December 31, 2007
This Headline Is Sarcastic: Interview With The Onion's Chet Clem
We asked Chet about The Atlas, his affinity for dated pop-culture, The Onion's New Year's Eve party, and petty larceny. He obliged us, and it’s all transcribed below for your eyeballs’ pleasure(s).
Q: How much of this Atlas did you actually write? Honesty counts.
A: This was such a team project that I don't even want to say that all the funny countries are mine. I did significant work on about 15 countries and a few states, including Texas. I will spend much of my holidays defending myself for that one, both my grandmothers live in Tyler and are going to kill me.
Q: What do you think would be the best time of day for stealing lawn furniture from neighbors?
A: I live in New York City, what's lawn furniture?
Q: Tell us a little bit about how exactly the writers put together each country summary for Our Dumb World. Was it by committee? Were countries simply assigned?
A: Have you ever tried to do a 10,000 piece puzzle where you have to cut your own pieces by hand? It was like waterboarding without the refreshment.
We'd sit around the table and assign countries we couldn't even pronounce to an individual writer, then callout anything we knew about the nation. In many cases this was very limited knowledge. The Queen Rania tribute page was the result of someone kind-of, sort-of remembering a news story about Jordan's hot queen.
There were also extended arguments about which central Asian country had the funny red hats.
In the end we wrote each country about four times over.
Q: Did you ever own any of the following: Kangaroos shoe(s), Manimal action figure(s), or anything Pokemon related? If so, please describe why. If not, tell me a little bit about your childhood bedsheets.
A: I have bought two pairs of Kangaroos in my life, one pair in 1987 that came with a free lunch box, and one pair last year that came with a blog.
Q: Favorite city in North America? Why?
A: Portland, Maine. Great beer, great people, great music, and all of it within walking distance. Was I supposed to say Austin? Damn.
-- Son of a…
Q: Why does Minnesota get such a bad rap? Is the guy whose picture is below the caption "Minnesota >> Land of 10,000 Retards" actually retarded?
A: The Onion started at the University of Wisconsin in 1998, and the inter-state rivalry remains strong. He's actually a former intern of ours, and a great sport.
Q: If I were to tell you that Michael Landon was in fact, a government-sponsored extraterrestrial (like an exchange program of sorts), how fervently would you deny that allegation?
A: Just enough to preserve my fond memories of Little House on the Prairie. Thanks for ruining my childhood, these questions are wonderful.
Q: There is an immense amount of material covered in this Atlas. Everything from Western Sahara's Justice System ("n/a") to Iran's most-hated U.S. state ("Iowa: can't explain why, just does"). Describe the fact checking process.
A: Unpaid interns and wikipedia.
-- shit yeah.
Q: Does Mauritania seriously still have slaves? How did the research on this get done? Bonus: Name one thing on Earth that's more disturbing. Just one.
A: 98% of jokes in this atlas started out as fact. We went out to make fun of the entire earth, but along the way came across horrible, disturbing things that we tried to shine a light on through humor.
One more horrifying thing: that there's a rap song out in the U.S. right now about catching your man cheating called "lemme smell yo dick," and there are probably more people in America aware of that song than are aware of the nation of Mauritania, much less what goes on there.
That keeps me awake at night, its a really catchy tune.
Q: If countries were actually human beings on steroids wearing onesies and fighting in organized cage-matches for fun/profit, which country do you think would be America's main adversary? What's his theme music and entourage look like? Why's that?
A: Never underestimate the Albanians, they're fucking scrappy. And no entourage, Albania is that badass.
Q: Did you go to Herbert Kornfeld's funeral? What's his mom like?
A: Biggie would have been jealous of Kornfeld's funeral.
Q: Why an Atlas of the World? Why not an Atlas of something else more better? Like bacon? Or French Canadians?
A: "The bible" was taken, but both are great tomes of imagination.
Q: If you were a fireman, would you ditch the dog mascot? Go with a wolverine perhaps? Maybe a platypus would be more fitting? Perhaps a cinder block?
A: No way, you gotta stick with the Dalmatian. When I was in kindergarten my teacher asked me if I wanted to be a fireman, and I said no, I wanted to be a firedog. ...I smoked a lot of pot in kindergarten.
Q: San Marino is not quite the writer's favorite in the book, but it's hilarious! We didn't even know it was considered its own country before now! Did you write that? Did you? It's really fucking funny! But seriously. Did you write that?
A: I can't take credit for the idea, that belongs to Dan Guterman, one of the head writers, but I did edit the country and write the entire in-depth history section.
Q: How do you think Halliburton would get involved if it was discovered that Panda blood is far more efficient than standard petroleum products in terms of combusting in combustible engines?
A: Infuriatingly better than anyone else in the game. Unprecedented access to the best panda reserves.
Q: You ever heard of that one parable where the scorpion floats across the river on the frog's belly, and then stings the frog to kill him, and when the frog says "hey, what the fuck, scorpion? You said you wouldn't kill me if I promised to get you across this river." And the scorpion just shrugs his front scorpion shoulders and says "your mother." Wow. Isn't that fucked up? I mean, animals can't philosophize about shit like that, can they?
A: How much benadryl did you take before typing out these questions?
-- One fist-serving.
Q: They’re definitely true to Onion form, but how many people slaved away at Photoshop-loaded computers, hammering out all the thousands of absolutely brilliant and offensive images peppered throughout this book? Do these people love their mothers very much?
A: The graphics work on this book still leaves me in awe. Long-time onion graphics editor Mike Loew headed up the team, with extensive help from Michael Faisca and Nick Gallo. I think every member of Nick's family in Staten Island has showed up in the book or the paper at least once. They're absolutely incredible, and I just wish we could have run the photos bigger.
Q: Did you know that the basis for the Killer Bee population in the Americas was a 1950s mistake by a stand-in beekeeper in Brazil? Dude inadvertently let out a gang of previously-isolated (for good reason) Africanized Queens and those little winged whores went out and mated all over creation, then started marching north to hunt children and smaller domesticated animals. Why do you think God would allow that to happen?
A: Of all the horrible things I've learned about that have come out of Africa, I think there are more horrifying things. "The Gods Must Be Crazy 3-5", for example.
Q: Funny is funny. Slippin' on banana peels, Dan Aykroyd on pills, Anchor Man. Universal Humor Americana. Often times, the funniest stuff runs right up to that line of demarcation between funny and just plain mean. Citing examples from the book would end in simply handing the entire thing over. What jokes were drawn up that didn't make the cut because they actually crossed that line into straight-up mean territory?
A: We tried to be equal opportunity offenders in this book, and there really weren't many jokes that we cut on mean reasons. We try to make sure that the jokes are on the right target, that we're hitting the situation or perpetrator, and not the victim.
Again, a lot of the mean/offensive jokes are based (to a varying degree) on fact, and we'd rather have people offended and informed than politically correct and ignorant.
We did have to Photoshop out the giant cock in bush's mouth in the Saudi Arabia entry, but that's just about the only thing we cut out. We also had a lot of volunteers to be the Saudi king's body-double for that photo.
A: You'd have to take that up with Jim, I can't speak for the man.
Q: Jean Teasdale kills me. Literally. Her and her goddamn miserable husband Rick. She's a truly wretched individual who could use a good punch to the jaw. What do you think of her choice in hairstyle? How's her breath?
A: You're not a Jeanketeer? I won't dignify that question with a response, she's like a sterile mother to our staff.
Q: Whoever decided to write Missouri's description in a faux Mark Twain voice deserves a medal. Not a question, but it needed to be said.
A: I will pass that along. Do you have medal giving authority at Austinist?
-- Nope.
Chet would also like to inform you all that The Onion is sponsoring this New Year’s Eve party at Mohawk where there will be bands playing and booze shall flow forth like nothing seen since before the great flood of biblical times. So put on your drinking hat and go listen to music while trying to guess which funnyman in the crowd is Chet. Happy fun times!
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