After establishing a stellar reputation for hilarious online videos, it was glorious news when The Onion announced two new series to debut in January: “Onion Sportsdome” on Comedy Central and “Onion News Network” on IFC.
The sheer contrast in quality between the two shows curbs the initial excitement.
It’s been said that sometimes The Onion’s hilarity begins and ends with a story’s headline, and it is never more true than “Onion Sportsdome.”
One of the main problems with “Sportsdome,” through its first three episodes, is that it takes everything that is annoying about ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and does not just amplify it to 11; it cranks it up to 100.
Yes, the “SportsCenter” anchors do, annoyingly, tell us too much about their personal lives by forcing non-sequitur pop culture references into sports highlights. But “Sportsdome” explicitly creates storylines for its two main anchors, Mark Shepard and Alex Riser.
One anchor has a band that he is trying to shove down everyone’s throats. The other is getting over a suspension and makes bad decisions with women. Both storylines are dead on arrival.
“Sportsdome” also attempts to make fun of some of the zanier segments on “SportsCenter.” The problem is that the parodies on “Sportsdome” completely jump the shark and come off as just amateurish attempts at humor. A frog predicting games? Please. The Onion is better than this.
The show does have some redeeming quality in a sketch here, a joke there. In particular, a commercial advertising a fake drama where baseball players attempt to solve murder cases, “CSI” style, is absolutely hilarious.
But the winners are few and far between in a roughly 22-minute show, and “Onion Sportsdome,” despite its genius-sounding premise, is ultimately not worth the time.
Perhaps the downfall of “Sportsdome” is that it so obviously is just a parody of “SportsCenter,” leaving little room for creativity outside the boilerplate presentation of “SportsCenter.”
“Onion News Network” on IFC, however, does not just draw upon its new, fictional, CNN-style news show, complete with an overcompensating name (Fact Zone) and an overconfident anchor (Brooke Alvarez).
“Onion News Network” also draws upon the wealth of existing sketches from The Onion’s website: “Today Now,” a parody of a morning show, “The Cressbeckler Stance,” a news commentary show with an old miser, “Onion-SPAN” showcasing Congress, and “In The Know,” a “Meet the Press”-style roundtable discussion.
Perhaps the only downfall of “Onion News Network” is that it fails to show more of the other sketches. In terms of quality, it would also do better with less “In the Know” and more “Today Now” and “The Cressbeckler Stance.”
More importantly, “Onion News Network” simply has better material. Instead of having a few winning jokes, “Onion News Network” has had many through its first two episodes.
The standout story was one about how prospective voters were leaning toward voting in former Gov. Sarah Palin for the presidency in 2012 simply to see what would happen. Slogans for the movement included “2012: Let’s Go Out With a Bang!” That is comedy gold.
But like “Sportsdome,” “Onion News Network” needs to worry less about fleshing out stories or having a story continue throughout the episode and more about having more jokes hit the target.
With the style of humor that The Onion uses, rapid timing is everything. The speed of “Family Guy” and “Robot Chicken” is slow compared to what is necessary for The Onion’s shows to not drag.
