Caemeron Crain
I hope you’ve followed this saga, but if you haven’t, we should start with a brief rundown. In 2024, Alex Jones was forced to file bankruptcy after he was successfully sued by Sandy Hook families for the pernicious lies he told about the tragic school shooting, which led to untold harassment and so on. Among other things, this meant that the InfoWars property went to auction, where the winning bid came from The Onion. More legal shenanigans ensued, and I’m not sure, even, if they’re fully resolved just yet. But, as we entered the summertime of 2026, The Onion decided to launch its version of InfoWars regardless, and that’s what this article is about—the real InfoWars.
We begin with an episode in May, where Tim Heidecker takes up the mantle with an incredible impression of Alex Jones in what ultimately feels like a prequel episode of the series. Heidecker had, to my understanding, contacted The Onion about the idea, and they agreed to put him in charge even before they knew he had this impression at the ready, but maybe I’m wrong about that. Feel free to correct me, Tim Onion Ben Collins.
Regardless, what we get with the new InfoWars is something to behold. It’s absurd, to the level of surrealism, and I mean that in a way I think Andre Breton would approve of. We’re taking what occurred on Alex Jones’s show and dialing it up to 11, in a way I would have doubted was possible, since the original show was already above 10 even if it didn’t know it.
When Donald Trump rose to political prominence a decade ago, I recall a lot of people saying it was great for comedy, but, no. I’ve always felt the opposite to be true, in a way, where you get these easy jokes that amount to just quoting the man. I always think about The Colbert Report, which did something I still find distinctive—taking the absurdity of the political moment and making it clear by being even more forthright about it, cutting through the bad faith.
It’s hard to say that InfoWars pulls this off to the extent that Colbert did, but only because the reality we live in has become so absurd itself that the very move in question feels too difficult to pull off. But, if anyone does it, it’s the real InfoWars.
Maybe you’ve lived your life well enough that you’ve never seen the Alex Jones version of this show, and, if so, I commend you. I, unfortunately, have, because I’m curious to a fault. I wonder how the new InfoWars might hit if you aren’t familiar with Alex Jones (feel free to let me know in the comments), but I’d expect that you’ll be able to enjoy the humor here, regardless.
Each episode begins with a segment from Jim Haggerty (Brad Holbrook), who had previously appeared on The Onion’s parody news network, but now claims a second act as a conspiracy theorist who tells you that you are being lied to. I’ll admit that, through the first couple of episodes, this portion didn’t do much for me—the concept was funnier than the execution—but since then it’s really grown on me. I almost want to go back to Holbrook’s previous work for The Onion to see how well the meta-joke holds up.
Regardless, the meat of the thing here is Tim Heidecker, whose segment is called Emergency, I guess. I’m a fan of Heidecker in general, but there is something special about how he mimics Alex Jones while at the same time making InfoWars his own. He impersonates Alex Jones, but he does the show in his own name. It’s wild.
This opens the door to mocking Alex Jones explicitly, which is welcome, but also this level where Tim is playing a version of himself, which makes me think of Colbert again.
We’re selling people band-aids to keep the demons out!
On the phone, we get Tim Robinson, John C. Reilly, and Edi Patterson, amongst others. Patterson in particular is hilarious, as she plays Chesapeake, Heidecker’s ex, who threatens Tim’s horse and so on. I mean, a lot of people can do voice acting, but damn, son, she brings the house down in this.
Overall, the real InfoWars brings to a head how absurd the far-right media space is, whether we’re talking about Alex Jones or others. Heidecker brings on fake experts, and then, when a caller questions that fake expert, gives play to their bullshit. Alex Jones’s InfoWars was already pretty post-truth, but the real InfoWars takes it all the way in its utter disregard for reality.
I know that Heidecker and The Onion agreed that there was limited run to an Alex Jones parody, and had some ideas about where to go from there, so I’m super curious about what comes after this week’s episode of InfoWars. In the meantime, we can enjoy the ridiculous shit they’re doing around the show, like everything involving the InfoWars elf and the sale of gay frog plushies.
Part of the idea of this project is to give money to the Sandy Hook families, which Alex Jones has refused to do for years despite a court order, so it’s easy to support The Onion’s version of InfoWars in political terms. But, beyond that, it is, thankfully, also very funny.
