The Onion captures the true spirit of Lake Wobegon. Finally! Someone gets it!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The Onion captures the true spirit of Lake Wobegon. Finally! Someone gets it!
Never listened to much Lake Wobegon stuff, so I mostly just was reminded of American Gods.
“…where the men are strong, the women are good-looking, and the God Of The Lake accepts our blood offerings.”
Even the serial killers are above average!
I don’t get it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon
gijoel
Thanks. I did that already.
Still don’t get it.
Is it because I’m not an USAmerican?
I’m glad someone hasn’t forgotten Pastor Inkvist’s junket to Florida.
There’s literally 20 years of inside references in this column, somebody’s been saving this up. Inkvist and his wife went to Tampa for a Lutheran Leadership conference in like 1991.
Hmm …
And why are you keeping tabs on this, Jamie?
Is there something you’d like to tell us? …
@chigau #6: I suspect it’s just an in-joke for fans of this “A Prairie Home Companion”, with as much references to the fictional town crammed into it as possible.
Also, I misread the wikipedia article, and thought the town houses a “Buck’s Rent-a-T-Rex”.
just good hole some fun
good article
uncle frogy
For some reason, I’ve always imagined Lake Wobegon as an “Innsmouth of the Prairie” kind of place.
@shakeb #1 – That was my first thought, too.
Well, it’s not mainstream USAmerican. But the USAmerican that listen to and know NPR quite well. If you looked it up, there really isn’t any thing more to get. The Prairie Home Companion monologues present Lake Wobegon as a sleepy small town and the Onion just thinks it be a funny juxtaposition to have a series of ghastly murders in it.
It helps if you have been listening to the monologues for 30 years.
Oh. I guess there is also a Americanism in that we have conflicting schizophrenic icons of the Americann small town. On the one hand it’s a nostalgic and comforting image of old fashion values and a place where people belong (Norman Rockwell) but on the other it’s sometimes seen as cloistered and limited and with hidden secrets just below the surface that are never forgot but never public– the place where psycho-killers snap under pressure (Deliverence).
But listeners of A Prairee Home Companion will note: the first line “Though local residents insist it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, MN, their hometown out on the edge of the prairie,” is a direct lift from the monologues and evokes a sense of laconic ease; throughout to story the characters respond to grizzly murders with “lutheran” stoic nonchalance which is a defining feature of the monologues; there are a lot of specific direct references in the character names and business; and the final line “We do have one suspect: a Caucasian male in his mid to late 60s, who was last seen dressed in a dark suit, a red tie, red socks, and sneakers,..This deranged psychopath talks in a very breathy, slow cadence, and was overheard several weeks ago saying, ‘I have to finish what I started. It’s gotten out of control. All of them must die.'” is a reference to Garrison Keillor, the host who created Lake Wobegon.
chigau:
You’re familiar with Stewart Mclean’s Vinyl Cafe, right?
So lots of the specific sentences’ humorous points are in jokes, but the basic premise wouldn’t be different if Dave and Morley lived in the Prairies and all the good-hearted folk with whom they interact ended up dead in a pond.
about whom there have been rumors that he’s pretty tired of doing the same schtick for 30 years. I don’t know that he’s ever admitted as much publicly, but I’ve heard other people from public radio say it. Could be they are just (wrongly) projecting about what they’d feel, but if so, their projection is plausible enough to add a funny verisimilitude to the idea of Keillor as killer.
Kieller is retiring USAToday story
It’s seems that Lake Woebegon, Guy Noir, and Dusty & Lefty will be going away, too. Which means I probably will no longer listen, since those were the parts I enjoyed.
I guess I’ll have to eat more ketchup. The natural mellowing agents will help me cope with the loss.
@woozy #13 – Speaking of small towns: My Home Town by Tom Lehrer.
Of course!
What *did* Parson Brown do?
Thank you so much for reminding me of this!
Keiler *did* retire for two years in 1986. It was a big deal then (and totally forgotten now) and there was a countdown to the final episode and then for a two years he went on tour doing re-enactments of the final episode including a second anniversary final performance. Then in 1988 he announced he was going to do a new show called something like “American Radio Company Theater of the Air”. He was asked if he do episodes of Buster the Wonder Dog, promote powder milk biscuits, and have news from Lake Wobegon and he answered “probably not”. And … he didn’t do Buster the Wonder Dog. (And he invented Lives of the Cowboy and Guy Noire). And two years later he just changed the name back to Prairie Home Companion with a “I guess it was enevitable it’d be the same thing; I shouldn’t have tried to resist it and why on earth did I think it’d be funny to have a complicated name no-one would be able to remember; of course they just called it by the old name and I guess I shouldn’t have tried to resist.” And of course the “new” Prairie home companion has been running 4 or 5 times longer than the original ever did.
re 16:
sad. weeps. Farewell Guy Noir PI.
thanks YOB for the update about the supposed inspiration for the Onion satire about Wobegone.
;-(
p.s. nostalgia time: remember Garrison occasionally appearing on Letterman? (on NBC, before the move to CBS). Letterman interacting with Keillor was epic.
Never watched Letterman (or any of those type shows) so went to YouTube to see what I could find. Nothing with Kieller & Letterman, but found one with Craig Ferguson. Couple of funny bits but overall a pretty crappy interview, imho.
Vid here
Craig Ferguson’s whole show was doing a “not a show” it was a parody of a show with many pointless bits a late night soupy sales that was characterized best by his uncomfortable pause at the end of his none interviews he and the guest just did nothing for a minute maybe squirm a little while the camera watched
uncle frogy
I prefer my visits to Night Vale.
@23 That’s because you do not work for Strex Corp. and never met Erika. :)