Customer Reviews

The Onion Platinum Prestige Encore Gold Premium Collector's Collection

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For those of us who have long chuckled at the wry and winsome humor of the collective effort at the "Onion" website, this compilation of several earlier collections into one effort is a treasure trove of biting satire and clever use of modern language. Somehow the writers manage to tickle our funny bones as they educate and entertain us with their insight and insider's understanding of the madness know as politics, social farce, and correct cultural thinking. They most often approach the subject at hand via parody, and some of the finest I have ever read have been within their pages. They are almost monotonously brilliant, nearly uniformly informative, and best of all, universally irreverent. This is one to take to a trip to the rest room, folks, for it will have you enjoying life's most personal moments with tears of laughter the unavoidable net result.

The editors and writers at the Onion website, one of the most often visited such sites on the web; routinely attack the most sacred shibboleths and taboos of society, ranging from abortion to homophobia, from sexism to animal rights, and from racism to the dangers of cloning. One of my favorites is a tongue-in-cheek examination of the Canadians as though they were nothing more than closet Americans trying to rebel against the monolithic forces of our culture. To be sure, the humor that results is by its very nature often tasteless and even a little but crude, so if you have a delicate stomach or a fragile disposition this collection of satiric pieces culled from three previous collections may not be something you would enjoy. But those of us with a taste for such bawdy fare will read the pieces again and again, until the whole book gets a little dog-eared. Nice to have all this stuff in print and available for instant replay. Enjoy!

The Onion is by far one of the best publications out there today. I really don't have much else to say other than this package is a deal and will provide many hours of entertainment and biting social commentary.

The only thing I have to add to Labradorman's review is that the social commentary in The Onion never crosses over into meanspiritedness (in case anyone was wondering). But its writers have an unerring eye in spotting and reporting the ridiculous wherever it may be found. The stories aren't real but most of them contain more than a grain of truth about our society.

My favorite Onion features are the regular columns written by fictitious characters who are part of The Onion's "Community Voices" - particularly the "gansta" Accounts Receivable manager Herbert Kornfeld and slacker Craig Anchower.

The Onion levels its aim at everything from pro sports teams to the loss of a "perfect" eBay feedback rating. It's a gem.