Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a potentially good joke ruined by poor execution. Such is the case when The Onion, America’s finest news source, had a dolphin review three highly anticipated smartphones, the Palm Treo 680, the BlackBerry Curve 8300 and the Apple iPhone. The reviewer, Flappy the Dolphin, thoroughly tested each smartphone, taking them underwater with him back to his dolphin house, only to find out that they don’t work there. The phraseology is the only thing close to being funny here. Meaningless phrases that you see on all the big gadget publications—”sleek,” “stylish,” “surprisingly well,” etc.—pepper Mr. Dolphin’s review. And there’s plenty of Flipper jokes in there. Didn’t The Onion used to be funny?

Test-Driving The New Smartphones [The Onion]