The next time I'm in the area I'll have to check to see if it's still true that copies of The Onion are offered all over the place at no cost (I'm guessing they don't do it anymore though). Back in the 90s I was actually shocked when I saw that people in other places had to pay money for them.

My uncle was/is friends with Tim Keck since he started the Onion at UW Madison.

Used to get handed a stack and asked to spread them around high school.

Years later uncle texts asking if I have weed. At the time yeah I always did. He says bring it to the Berrymore and I smoked up Tim, Eric, and John C Reilly like nbd.

Ahh the old days.

I did a college visit to UW in 1998, and leafing through The Onion at Union Terrace on Lake Mendota after the tour was one of the deciding factors for me to go there.

Yes.

All the Big Ten schools that a founder who grew up in Indiana and Wisconsin cared about had it. Maybe even Ohio State. I’m not sure how far east it got back then.

I can confirm. I started grad school in physics there in 1992. The weekly department colloquium was on Thursday afternoon, just after the latest Onion came out. It was not uncommon to see a few people reading it during the talk.