T. Herman Zweibel
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T. Herman Zweibel (born 1868) is the fictional, long-term editor of The Onion. His life and times were recounted in a series of often surreal and bizarre editorials, ending in December 2000, where he was leaving the earth in a rocket-ship. Zweibel returned after a long absence in the January 5, 2005 issue of the newspaper.
The extremely elderly, senile Zweibel has supposedly been writing for the newspaper since the Spanish-American War and has been its editor since 1901, and still feels that Spain is a dangerous threat to the United States.
[edit] Facts
Through his prolix columns, which are characterized by his deliberately anachronistic tendency to hyphenate words for no apparent reason, the following facts have been gleaned:
- He has a strong hatred of modern humanity.
- He has an uneasy relationship with his manservant Standish, and in his will bequeaths him the name "Ephraim".
- He lives in fear of "that hideous mechanical ro-bot gentle-man, Mr. Tin," and Black Scarlet, a Robin Hood/Scarlet Pimpernel figure, later revealed to be the late Queen front man Freddie Mercury.
- He is easily frightened.
- He lives in a very large estate, and owns much of the land of the local town.
- He once claimed to have sold the midwestern region of United States to pay off debts.
- He is protected by a regiment of the Swiss Guard.
- His last name is very similar to Zwiebel, the German word for onion.
- He is the mortal enemy of Brickton Atlas-Trumpet editor P. Oliver Gummidge.
- He also pens plays, and refers to himself as a "robber baron and plutocrat."
- He suffers from a myriad of diseases, and enjoys daily enemas.
- He has a crush on Lillian Gish.
- He names his sons with an initial and an archaic second name, such as N. Aeschylus, M. Prescott and U. Thaddeus.
