DikkersIn January 2000, The Onion's editor-in-chief Scott Dikkers held a press conference in the oaken splendor of The Players club in New York to promote the magazine's Our Dumb Century. Many observers were surprised when a panel of four distinguished historians, introduced with great fanfare, sat and said nothing.
Dikkers later confessed that the supposed "historians" were in fact only actors which he had engaged as props.
[Among the headlines in Our Dumb Century:
PURE FOOD AND DRUG ACT WILL LIMIT HUMAN-THUMB LEVELS PERMITTED IN MEATS
WORLD'S LARGEST METAPHOR HITS ICE-BERG (the Titanic disaster)
PRETENTIOUS, GOATEED COFFEEHOUSE TYPES SEIZE POWER IN RUSSIA (the Bolshevik Revolution)
HOOVER HOPES TO RESTORE FAITH IN NATION'S BANKS WITH FREE-TOASTER OFFER (The Great Depression)
NEW PRESIDENT FEELS NATION'S PAIN, BREASTS (Clinton)
FROG WITH HUMAN HEAD WARNS AGAINST DANGERS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING, and
DRUGS WIN DRUG WAR]
Dikkers, Scott (?- ) American writer and editor, co-founder of the satirical newspaper The Onion [noted for such Onion books as
Our Dumb Century]More Scott Dikkers anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
Publicity Stunts Publicity Props Ruses Press Conferences
View/add Comments [0]
