Keeping with the previously laid continuity that Beck used to work for ONN, the new clip shows that he once auditioned for host of the fake network’s fake flagship show FactZone. This revealed in a clip from a fake documentary on the fake history of that show’s fake anchor, Brooke Alvarez, played by Suzanne Sena. The documentary explains why Alvarez is as cold and heartless as she is as her childhood involved forced Cosmonaut training and brutal monkey fights. Like I said, darker than darker.

Check out the clip below. The episode airs on IFC tomorrow night at 10.

(It could be worse. We don’t even know the names of the Styleite people since they frighten us. They just seem so judge-y.)

Anyway, if there’s one bright spot in this dismal state of affairs, it’s that the other TV show from the folks behind The Onion, Onion News Network, is coming back for a second season and IFC’s got a clip up online.

The scene has everything you want from an Onion story, incredibly detailed news mimicry mixed dark, dark, hilarious humor. It’s a report on a new weight loss drug called Hallucex that causes horrible hallucinations whenever a user sees food. It’s pretty hilarious and I’m pretty sure we can just give the guy trying diplomacy with a potato salad an Emmy now. Sure he only says one line and, sure, the Emmy’s are still 11 months and 29 days away, but funny is funny.

So check it out. And, a request: now that SportsDome is off Comedy Central, any chance IFC can bring the characters over and have the crossover we never got?

Watch the clip below:

New Psychedelic Weight Loss Drug Transforms Food Into Monstrous Hallucinations (Season 2: Preview from IFC)

Kurtz was curious what qualifications Haggerty had to be an anchor, and Haggerty quickly responded he was capable of providing entertainment to people and to distract them from their “dull, meaningless, pointless lives so that they can get on with their day.” When Kurtz wondered what makes the Onion different than all other cable news networks, Kolb politely informed him that they have flashier graphics and that their anchors scream 20% louder. Kurtz smartly followed up, wondering why stop at 20%? Kolb said that unfortunately FCC regulation prevents them from going any louder.

Watch the clip from CNN below:

Watching the new show (our review here), one certainly gets the feeling of how exact all the details are in the imitation. Perhaps the biggest detail is the can’t miss sound of the fast-talking news anchors. When Dobson is, say, reporting on time traveling soldiers attacking Suri Cruise, she sounds exactly as she does when she’s on CBS talking about Mel Gibson’s real life troubles.

This trick is nothing new to The Onion. When the Onion News Network began as Internet-only shorts, they hired Bobbie Batista to play herself. While all the journalists on the new show play fictionalized characters instead of themselves (Dobson, for instance, plays ONN’s entertainment correspondent Madison Daly), their expertise clearly helps the show’s feel.

Dobson gave an interview discussing her role to the Kalamazoo Gazette:

“’I certainly feel it’s a step in the right direction for my career … this fits my personality a little more,’ said Dobson, who is also a contributor on CBS’ ‘The Early Show’ and ‘The Saturday Early Show,’ CNN’s ‘Showbiz Tonight’ and several programs on VH1.

Dobson called the ONN writers ‘genius’ and said she doesn’t write any of the material for the show, which will feature outrageous segments presented in a very similar fashion to real TV news. For example the ONN trailer opens with Sena introducing a panel discussion by saying, ‘Congress today re-authorized funding for Facebook, the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA.’

‘I wish I could take credit for the material,’ Dobson said. ‘The Onion writers are very edgy and they don’t mind crossing the line. When I read the script there were some things I thought, “Can I say this? Should I say this?”’”

While we shouldn’t take away from the great actors and comedy veterans that fill out the cast of the show, it’s a particular joy to hear the ridiculous jokes the writers come up with coming out of the mouths of seasoned news professionals.

Of course, saying that kind of short changes the new series. As did all the comparisons made to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report when the show was first announced, with many asking why we needed another fake news show. What makes this one so different than those was perfectly captured at a recent press panel given for the upcoming premiere in which all of the actors, creators, and moderator Jonathan Alter spent the entire time staying in character, from the moment Executive Producer Will Graham described the fictional network as having been founded in 1976 to the point where egomaniacal anchor Brooke Alvarez (actually actress Suzanne Sena) entered the room and instantly began passing out signed pictures. Unlike The Daily Show, the new show gives the audience no connection to reality. There is no studio audience laughing and there’s no host shrugging at the silliness going on around him. Even though Stephen Colbert is a master at never letting his “Stephen Colbert” mask slip, there are still guests coming on to play the part of the straight man. It’s this lack of reality that will probably be the most off-putting aspect for some viewers. But, again, if you’ve been weened on the online videos (or the new Comedy Central series Onion Sports Dome), you’ll be fine.

So what makes the IFC show different than the shorts? Why shouldn’t you just watch a bunch of videos as I proposed earlier?

The biggest difference is that the length enables the ability for some jokes to develop throughout episodes and even between episodes. One particularly funny running joke involving Suri Cruise from the premiere through the next couple of shows.

The length also lets the writers play with the characters some more. Obviously all of the regular characters from the web shorts had running jokes and continued characterization. That was made clear by how well the actors could ad lib in character at the panel. But in the show, one character in particular, “touch screen expert” Tucker Hope who’s played by Todd Alan Crain, has a gradually revealed back story that will be hilarious (especially for observant fans of the videos).

This sense of world-building is one of the most fun aspects of the show. Graham also seemed to be intrigued by it. At the panel, I asked him if there would ever be a crossover between ONN and Sports Dome (something he said he’d thought about but hadn’t yet implemented), and he likened the building of the universe around the ONN network and FactZone, the fictional show the series focusses on, to the Marvel and DC universes in comics.

Of course, while that kind of geeky stuff will make a continuity nerd like me love a show, most people will just care if Onion News Network is funny. It is. Very much so. And in that very specific Onion way (pitch-perfect and pitch-black satire). So, if you’ve liked the videos on the website or you just like seeing some of the smartest writers around laying into the big cable news heavyweights (at the panel, Graham thanked ONN’s “rivals” for always making their graphics “swooshier” so as for inspiration), it’s safe to say you’ll find much to like in this show.

Onion News Network premieres tomorrow night at 10pm on IFC. Below is a funny clip from the panel:

While the dancing is great, the best part is probably the spokesman explaining that Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will be allowed to participate in the film so that they can “learn the glorious craft of acting” from Jong Il. It’s tough to write jokes about North Korea’s leader since much of the truth is already so outrageous, but this does a fair job of it. We’ll leave it to all you to decide whether the show looks to be meeting the high standards of the content over at The Onion proper. It premieres in full on January 21st on IFC.

To be honest, there isn’t that much here that we don’t know. The image appears to be a moment from FactZone, one of the shows within a show that is hosted by Brooke Alvarez whom the press release describes as “able to seamlessly segue from a grisly death to a cute animal story in the blink of a stunningly beautiful eye.” Alvarez is actually a fictional character played by actress Suzanne Sena but, in typical Onion style, she’s already got a full backstory that apparently includes longstanding feuds with Wolf Blitzer and Yo Yo Ma.

However, the one new thing we get is a look at one of the upcoming stories the program will be covering thanks to the headline in the corner. Apparently, in the world of the ONN, Kim Jong Il has shut down his nuclear program in exchange for a role in the new Batman movie. This comes complete with a photoshop of the Dear Leader looking very heroic in the Dark Knight’s armor.

Anyway, to complete my role as a willing blogger/pawn, I will remind you all that the new series premieres on January 21, at 10pm on IFC.

God, it’s a good thing I really do love The Onion. I’ll only have to take a brief shower now.

Karolina Wotjasik/IFC

In the promo, a deep voiced announcer promises that the fictional titular network has “over a century of broadcasting experience” and “an army of reporters bred to lack human empathy or compassion.” If the show is nearly as funny as the videos posted every day as well as the brilliant “Future News” special from a few months back, this should be something pretty special. Whatever the case, January can’t come soon enough.

Check out the clip from IFC and The Onion below:

On the surface, this sounds terrific, because The Onion’s sports section is hilarious. Recent stories range from an exploration of fans’ supposed depression at the inevitable decline of once-great Seattle Mariners outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., to this photo feature, which accurately captures most fans’ perception of Duke’s basketball team. And importantly for the upcoming show, they’re also no stranger to video content, whether it’s this expert inversion of an old sports cliche, or this “look” at a petulant (fake) star of Southeast Asian sport sepak takraw.

The question – can The Onion adapt to longer-form video content? The overarching Onion News Network, also getting a show of its own, is just as strong as the sports-specific content, but when that stretched out into the straight-to-DVD Onion Movie, reception was lukewarm among imdb users, and even less kind among the few critics who bothered to mention it. Aside from that bizarre misstep, though, The Onion is among the most respected brands in comedy, and if the series more closely approximates the quality of Onion book spinoff projects (especially the transcendent Our Dumb Century), Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert may have some competition in the fake news TV landscape.

While The Onion is known for this kind of humor, the video does have a creepy vibe to it. In the past, they have found humor in such questionable subjects as 9/11, pedophilia, baby-shaking, and cancer. One video features Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson being put to sleep after breaking her leg, but the real point of that video was to lampoon the piety surrounding animal euthanasia, and the gymnast took it with good humor.

The Beck video takes aim at local news tragedy cliches, like when the victim’s mother says that it’s a terrible think to have your child outlived by Glenn Beck, but the main theme of the clip is that people hate Glenn Beck, and wish he would die. Hot Air’s Allahpundit fails to see the humor:

If you’re going to wish death on someone, own it. It’s like hitting a guy with a crowbar but wearing a funny hat while doing it to “lighten the mood” or whatever.

On the other hand, The Onion’s news videos are marked by absurdism, which could indicate that this video is mocking the absurd level of hatred directed at Beck, and by him.

One thing is for sure: the video has inspired real-life copycats, as news agencies are continually reporting the deaths of people other than Glenn Beck.

We contacted The Onion and Fox News, and they each declined to comment for this article.

Tell us what you think. Did The Onion’s video go too far?