'The Onion's' Scott Dikkers Would Have Written A Funnier Headline

The saying goes that “dying is easy; comedy is hard.” But humorist Scott Dikkers makes writing satire look effortless.

Dikkers is the founding editor of the wildly popular humor publication, The Onion, turning it into one of the premier comedic voices of the last 25 years. These days, he hosts The Comedy Insider Podcast, teaches others how to write satire, and has just released a new book, "Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide."

On Tuesday, Dikkers gave a talk at Elon University. He recently spoke with WFDD's Sean Bueter about the heady early days of The Onion, the publication's relationship to mainstream journalism, and the comedic voices that influenced him.

Interview Highlights:

On The Onion's early days as a college humor publication:

“There was a lot of shenanigans, a lot of craziness, a lot of nudity and madness. But it was incredibly fun. It was incredibly exciting. It was all these people from this small college town of Madison, Wisconsin, who just got together around a common purpose, which was ‘Hey, let's try to make the funniest publication we possibly can.'”

On what inspired him in the beginning:

“I'm one of those people who's not necessarily inspired by really good comedy that I respect. What really lights a fire under me is when I see comedy that's done very badly. And I think, ‘Oh, I can do better than that!' I didn't like a lot of college humor that I saw. But I was a big fan of Steve Martin and David Letterman. And Steve Martin put out some books when I was a kid that I got. But again, I never laughed at him. I'm a tough room, I don't laugh at much. And I think partly that's what [has] made me a successful editor is that I always see something and say 'Eh, it's not quite as funny as it could be.'”

On the similarities – and differences – between satire and good journalism:

“[Satire] has a point to make. It has an idea about how the world could be a better place, and it expresses that. But instead of being an annoying, preachy editorial, it does it through jokes, and satirists know that people would much rather read jokes and not realize that they're being fed a secret message than to read a preachy editorial.”