{"id":49023,"date":"2026-05-02T11:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=49023"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:38:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:38:27","slug":"we-have-to-mock-the-sites-insanity-comedian-tim-heidecker-on-the-allure-of-becoming-infowars-new-boss-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=49023","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We have to mock the site\u2019s insanity\u2019: comedian Tim Heidecker on the allure of becoming Infowars\u2019 new boss | Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/span>Tim Heidecker on the Onion\u2019s potential Infowars takeover: \u2018I think for a little while it\u2019s going to be fun to play with [Jones] and just keep reminding people of what an oaf he is.\u2019<\/span> Composite: The Guardian\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve tuned in to Infowars over the years, you might have heard a very angry man screaming about the 2020 election being stolen for \u201creanimated corpse\u201d Joe Biden, or chemicals in the water turning frogs gay, or the Sandy Hook school shooting, which killed 20 children and six staff members, being faked. Founded in 1999, Alex Jones\u2019s Infowars has long been a platform for toxic conspiracy theories with real-life consequences, in addition to weird dietary supplements. But if the Onion has its way, the InfoWars of the future will have a very different impact.<\/p>\n

The satirical newspaper has been working for several years to take over the site, amid legal battles over Jones\u2019s false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Pending a Texas court\u2019s approval, the platform could soon be in the hands of the Onion and a newly installed creative director, comedian Tim Heidecker, known for his surreal sketches and mockery of the far right. The result would be the transformation of a dangerous political weapon into a comedy hub that undermines everything Infowars once stood for.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my first thoughts is just what a great joke it would be, over time, if we could change the meaning and understanding of the site itself,\u201d Heidecker says, \u201cand that\u2019s [Jones\u2019s] legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The path to the Onion\u2019s takeover has been twisty. In 2022, a court ordered Jones to pay $1.4bn \u2013 a record defamation award \u2013 to the families of children killed in the school shooting. Jones had long falsely claimed that the attack was a hoax, which led to conspiracists\u2019 vicious harassment of the families. In order to pay the debt, Infowars\u2019 parent company was ordered to sell off assets.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the Onion swooped in. After its initial bid to buy the site was blocked in 2024, the Onion\u2019s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, reached a potential six-month deal this week <\/strong>to lease the site from a court-appointed administrator for $81,000 a month, with an option to renew. Eventually, the Onion plans to buy all the site\u2019s assets, Ben Collins, Global Tetrahedron\u2019s CEO, told CNN.<\/p>\n

But first, it must face yet another legal curveball. Late on Wednesday, a Texas court temporarily halted the proposed deal after an emergency motion from Jones\u2019s legal team. A new hearing is set for 28 May. <\/strong><\/p>\n

double quotation markIt\u2019s hard to really state how destructive [Alex Jones has] been here in this countryTim Heidecker<\/p>\n

Collins remained confident. \u201cThis newly insane, unprecedented legal stalling does nothing but delay our deal with the receiver to take control of InfoWars,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

If all goes to plan for the Onion, that new InfoWars \u2013 which features a charming rainbow logo, after Jones\u2019s claims that government chemicals make people (and amphibians) gay <\/strong> \u2013 will begin as a parody of the original. Heidecker will embody a Jones-inspired role, with a scratchy voice \u2013 perhaps hoarse from yelling about the new world order \u2013 emanating from deep within his throat. The comedian, whose past work includes the Adult Swim show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and the podcast Office Hours Live, has already toured the Onion offices and appeared outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia in character.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not somebody that likes to beat a joke into the ground, but I think for a little while it\u2019s going to be fun to play with [Jones] and just keep reminding people of what an oaf he is, what a clown he is, and not be very nice about it,\u201d Heidecker says. \u201cHe did something truly, truly awful. It\u2019s hard to really state how destructive he\u2019s been here in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jones is not taking all this lying down; in fact, he\u2019s been taking it standing up and shirtless, as he appeared on a recent Infowars broadcast to condemn the Onion takeover. Reacting with typical restraint to the plan, Jones also posted on X that Heidecker \u201cproduced pro-pedophile \/ child torture & murder shows for Adult Swim\u201d and linked him to \u201cSatanic rituals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked to respond to the allegations, Heidecker said: \u201cI\u2019m happy to confirm all of that with you,\u201d noting that he had recently \u201cpledged my allegiance to the Lord of Darkness\u201d on his podcast.<\/p>\n

Jokes aside, Jones was apparently confusing old Tim and Eric comedy sketches with real life. \u201cHe went full-on literal with a lot of this stuff,\u201d Heidecker said. \u201cI think his audience was kind of like, \u2018Alex, come on, man, this is a comedian, you\u2019re falling for it.\u2019\u201d (The top reply to one X post reads: \u201cSorry Alex, I hate the libs too, but I\u2019m always on the side of comedy and free expression.\u201d)<\/p>\n

To Heidecker, that broader reaction is an indication that Jones\u2019s followers may be drifting away from him. \u201cPeople are worried about filling up their gas tanks over here, and these culture wars that they got themselves into feel maybe less vital,\u201d he says. He hopes the show \u201cchips away there\u201d and helps people realize that \u201cmaybe they\u2019ve been following along with a snake oil salesman\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, hopes the same. \u201cIf their programming can be of interest to Jones\u2019s former audience, and help bring them out of the dark, that would be wonderful,\u201d he told the New York Times last week.<\/p>\n

Much like the site it is parodying, the new InfoWars will feature writing, video and advertisements for supplements. A preview of the site shows an ad promising to \u201cturn your gold into piss\u201d and teach you to float in midair.<\/p>\n

Another character joining Heidecker, Jim Haggerty, is a former host of the Onion\u2019s morning-show-styled series Today Now \u2013 but he\u2019s been redpilled. \u201cFor 35 years, I was part of the problem, a mouthpiece for the mainstream media, spewing their lies,\u201d he says in a trailer of sorts for the new InfoWars. \u201cBut now I\u2019m free of my corporate shackles, and my only business is freedom.\u201d Haggerty, played by the actor Brad Holbrook, will be a Tucker Carlson type on the platform, Heidecker says. Others on the small initial team include Mia DiPasquale as head of programming; Jamie Brew, a writer from the Onion; and Matt Carlin, producer of Office Hours Live.<\/p>\n

In addition to leasing the site, the new InfoWars will help the Sandy Hook families financially through merchandise sales. \u201cIt\u2019s been eight years and three days since the Sandy Hook families initially filed this lawsuit, and they have not received a fucking penny,\u201d Collins told CNN. \u201cSo, we\u2019re excited to get them immediate pennies with some merch sales \u2013 but also longer-term pennies once we do wind up eventually straight up buying this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, perhaps in the autumn, Heidecker plans to shift InfoWars from a direct parody to a wider-ranging comedy hub. \u201cWe have to spend some time doing what I think everyone expects\u201d in reflecting \u201cthe insanity of that site \u2013 play with it and mock it\u201d, he says. But that\u2019s going to have \u201ca relatively short shelf life\u201d. One thing that drew him to the project \u2013 his involvement began with a cold call to the Onion \u2013 was the possibility of creating a larger home for \u201cinteresting outsider, nonmainstream, culturally diverse\u201d comedy online.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe landscape is so different now than it was when I was starting out\u201d in the early 2000s, Heidecker says. The days of Funny or Die, Adult Swim and early YouTube dominating a rich comedy media ecosystem are over. Social media offers opportunities, but those platforms are \u201cnot very well curated, not well funded. Everybody\u2019s just in the wilderness. And I thought, well, if the Onion has some money and some interest in growth, that it would be a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones has told followers he\u2019ll continue his \u201cexact same show\u201d on another platform. (The original Infowars did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Meanwhile, the detoxified InfoWars can provide a counterweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are undoubtedly living in a confusing, scary and maddening world where everything you see and hear is crazy,\u201d Heidecker says. But comedy can make us feel that we are \u201cnot so alone any more: you feel this way, I\u2019ve been feeling this way \u2026 and I see you saying: \u2018Yes, you\u2019re not crazy. This<\/em> is crazy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Heidecker on the Onion\u2019s potential Infowars takeover: \u2018I think for a little while it\u2019s going to be fun to play with [Jones] and just keep reminding people of what an oaf he is.\u2019 Composite: The Guardian\/Getty Images If you\u2019ve tuned in to Infowars over the years, you might have heard a very angry man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[24408,1120,10812,2512,24407,24409,24406,2145,1509,6263],"class_list":{"0":"post-49023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-allure","9":"tag-boss","10":"tag-comedian","11":"tag-comedy","12":"tag-heidecker","13":"tag-infowars","14":"tag-insanity","15":"tag-mock","16":"tag-sites","17":"tag-tim"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}