InfoWars is back, and this time it’s not a bad thing. The right wing outlet once owned and operated by disgraced (and deeply indebted) conspiracy theorist Alex Jones relaunched on Thursday as a subsidiary of The Onion.
Shortly after 8 p.m. ET, comedian Tim Heidecker took the chair. “We have officially taken over InfoWars now, this is the new dawn,” he said in his unwavering Jones impression, before teasing that he had secret info on the network’s former owner. The broadcast then cut to The Jim Haggerty Show. Haggerty brought on former CIA agent Neil Riker (played by actor Phil Braun), who railed about all the conspiracy theorist hits, eventually coming to the wild conclusions that JFK had not killed himself at all, but had been assassinated, and that the Twin Towers, in fact, had been attacked by terrorists on 9/11 — and no one is talking about it.
The main event of the night came about 15 minutes in, when Heidecker brought his throaty Jones impression to the host seat, teasing segments on soybeans (“Not an organic product, engineered farming substitute for nutrition. It’s established in 1928, one year before the Great Depression!”) and a scandal within the funeral home industry (“About 60 percent of bodies buried now in America have been the wrong body, and many of them are alive!”). He then got to the big story of the night: Exclusive footage of Alex Jones exploding in his SUV after eating too many Whataburgers. He took calls, including one from Tim from Toledo, who viewers quickly figured out was comedian Tim Robinson. Tim from Toledo insisted that Jones had been dead before the supposed explosion — that he’s a character, like James Bond or Bozo the Clown, who is periodically replaced. Heidecker kept in character as he derided Tim from Toledo’s theory, with the caller eventually spouting back, “I will not be told this, that I’m full of shit. I reject that!”
The 50-minute broadcast had the surreal feel of early Adult Swim — which isn’t a coincidence, given that Heidecker is probably best known for Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, one of the network’s first hits. The show on Thursday was interspersed with commercials for Jones-esque, non-FDA approved products like Hogwater and Pure-O Oxygen Tablets, as well as calls to “Unlock the secret revenue stream: Turn your piss into gold.”
The road to InfoWars’ relaunch has been long. The Onion has been locked in a drawn out legal saga between Jones, the Sandy Hook families who successfully sued him for defamation, and the courts, over its takeover of the website for almost two years now. While the takeover, which is supported by the Sandy Hook families, remains in limbo facing a final appeal from Jones, The Onion is moving ahead with their relaunch.
“Everyone thinks we’re just YOLO-ing it, that is not the case,” The Onion CEO Ben Collins told Rolling Stone on Wednesday. “We are doing everything very, very strategically, legally — the point of this is to get this thing moving.”
Jones has thrown every wrench at the paper to try and foil the reboot of his digital streaming and supplement empire. Jones “was positive he was never gonna pay [the families,] and if we weren’t around, he would be right,” Collins added. “We’re glad to play that foil for as long as the families need us.” Collins reported that merch sales alone from the takeover had already netted over $100,000 in revenue for the Sandy Hook families, and that they expected much more in the future.
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In a statement issued by The Onion, the paper said it intends to “transform one of the internet’s most notorious misinformation brands into a destination for comedy, creativity, and original programming.”
At the center of the new production is Heidecker, InfoWars’ new creative director, who in April told Rolling Stone that there is absolutely an aspect of petty revenge to the whole thing. “I know, in fact, that families want [Jones] to feel bad,” Heidecker said in April. “A bit of retribution or justice and consequences for what he did and I think the strongest way to do that is not through violence or anything like that — but just through laughing at somebody. Making fun of that person, mocking them, making them look like a fool.”
Viewers can access the video of the broadcast on TheOnion.info, or across social media platforms including YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, BlueSky, and Facebook. During the show on Thursday, the network aired an ad for a July 3 premiere of its own Ken Burns-exque documentary, America: Birth of a Nation. Whether that’s their next big undertaking, or just a great one-minute clip of internet comedy, viewers will have to tune in to find out.
From Rolling Stone US
