Segment Ideas for the Onion

A little over a month ago, I applied to be a freelance writer for the Onion News Network. This involved a fairly extensive and time consuming application process, but I was glad to give it a good shot. A few days ago, I found out I didn't get the job, which was a bit disappointing, but not terribly surprising, as I'm sure competition was tough, plus part of the application process involved writing a script, which is an area in which I have little to no experience. Heck, I don't have much comedy writing experience in general, but I do enjoy The Onion's breed of satire and wanted to try it. It was harder to write in that style than one might suspect, or at least it was for me, but after all was said & done, I felt pretty pleased about the Ten Segment Ideas part of my application. Since I did spend a lot of time on it and since it's not going to be used by The Onion, I'm opting to share it here. Maybe someone will find it amusing.

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--Survey of Skin Cream Company CEOs Reveals: 'Aging Gracefully' a Myth - General consensus among skin cream company reps is that any woman who does not invest in a leading skin cream is basically resigning herself to be an ugly, wrinkled, sun-spotted, prematurely aging crone on a collision course with job loss, divorce, and certain death.

--7 out of 10 Gynecologists Will Make Fun of Your Genitals - An ongoing informal poll conducted by family and friends of gynecologists reveals that most of these medical professionals will blatantly belittle your vagina in public, especially after having imbibed multiple alcoholic drinks. Anyone who has ever tried to reassure their lady friend about her dreaded annual gynecological exam with a clichéd phrase like, 'They've seen it all before' should rethink such lame reassurances. Ladies should make sure not to botch your bikini zone grooming on that fateful day or your beastly beaver could soon be the laughingstock of your doc's favorite watering hole. In related news-4 out of 5 Contemporary Men Agree Female Pubic Hair Still Ugly.

--As Part of Retro 80's Craze, Female Condom Making Comeback - In an unlikely trend associated with the resurgence of 80s fashion, the female condom, originally introduced in the late 1980s, is making a stylistic comeback. Those who are fans of this new trend claim that the cumbersome, unwieldy birth control device can insert some much-needed levity and charming awkwardness into intimate scenarios. Those who are not fans of the trend are advised to avoid picking up women in public places if they are sporting more than one of the following accessories: primary-colored polka dots, white flats, banana clips, jelly bracelets, or earrings made out of female condoms.

--Actor Hired to Star in Reality TV Show Reenactment About Man Who Gets Penis Stuck in Pool Filter Actually Gets Penis Stuck in Pool Filter - A small time actor in reality TV show clips may have not broken through into the acting mainstream yet, but still takes himself very seriously as a method actor who aims to get inside his character's heads and truly immerse himself into their roles. Unfortunately, he took his immersion a little too far recently, when preparing for the part of a penis-stuck-in-pool-filter accident victim in a reality TV show segment. Despite his mangled member, the actor is choosing to look on the bright side of his mishap. He claims this incident will allow him to bring more pathos to the role and anyway, nothing could be more embarrassing than the audition.

--Man Dressed as Blobfish Kicked out of Plushie Convention - Proving that even one of the warmest & fuzziest sounding fetish communities has its limits, a group of Plushies (adults who fetishize stuffed animals and sometimes like to dress up as their favorite animals) kicked a man out of their convention because he was costumed as a Blobfish. General consensus seemed to be that his costume was ugly, unsexy, and not plush-looking at all; in fact, it was downright slimy-looking. The Plushie convention's spokesman, dressed as a platypus, tried to put a more professional spin on the matter by suggesting it wasn't the fact that the Blobfish costume was unattractive per se, so much as the fact that it doesn't conform to the commonly accepted textural standards of Plushies. Most convention attendees' perspectives, though, could best be summed up by the woman dressed as a giant beaver, who asked, "What the heck is a Blobfish anyway? That's just weird".

--National Animal Rights Organization Calls for End to Animal Cruelty in Porn - Executives from the country's leading animal rights organization spent weeks viewing hardcore pornography in order to draft a detailed plea calling for serious changes to the way certain animals are handled in porn. Dog and horse blow jobs were deemed borderline offensive, since it is sometimes difficult to determine if the sex act is consensual. What really had activists in a tizzy, though, was the more recent wave of porn involving insertion of frogs, squid, and eels. Commented one animal rights official with a tone of outrage, 'In one clip alone, I must have seen at least twenty baby eels inserted into a woman via funnel, but nobody tells us what happens to those eels after they're forcefully ejected from the woman's vagina!'

--Retired Drug Sniffing Dogs Repurposed as Help Animals, Bad Idea - It seemed like a good idea at the time. Police force drug sniffing dogs are highly trained animals, so why let all that training go to waste and just have them become boring old regular dogs after they've served their stint with the police force? Why not capitalize upon their previous specialized training and supplement it with even more specialized training and transform these fine creatures into seeing eye dogs? Unfortunately, there must have been a few glitches in between that well-meaning plan's inception and its implementation. Less than a week after being assigned to his new seeing eye dog, a glaucoma sufferer lit up his weekly prescription of medical marijuana; before he knew what had happened, the man was not only blind, but in need of a prosthetic arm. Later that week, his new prosthesis was violently wrenched off when the blind man and his canine helpmate were waiting at a bus stop and the dog suddenly took off running towards a back alley. The blind man's wife is up in arms.

--Nation's Youngest Breast Cancer Survivor Becomes Nation's Youngest Recipient of Oversized Breast Implants - Less than a year after being diagnosed with breast cancer before she had even reached her teenage years and losing both breasts to a radical double mastectomy, the nation's youngest breast cancer survivor has replaced her scar tissue with enormous breast implants. The procedure was not without controversy, including outrage related to the oversexualization of young girls and various issues of height/weight proportionism. However, the girl and her family decided that after all she had been through in the last year, she deserved the chance to "go all out" and do something special with the leftover funds that had been donated towards her medical expenses. Asked what she's planning to do next, the child survivor/starlet expressed interest in the pro wrestling circuit.

--Middle Aged Woman Googles Herself; Finds Out She Barely Exists - If this had happened five years ago, she probably would have just started setting up profiles on online social networking sites and writing slightly salacious blogs in order to make a name for herself, but she's already in her thirties; she doesn't have that kind of time on her hands. At this point, she's going to have to involve herself in some soft core whoring via web cam if she wants to establish any kind of lasting identity. In related news-Online Study Shows Lowest Common Denominator Getting Lower.

--Can't Afford Your Pet? Food Network Can Help - In these trying economic times, more families are having trouble keeping up with the costs associated with their four-legged friends. Luckily, the Food Network is doing its part to stimulate the economy by offering such families a small stipend for donating their dogs to an exciting new TV show that's half human interest story and half exotic food presentation piece. No Chinese food here; this will be fresh, All-American cuisine, like the BLT & P, in which the P stands for Puggle. This groundbreaking program will aim to cast the consumption of canines in an affirmative and celebratory new light. If pet owners have their own ideas for a recipe that would best befit the legacy of their dearly departed family pet, they are welcome to submit the recipe along with the donated dog.