Junk or jokes?
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Editor
The most infamous headline in
the history of the Harvard Crim
son was not “Man walks on moon”
or “President shot.”
The big news was simply:
“Motherfucker!”
In fact, the headline wasn’t even in
the Crimson: it appeared on the front
page of the Harvard Lampoon’s parody
issue of the Crimson on April Fool’s
Day 1990.
While two joke-issue experts and a
professional news
paper editor
warned of the dan
gers of printing
such satire, editors
of student newspa
pers said theirjoke
issues were all in
good fun.
James Tidwell,
an associate pro
fessor of journal
ism at Eastern Illinois University, said
college newspapers printed joke issues
to break up the monotony of daily news
events.
“They want to have some fun." he
said. “Thev set tired of evervdav news."
Editors say: “‘Gee, we’re tired of cov
ering the city council and faculty sen
ate. Let’s make things up,”’ Tidwell
said.
John David Reed, chairman of the
journalism department at Eastern Illi
nois University, said satire in college
newspapers represented a part of jour
nalism that rarely surfaced in profes
sional publications. They are, he said,
a suppressed wing of all journalism.
“Why does Doonesbury pick on poor
old George Bush? It’s fun." he said.
“One of the things I think is wrong with
professional Journalism is that we don’t
have enough fun."
Out of the 30 or so college newspa
pers he scans daily, Reed said, about
five to seven publish annual joke Is
sues. Reed and Tidwell present semi
nars nationwide about Joke-issue pub
lications.
Origins in tradition
Reed said joke issues were not a
passing trend; editors have published
them for years.
“It’s not something people do be
cause other people have done it," he
said. “It comes out of tradition."
Joke issues originated before the
1960s, when college newspaper editors
didn’t have professional intentions,
Reed said.
Life changed in the ’60s, he said, and
young journalists had to get serious
about war, civil rights and free speech
if they wanted to have a voice in the
country’s decisions.
“Now most aspire seriously to be
professional journalists," he said.
But even the serious college editors
print joke issues, Tidwell said, often
just because the newspaper has a tra
dition of publishing them.
Matthew Dembicki, a staff writer at
the University of Connecticut’s stu
dent newspaper, said the Daily Cam
pus April Fool’s issue, the Daily
Scampus, was a holiday tradition.
“When you put out newspapers on
Halloween, you’re going to have a news
paper story about Halloween. It’s kind
of like a newspaper’s tribute to April
Fool’s Day." he said.
Not all fun and games
Tidwell said that while joke issues
might be fun to produce, not all joke
issues succeeded at being humorous.
“Typically a joke issue is bad," he
said, because most of the content in
such an issue is “sophomoric" and
unoriginal.
“I don’t know how many issues I’ve
seen with a big blown-up beer can fit
into a picture somewhere," Reed said.
“They aren’t clever enough to come up
with anything else."
Tidwell said some papers’ joke is
sues were raunchy.
Lampoon, said one or two of the
Lampoon’s five annual issues were
parodies of Harvard’s student newspa
per, the Harvard Crimson.
A headline in the 1990 Lampoon’s
April Fool’s Day parody of the Crimson
read, “Motherfucker!" with a smaller
headline stating. “Crimson prints most
vulgar headline ever." That issue drew
nationwide attention for its content.
But Green said the Lampoon usually
did not compete with the Crimson.
“The only way we could compete with
them is to be as bad as them," he said.
While the content of each satire is
sue varies. Green said, the Lampoon
often picks on one student leader at
Harvard “Just because he’s fat.”
Reed said that when editors criti
cized someone, they had to decide
whether the victim deserved it.
“There are those who are fair game to
be ridiculed, and there are those who
are not," Reed said. “If you ridicule
someone who is physically handi
capped. that’s outrageous.”
Green said the Lampoon tried to
poke fun only at those who were de
"When you put out newspapers on Halloween, you're
going to have a newspaper story about Halloween. It's
kind of like a newspaper's tribute to April Fool's Day."
— Dembicki, Daily Campus staff writer
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
student newspaper, the Daily Nebras
kan, was criticized last year for pub
lishing a joke issue that contained pro
fanity and sexually explicit material.
“Some people’s idea of fun is to write
‘fuck’ in 86-polnt type," Tidwell said.
“Why people think dirty words and
these types of things are funny, I don’t
know."
Reed said the same old jokes usually
appeared in Joke issues.
“Some weather boxes say, ‘Colder,
than a witch’s tit,’" he said. “What’s
funny about that? Nothing."
Reed said little effort was put into
such issues.
“They drop their drawers and moon
the camera." he said.
But, this type of Joke issue does
attract readers. Tidwell said.
“If you’re doing smutty-type stuff,
lots of college students are going to
want to look at it." he said.
As popular as a smut issue may be.
Tidwell said, it’s still not as funny as a
satire issue.
Yet, top-quality satire is rare, Tidwell
said.
“It’s hard to do a good satire. Not
everybody can be the Harvard Lam
poon," he said.
Harvard Lampoon
Elmer Green, mothrix (a position
similar to vice president) of the Harvard
serving.
“We don’t want to do anything that
hurts anyone," he said. “We don’t want
to make anyone cry."
Stirring up trouble
Tidwell said editors took the chance
of stirring up trouble when they mocked
people in Joke issues.
“You have to decide whether it’s worth
getting into a ruckus," Tidwell said.
Reed said most student journalists
didn’t mind controversy.
“College editors are pretty fearless."
he said. “A little controversy is not
going to scare them off."
Green said the Lampoon’s satires
had caused trouble.
“We’ve gotten millions of people
kicked out of school," he said.
Green said he had no delusions that
the Lampoon’s satire was close to true
journalism.
“If it was, we sure as hell wouldn’t be
doing it. . . . Journalism is retarded,"
Green said.
Tidwell said one publication that
came close to the Lampoon’s satirical
quality was the April Fool’s issue of the
Daily of the University of Washington.
Wes Pope, Washington Daily photo
editor, described the paper’s Joke is
sues as “in between satirical and sopho
moric."
On April Fool’s Day in 1987. the
paper did a spoof of the Seattle Times.
To increase believability. Pope said, the
Washington Daily even ran actual by
lines of staff members.
He said stories on the cover of the
Washington Daily’s joke issues started
out realistically.
But, he said, “by the time you get to
the end of the paper, there’s no way you
could believe it was real."
Pope said readers who were tired of
hearing about meetings and speakers
enjoyed joke issues.
“It provides them an escape for the
day,” he said.
Printing a joke issue also provides
college journalists with experiences
they’ll never get when they work for
professional papers. Pope said.
“This is stuff you can’t get away with
in the real world of Journalism." he
said.
Line between satire, filth
Reed said that although joke issues
were just that — jokes — sometimes
they were taken a little too seriously.
“Some are dumb, some are moronic,
some are sophomoric. Some of them
are dangerous," Reed said.
Tidwell said editors occasionally had
to draw the line between material that
was good satire and material that bor
dered on filth or even blasphemy.
“People can do what they want and
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In the June 1979 joke issue of the
Minnesota Daily, editors published an
interview titled “Christ Speaks." The
article portrayed Jesus as a drug addict
and homosexual.
Blake Morrison, editor in chief of the
Minnesota Daily at the University ol
Minnesota, said the Minnesota Legis
lature and University of Minnesota of
ficials tried to alter the method of stu
dent-fee allocation for the Daily aftei
the issue.
Daily editors sued the regents to
reverse the funding decision and won.
The Eighth Circuit Court, which in
cludes Nebraska, ruled that a student
newspaper’s content could not be used
as a basis for a change in long-standing
funding.
Morrison said the newspaper had
only published a few joke issues since
then, most recently on March 23.
Instead of being blasphemous or
raunchy, he said, the March issue was
a satire based on events at the Minne
apolis campus. A few almost-believ
able facts made the issue funny.
Morrison said.
“There are bits of truth to all of this,”
he said.
Morrison said bad satire was not
funny.
“If it’s well-done, it’s good." he said.
“And if it’s not, people Just roll their
eyes and say. There they go again.’”
Credibility questioned
Tidwell said publishing joke issues
could cause problems that could be
easily avoided if the issues were not
published.
