Tim Heidecker thought The Onion had ghosted him. When the Tim and Eric star first heard that the satirical news sight was looking to acquire Infowars — the extremist media outfit founded by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — Heidecker reached out through his agent. He had parodied Jones’ gruff, hysteric mannerisms before, and although he didn’t precisely have a plan, he knew he wanted to offer up his services.
“Frankly, I didn’t hear back. It got put on the back burner,” Heidecker tells Rolling Stone. Over a year later, he would get a response. The Onion had finally closed a deal to take over the famed conspiracy website, and they wanted to reshape it as a comedic outfit with Heidecker at its creative helm.
The Onion first entertained the possibility of taking over Infowars in 2024, in the aftermath of a verdict in favor of a coalition of Sandy Hook families who sued Jones for defamation over his baseless claims that the school shooting had been a false-flag hoax. The verdict pushed Jones and Infowars into bankruptcy, and his assets have been placed under a court appointed monitor through which the Sandy Hook families will recieve the proceeds of the liquidation of his assets.
The takeover was stalled by a series of legal maneuvers by Jones and competing prospective buyers. In this new deal — which is awaiting judicial approval — The Onion will pay a monthly licensing fee to the court-appointed manager of Infowars under the settlement reached with the Sandy Hook families. “This is the culmination of a two-year-long effort to get some justice for the Sandy Hook families,” Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion wrote on Monday. On Wednesday, the newspaper released it’s first teaser clip of their new content, featuring the now-defunts Onion News Network‘s former fictional host Jim Haggerty reimaged as a red-pilled independent podcaster in the style of Tucker Carlson.
Rolling Stone spoke with Heidecker on Wednesday to discuss making fun of Jones, his partnership with The Onion, and how he hopes to reshape the dark legacy of Infowars into a net good.
Ben Collins said in one of his first interviews announcing the takeover that you had actually been the first person to reach out to them about the transformation. What were you thinking around that time?
When the first rumor [about] this happened — that [The Onion] were going to get it in some auction — I saw that like everybody else. I’m doing my podcasts Office Hours, and On Cinema, I play in these waters a lot of satire, and have been doing an Alex Jones impression for years. So I just reached out through my agent to Ben — cold call — like “Hey, if this happens, I would love to be a part of it.” I didn’t know what that would even look like.
It just got lost in the shuffle, and then it didn’t happen. And months, months later, October of last year, I got a call from them, like, “Hey this is back on the table, and we are big fans and love all your spoofs and goofs. And do you have any thoughts on if this happens?”
Infowars is a brand that carries a lot of negative weight. How do you approach custodianship of this entity, which did a lot of awful things, and ensure that the families who sued him are getting their due?
I know in fact that families want this person to feel bad and hurt. A bit of retribution or justice and consequences for what he did and I think the strongest way to do that is not through violence or anything like that — but just through laughing at somebody. Making fun of that person, mocking them, making them look like a fool. In the short term, that’s what it’s going to be about. But then I want to leave Jones behind. The initial radical thought I had was, “Can you change what the word Infowars means to people?” Give it four years and suddenly it means something else.
What’s the reaction been like?
So much joy. Somebody just said, “I forget that good things can happen sometimes.” There’s a lot of people just going, “Fuck yeah.” It feels like a win for everybody.
Creative director is a big ask. How do you go from Alex Jones as an individual character you spoof from time to time, to reshaping his entire media project into something new?
From the beginning, my initial thought was the parody, the satire of what the Infowars Alex Jones universe is has a fairly short runway. It’s going to get old after a little while, and then what do you have?
I just thought if it could transition at some point to a legitimate comedy streaming site, which is something The Onion has wanted to figure out how to do anyways. The real trick of it is The Onion is such an institution — such a precious, sacred voice — but that makes it kind of limiting what they can do in comedy, because it really has to have The Onion voice if you’re going to put something out with that brand on it.
Yeah, it has to sound newsy.
It kind of limits the kind of people you can work with. They looked at this, and I saw it pretty much right away as The Onion making a new silo, a new department, or whatever that can be, free of the constraints of The Onion voice, but still play to the same Onion audience. That’s that sensibility, and you almost need somebody outside of The Onion like me to come in and help find what that is.
How do you think your particular style of comedy — the really recognizable universe of characters and shows you’ve built — will interact with Infowars? Or will it exist outside of that?
I think there’s kind of a common ground understanding from my audience. We’re all coming from the same point of view, generally. We see the world as a very absurd place, without taking anything too seriously. At the same time, holding on to a lot of empathy and openness to other kinds of people and progressive values, and that intersection of a little bit of nihilism mixed up with a little bit of hope for a better world — which I don’t see in comedy a lot.
I just have so many great relationships with funny people who are not really sure where they fit into this media environment. Our stuff always resonated because it was so individual. It’s not meant for everybody. It’s not designed to be for everybody. It’s sort of just for us. And if you’re on the same wavelength, you can really vibe with it.
So how will that fit in? I think there’s going to be this period where we’re going to really lean into the satire of this and play with that for a while and let that play its course.
Will you broadcast with your shirt off, like Alex Jones often does?
I already did my first interview with CNN yesterday without my shirt on, but they have yet to post it. They might have spiked it, but it was very funny. And we’ll see, but I am sure the shirt will come off at some point.
Have you given any thought in that vein of, sort of the voices you want to bring in? Your dream roster or cast?
Certainly. We hired a development executive/head of programming, Mia DiPasquale; I’ve worked with her before. She was running Super Deluxe when that was going. We’ve had our initial round of meetings and pitches and reaching out to friends of ours, but also people that we see emerging as really unique voices that we would love to give money to and an opportunity to have an audience.
Comedy is, of course, a process, and a lot of stuff gets left on the cutting room floor. Is there anything from your career that you’re taking influence from, or even thinking of bringing back because Infowars could be the right venue or format?
That’s a good question. I don’t have anything off the top of my head. The last thing Eric [Wareheim] and I made was a sitcom parody called Beef House that Adult Swim put out in 2020, and it’s really endemic of this weird “lost media” situation where they didn’t renew it, and then it got completely scrubbed from all [the platforms] and you can’t find it. It’s as if it never happened — unless you’ve downloaded it illegally or something.
We want to go out in Infowars and not only make a bunch of stuff, but license stuff and find stuff that gets haphazardly taken off of these streaming sites. You know, something disappears — like Space Ghost or something — stuff that we love, that formed my sensibility, and just be better caretakers and curators of this kind of comedy.
Is there a longterm vision here to ensure that the Sandy Hook families continue to benefit from the project?
There are two things: There is a plan in place, and this is a way for the families to start getting the money. There’s the licensing deal, and then there’s proceeds from merch sales that goes to them. It’s all being done with — from what I understand — very excited and enthusiastic participation.
Do you guys have a set relaunch date?
It seems to be fairly malleable. We’re waiting for this last judgment so we have everything kind of set up to go live. For the time being, it’s all set. The amount of work going into this is unbelievable with just the tech side of it, and we’ve got a lot of really funny content waiting in the wings. Whenever that happens, whether it’s next week or in a month, or however long — things always take longer than you hope, especially with the law. So we don’t really have a date, but we’re hoping that by the end of May or sooner.
