‘We have to laugh at the site’s craziness’: Comedian Tim Heidecker on the appeal of becoming Infowars’ new president | comedy

If you’ve followed Infowars over the years, you’ve probably heard a very angry man screaming about how the 2020 election was stolen for Joe Biden’s “reanimated corpse,” or chemicals in the water that make frogs gay, or the Sandy Hook school shooting, which killed 20 children and six staff, was fake. Founded in 1999, Alex Jones’s Infowars has long served as a platform for toxic conspiracy theories with real-life consequences, as well as bizarre nutritional supplements. But if the “onion” achieves its goal, the information wars of the future will have a completely different effect.

The satirical newspaper has been working for several years to acquire the site, amid legal battles over Jones’ false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Pending Texas court approval, the platform could soon be in the hands of Onion and its new creative director, comedian Tim Heidecker, known for his surreal drawings and satire of the far right. The result will be to turn a dangerous political weapon into a comedic powerhouse that undermines everything Infowars once stood for.

“One of my first thoughts was what a great joke it would be, over time, if we could change the meaning and understanding of the site itself,” Heidecker says. [Jones’s] legacy.”

The road to Onion’s acquisition was circuitous. In 2022, the court ordered Jones to pay $1.4 billion — a record defamation award — to the families of the children killed in the school shooting. Jones has always falsely claimed that the attack was a hoax, leading to the families being viciously harassed by the conspirators. In order to pay off the debts, Infowars’ parent company was ordered to sell its assets.

That’s when Onion pounced. After blocking its initial bid to buy the site in 2024, Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, reached a potential six-month deal this week. To lease the site from a court-appointed administrator for $81,000 per month, with an option to renew. Eventually, Onion plans to buy all of the site’s assets, Ben Collins, CEO of Global Tetrahedron, told CNN.

But first, you must face another legal curveball. Late Wednesday, a Texas court temporarily halted the proposed deal after an emergency request from Jones’ legal team. A new hearing is scheduled for May 28.

Collins remained confident. “This new, crazy, unprecedented legal stall does nothing but delay our agreement with the receiver to control InfoWars,” he wrote on social media.

If all goes as planned for Onion, a new InfoWars game — which will feature a magical rainbow logo, follows Jones’ claims that government chemicals are making people (and amphibians) gay. – It will start out as a parody of the original. Heidecker will play a role inspired by Jones, with a raspy voice — perhaps hoarse from screaming about the New World Order — coming from deep in his throat. The comedian, whose previous work includes the Tim and Eric Adult Swim Show, Great Job! and podcast Office Hours Live, he has already toured the Onion’s offices and appeared outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia in person.

“I’m not someone who likes to make jokes on the floor, but I think it would be fun to play around with it some time. [Jones] “Keep reminding people what an idiot he is, what a clown he is, and don’t be nice about it. He did a really terrible thing. He did a really terrible thing,” Heidecker says. “It is difficult to quantify the extent of the devastation he has caused here in this country.”

Jones can’t take all of this lying down. In fact, he’s been dealing with it standing up and shirtless, as he appeared on a recent Infowars podcast to condemn the Onion takeover. In his response with typical restraint to the plan, Jones also posted on

When asked to respond to the accusations, Heidecker said, “I’m happy to confirm all of that with you,” noting that he “recently pledged my loyalty to the Dark Lord” on his podcast.

Jokes aside, it seems like Jones was mixing up old Tim and Eric comedy sketches with real life. “He literally took a lot of this stuff,” Heidecker said. “I think his audience was kind of like: ‘Alex, come on man, this is a comedian, you’re falling in love with him.'” (The top response to one of

For Heidecker, this broader reaction is a sign that Jones’ followers may be turning away from him. “People are worried about filling their gas tanks here, and maybe these culture wars they’ve gotten themselves into seem less important,” he says. He hopes the show will “walk away” and help people realize that “maybe they were following along with a snake oil salesman.”

Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, hopes the same. “If their shows can be of interest to former Jones audiences and help bring them out of the darkness, that would be great,” he told the New York Times last week.

As with the site it emulates, the new InfoWars site will contain writing, video and advertisements for the supplements. The site preview shows an ad that promises to “turn your gold into piss” and teaches you how to float in midair.

Another personality joining Heidecker is Jim Haggerty, a former host of the Onion morning show-style series Today Now — but redesigned. “For 35 years, I’ve been part of the problem, a mouthpiece for the mainstream media, spreading their lies,” he says in a trailer for the new InfoWars. “But now I am free from the shackles of my company, and my only job is freedom.” He’ll be a Tucker Carlson type on the stand, says Haggerty, played by actor Brad Holbrook. Others on the small initial team include Mia DePasquale as head of programming; Jimmy Breaux, writer of The Onion; and Matt Carlin, producer of Office Hours Live.

In addition to leasing the site, the new InfoWars will help Sandy Hook families financially through merchandise sales. “It’s been eight years and three days since the Sandy Hook families initially filed this lawsuit, and they haven’t received a dime,” Collins told CNN. “So, we’re excited to get them immediate pennies through some merchandise sales — but also long-term pennies once we finally end up buying this thing.”

Eventually, perhaps in the fall, Heidecker plans to turn InfoWars from a straightforward parody into a broader comedy powerhouse. “We have to spend some time doing what I think everyone expects” in reversing “the craziness of that site — playing with it and making fun of it,” he says. But this would have a “relatively short shelf life.” One thing that attracted him to the project — his involvement began with a cold call to The Onion — was the potential to create a larger home for “outside-the-wall, non-mainstream, culturally diverse” comedy online.

“The landscape is very different now than it was when I started” in the early 2000s, Heidecker says. The early days of Funny or Die, Adult Swim, and YouTube dominating the rich comedy media ecosystem are over. Social media offers opportunities, but these platforms “are not well regulated, they are not well funded. Everyone is in the wild. And I thought, well, if Onion had some money and some interest in growing, it would be a great opportunity.”

Jones told his followers that he would continue his “exact same show” on another platform. (The original Infowars company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Meanwhile, the detoxifying InfoWars can provide a counterweight.

“We undoubtedly live in a confusing, scary, crazy world, where everything you see and hear is crazy,” Heidecker says. But comedy can make us feel like, “We’re not alone anymore: You feel this way, I feel that way…and I see you saying, ‘Yes, you’re not crazy.’ this crazy.”