diff --git a/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py b/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
index 06b3d5e24c..aa83daa020 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
@@ -751,7 +751,6 @@
 from .testurl import TestURLIE
 from .tf1 import TF1IE
 from .theintercept import TheInterceptIE
-from .theonion import TheOnionIE
 from .theplatform import (
     ThePlatformIE,
     ThePlatformFeedIE,
diff --git a/youtube_dl/extractor/theonion.py b/youtube_dl/extractor/theonion.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 10239c9062..0000000000
--- a/youtube_dl/extractor/theonion.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,63 +0,0 @@
-# coding: utf-8
-from __future__ import unicode_literals
-
-import re
-
-from .common import InfoExtractor
-
-
-class TheOnionIE(InfoExtractor):
-    _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?theonion\.com/video/[^,]+,(?P<id>[0-9]+)/?'
-    _TEST = {
-        'url': 'http://www.theonion.com/video/man-wearing-mm-jacket-gods-image,36918/',
-        'md5': '19eaa9a39cf9b9804d982e654dc791ee',
-        'info_dict': {
-            'id': '2133',
-            'ext': 'mp4',
-            'title': 'Man Wearing M&M Jacket Apparently Made In God\'s Image',
-            'description': 'md5:cc12448686b5600baae9261d3e180910',
-            'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg\?\d+$',
-        }
-    }
-
-    def _real_extract(self, url):
-        display_id = self._match_id(url)
-        webpage = self._download_webpage(url, display_id)
-
-        video_id = self._search_regex(
-            r'"videoId":\s(\d+),', webpage, 'video ID')
-        title = self._og_search_title(webpage)
-        description = self._og_search_description(webpage)
-        thumbnail = self._og_search_thumbnail(webpage)
-
-        sources = re.findall(r'<source src="([^"]+)" type="([^"]+)"', webpage)
-        formats = []
-        for src, type_ in sources:
-            if type_ == 'video/mp4':
-                formats.append({
-                    'format_id': 'mp4_sd',
-                    'preference': 1,
-                    'url': src,
-                })
-            elif type_ == 'video/webm':
-                formats.append({
-                    'format_id': 'webm_sd',
-                    'preference': 0,
-                    'url': src,
-                })
-            elif type_ == 'application/x-mpegURL':
-                formats.extend(
-                    self._extract_m3u8_formats(src, display_id, preference=-1))
-            else:
-                self.report_warning(
-                    'Encountered unexpected format: %s' % type_)
-        self._sort_formats(formats)
-
-        return {
-            'id': video_id,
-            'display_id': display_id,
-            'title': title,
-            'formats': formats,
-            'thumbnail': thumbnail,
-            'description': description,
-        }