However, a visitor left one of the papers in my office today, while the other was on the floor in the hallway outside my office. Seems that both papers did April Fools' pages today, and so I thought I would check out what they came up with. You would think, given that they have to play the role of serious journalists the rest of year, they would revel and triumph in the opportunity to cut loose.
The Daily Cardinal was, in fact, funny. "Drunken Spanish presentation leaves class horrified, impressed" with a photo of a slovenly looking undergrad pointing at a whiteboard with a giant scrawled ¡Hola! That's funny. "Confused student group forgets the point of protest" with a photo of people holding up signs that say "Kerry 4 Prez", "Don't Taze Pigs" and "Poop". Reasonably funny. A front story about the mayor offering to hold one of Madison's rowdier block parties at his home. Funny enough. "Spot on the Rug Just Keeps Getting Bigger." A little too self-consciously Onionish, but not bad.
But, dear God, is the Badger Herald's April Fools effort lame. Presumably, if I read the actual Badger Herald, if I would find it more unintentionally amusing than the extent to which this issue amuses. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the Badger Herald doesn't have any online link to any of the April Fools content, so I can't give you a portal so you can witnessing all its failed-funniness for yourself.
About a third of the first page is given to this inexplicable cartoon of two looks-like-chicken birds dressed in pimp and prostitute attire with the caption "Big pimping". Yeah, side-splitting, I know. In line with standard mock-newspaper fare, they offer a set of joke horoscopes, which may be lazy humor would at least seem reasonably hard to mess up. However, look:
In other parts, I'm not sure if the people writing this just thought, "You know, all we have to do is vomit up some stuff that's politically incorrect, and everybody'll think we're hilarious!" You'd think, for example, that being less than one year removed from a TA strike, something funny could be wrought from the longstanding battle between the TA union and the University. Instead, this is the best they can do:
3 comments:
for the record, i wasn't puking, i was praying and goddam it, i want that puppy!
i'm sure that the real mike quieto wasn't reading your blog. if he was, he would point out that 1) he can easily hold whatever amount of beer the union would let him have access to during a membership meeting, and 2) he isn't co-prez anymore. he may actually want the puppy. i'm not sure how he feels about animals.
I rather liked the TAA article. And it was timely - there's been some news about a new contract offer that has the TAA all in a tizzy.
The two April Fools' editions were hit and miss. I liked the Daily Cardinal's article on Mayorifflin, though the imagine of Chief Justice Abrahamson drunkingly singing "Back that Ass Up" is a disturbing one that I will be trying to get out of my head for a long time.
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