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7/28/99 NEW YORK -- In a largely precedented move, Specimen announced today that it will use the same brand of bad-boy humor that has made The Onion a widely-red online humor publication and a runaway internet business, and the Weekly Week, a Cambridge-based humor publication, a mild success among lonely Harvard students with nothing else to do or read.
"What we plan to do," began Henry Wei, a medical student and former writer for the Harvard humor magazine, Demon, "is to use lots of references to shows like Diff'rent Strokes and television commercials, and also throw in the word "ass" and other slang for body parts." He went on to add, "We'll wrap everything up in a newsmagazine format, and that'll be part of the joke, too."
Specimen began roughly twelve hours ago on the Powerbook of Wei, who is a good candidate for carpal tunnel syndrome these days.
"Basically, all you have to do is report fake things as if they were real, like Destro and Cobra and the Baroness planning to take over the weather machine at the North Pole along with Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, or else juxtapose items which, by themselves, wouldn't seem outrageous; for instance, when you combine Chevy Minivans and the Cuban Missle Crisis, you've got something random, but also potential for humor. Almost Dave Barry-like, but not nearly as formulaic, even though he did win a Pulitzer Prize."
Specimen will also contain over-the-edge humor, including references to adult content and mildly racist overtones, in an attempt to create stories of the same brand of satire as featured on the vanguard TV series of the late 70's, All in the Family, featuring the racist, sexist and generally prejudiced Archie Bunker, as commentary on society's ill's at the time. Critics warn, however, that this effort may be short-lived as some people are bound not to understand the humor as tongue-in-cheek, but rather interpret it an outright, real statement.
Specimen is not affiliated in any way with the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret social society located on Bow Street in Cambridge, Mass. which occasionally publishes a so-called humor magazine. Editor Henry Wei is a former Harvard Crimson editor.