed perspective, lack of depth prove liability as non-linear soldiers are mercilessly cut down 07/20/1925 -- Scopes Monkey Trial Raises Troubling Question: Is Science Being Taught in Our Schools? 01/22/1990 -- Berlin Wall Destroyed in Doritos-Sponsored Super Bowl Halftime Spectacular 01/10/1998 -- Educators Praised As U.S. Kids Lead World in Schoolyard Shooting Accuracy Many items are inspired one-liners, but a number enjoy lengthy front page stories that sustain the mood and the level of comedy. Ads, announcements, tv and radio schedules, cartoons and graphics are equally enjoyable. Count how many times Lady Liberty is ravaged by heathen outsiders! A minor complaint: The only thing that would have made this book more enjoyable is an index so you could find your favorite targets more easily, but the writers have brought me so much laughter I could forgive them anything. A gentle warning: Don't leave this in the loo or you will never get in there! Splendid. Righteous. Brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!
Review: The Onion has made an art out of the one-liner headline, and now it reaches back into the past to spoof a century's worth of political and historical fact. A few border on poor taste (the Holocaust and the Hindenburg explosion are used as material), but it's standard Onion fare, and if you're comfortable with the tabloid this book won't bother you, either. My favorite is the headline that reads "Jitterbugging Injuries Today" (1943), and lists Louis Jordan (fatal) and the entire class of Bedford Falls (drowned).
Rating:
Summary: A Forward-Looking View Of The Past
Review: "World's Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg" may be the greatest headline ever about the Titanic disaster, yet without the benefit of the iconoclastic masterminds at "The Onion", we might have lost out on that inspired bit of news reporting. "The Onion" is a satirical publication that is a cross between Harvard Lampoon and MAD Magazine, delivered with the mischievous, Cheshire Cat-like grin of Chevy Chase in his prime on Saturday Night Live. Through the articles of "The Onion", neither tragedy nor triumph has ever seemed quite so...funny! And though "The Onion" has not been around for most of the century, this has not stopped them from doing their part to cash in on "End of the Century" profiteering with their own look back on the stories that shaped and defined the 20th Century. The true joy of "The Onion" is to be found in these faux-retrospectives. The humor is like those times when a bunch of friends are sitting around, and someone comes up with a preposterous way of looking at something. While the comment is funny in and of itself, the humor piles on in the way all the other friends chime in with their addendums and rejoinders, milking the concept for all it is worth. "Our Dumb Century" does just that. Each headline has an article with it, an expedition into the ridiculous. Be prepared to see the Apollo moon landing, World War II, and Clinton impeachment in a whole different light. No event is too sacred. No event is too mundane. The 20th Century is ripe for historical defilement, and "Our Dumb Century" serves up a hearty dose of lunatic revisionism for your enjoyment. Bon appetite.
Rating:
Summary: You WILL laugh out loud!
Review: For anyone not yet familiar with The Onion, it is a satirical newspaper similar in style to the defunct Spy magazine. Available online at theonion.com or in a paper version, The Onion offers hilarious made-up news stories, features, and columns. You are guarenteed to laugh out loud just reading the headlines, especially the headlines from famous past events included in this book .... This is a must-have book for anyone with a sardonic sense of humor, and it makes a great gift. One thing to note: the type is very small in places, so a magnifying glass makes reading easier. Have fun!
Rating:
Summary: Way to go Onion
Review: If you are an Onion fan and you've been wary of buying what you can get for free - I have to tell you that you must be really .... Why not drop ten bucks for a book that has all new Onion stories to enjoy? Now, this isn't one of those stupid books that merely reprints old comic strips ... or stuff that you've seen and then you get home and feel .... No way, this is a book of all new Onion stories - the Onion from 1900 to the present (1 paper per year) with all of the sick and fun parody that the folks at the Onion are known for. ..., this book will help tide you over until the next issue is up online - and you won't feel burned in the process.
Rating:
Summary: This is why satire was invented.
Review: The writers and editors of The Onion are brilliant. This is the best bit of satire around. For those who don't know, satire is an ironic way of exposing folly; and it is used to perfection in this book, a ficticious recounting of the headlines of the 20th Century. As the editor of this newspaper calls it, this is "funny fake news." The great thing about this book is that the stories are often related with the utter indifference one suspects reporters must develop after years on the job, packaged for the short attention span the public often has. These articles take the folly and "real" stories behind the stories, the ones that were never talked about in their day, and prints them as front page and headline news. Try, for example: "Eleanor Roosevelt, Nation Hails our First Lesbian President." Or regarding Pearl Harbor, "Dastardly Japs Bomb Colonially Occupied US Non-State." Or how about terming Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio's magical appeal as, "Nation Captived by Fairytale Wedding of Sullen Loner, Depressed Pill-Popper." Or the optimistic, "Drugs Win Drug War" alongside a picture of a bong-smoking man in tie-dye approaching the presidential podium. Page after page of "reprinted" front pages (a joke in itself, because there certainly was no Onion in 1904) makes this a great read which literally brought tears to my eyes. Life ain't always pretty, but with the Onion it is always funny.
Rating:
Summary: Midwhere?
Review: And all this time, while you were making fun of us, we were really the coolest people ever. Smokin' dope and drinkin' beer... with these as our official state pastimes, how can you go wrong?
I advise all Onion readers to make a pilgrimage to Madison. You will apologize for your cow-tipping and cheesehead wise cracks, and beg somebody's forgiveness. Also call them God.
Rating:
Summary: Blisteringly funny
Review: The Onion has been insightful and relevant, but Our Dumb Century outdoes anything ever done with this publication. In the spirit of great satire, Century scalds all the racism, dishonesty, paranoia, pretentiousness, apathy and irresponsibility that plagued American (and other) institutions throughout the 1900's. No cow is too sacred. No figure escapes the uncanny sense of history. Andrew Carnegie, Neville Chamberlain, Jerry Garcia, Ronald Reagan, Ricki Lake, and Michael Irvin all get theirs.
The Onion even gets the formats and writing styles right throughout each year, and catches nearly every pop-culture phenomenon, uncanny for a team that cannot possibly be old enough to remember most of them. You'll try and finish this book in one day, but laugh so hard you won't get through 5 consecutive pages at a time.
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