It’s so familiar that you almost gasp. A kidnapping is underway, and footage is beaming around the world from an ever- alert cable news network.
This time, the kidnap victim is a reporter, one of the colleagues of the anchor reporting the story.
“It’s hard to comprehend how anyone, even a terrorist, could treat a TV personality’s hair that way,” says anchor Brooke Alvarez.
You know the arch journalistic voice, so easily parodied by buttoned-down newscasters from “Saturday Night Live” to “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.”
But here, that familiar voice is packaged to mimic an entire institution. The breathless speed of the headlines and the whiplash-inducing cutaways are compounded by flashing graphics, shocking segment titles and whooshing sound effects.
The Onion News Network is nothing if not fast and furious. The smart sendup of cable TV news, which began as a Web video series, tonight joins the medium it mocks.
A hyperactive 30-minute parody, “Onion News Network” debuts at 9 p.m. on IFC, bringing the satirical Onion newspaper’s “news without mercy” style to TV. Safely situated on a channel that trusts the audience’s intelligence, the series takes off with no explanation, no apology.
Looking at the pictures of their kidnapped colleague, the anchors express shock: “The tears and blood are really starting to make her cheeks look shiny,” co-anchor Tucker Hope laments.
The Onion’s “SportsDome” on Comedy Central has already nailed the rowdiness and pettiness of the ESPN “SportsCenter” format. Now comes the spoof for cable- TV news junkies.
Just like the real thing, it’s frantic, loud and opinionated — and appealing to lonely, alienated Americans longing for a sense of togetherness. So what if the elocution of the anchor babe, plus her smart suits, long legs and tidy composure, are just a backdrop to a crazy jumble of titillating tidbits?
That’s what we’re primed to expect. Fast, furious and incessantly updated, sometimes mean-spirited and presumptuous. Often invoking confusion and terror.
Here’s an incoming “News Blast.” A morning show, excitedly titled “Today Now!” A panel of “FactZone First Responders” who volunteer reactions to the news “faster than anyone else!” and are said to be among the most opinionated people in the nation.
To the breaking news that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is threatening the West with annihilation unless he is cast in the next “Batman” movie, what do the “First Responders” say? They banter in the stiff or outrageous, egomaniacal performance style of cable TV analysts and bloviators everywhere.
Setting its intention at the top, the Onion News Network promises breaking news, screaming political arguments “and vital information on missing teenage Caucasian girls.” No cable-news convention escapes skewering.
In the opening show, “FactZone” anchor Alvarez, “the world’s most respected news reader,” reports on a court case in which “a white girl has been given the harshest possible sentence: She will be tried as a black adult.” (Her bio states that Alvarez always dreamed of being famous. “A prolific Twitter user, Brooke tweets 20-40 times a day, often while her guests are talking.”)
Meanwhile, through all the back-and- forth of anchors and manipulation of a handy-dandy touch-screen wall monitor, a “breaking news” text scrolls beneath the picture: “Tibet signs Dalai Lama to $80 million, 5-year contract extension” — a typical Onion scoop.
The frenetic pace and authoritative tone are spot-on, but, as a viewer, the idea of sitting down to watch such a parody as a regular means of relaxation feels exhausting.
Besides, how can they ever top that classic Onion headline from years ago: “Dying Girl Lent Pony”?
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
