August 1, 2007
I read last week that The Weekly World News was ceasing publication.
Damn.
I have been hooked on this paper for years. Tabloid journalism of the worst possible kind. I was never sure how much was news, and the world nature of the stories was dubious, since so many of them were obviously fiction.
But boy howdy, it was weekly. Every time I went to the grocery store, there as a new issue to stare at, while checking out. And my kids would beg for the right to read about the latest adventures of Batboy, or the world’s fattest (badly photshopped) cat, or maybe the “Invasion of hundred pound mice” that “Threatens Life on Earth.” (Which explains the world’s fattest cat, I suppose).
I remember watching a talk show, many years ago, where Geraldo, or some other appropriately tawdry interviewer, was talking to editors of all the major tabloids. Whoever it was, asked the editor of the WWN if all their stories were true.
The editor answered, “If you really believe that on an island in the South Pacific, there is a native tribe dancing around an enormous statue of Elvis and singing “Viva Las Vegas?” (pause with deadpan)
“Then, yes. It’s all true.”
Words to live by.
I kept my favorite headline, pinned on a bulletin board next to my worktable, back in the pre-writing, pre-library, theater job years. It was just a bottom of the page filler, dateline: Jakarta.
Someone had spotted a flying pig.
Thanks to WWN, I knew even then, that anything I wanted out of life was possible, now that the first pig had flown.
the weekly world
My husband tells me that you can still read the weekly world on line,so you will still be able to follow the exploits of that wacky bat boy!
cousin cindy
Re: the weekly world
Hey, Cindy,
I’ll have to add this to my daily goof off browsing.
Although I did see the Batboy book, when I was at a Borders the other day.
And here’s the best story from the print edition:
A demon has been posessed by a little girl, named Ashley. Now, all he wants to do is play with dolls.
The Satanists are frantic. They have called in ‘The Church’ to perform an exorcism.
the weekly world
My husband tells me that you can still read the weekly world on line,so you will still be able to follow the exploits of that wacky bat boy!
cousin cindy
Re: the weekly world
Hey, Cindy,
I’ll have to add this to my daily goof off browsing.
Although I did see the Batboy book, when I was at a Borders the other day.
And here’s the best story from the print edition:
A demon has been posessed by a little girl, named Ashley. Now, all he wants to do is play with dolls.
The Satanists are frantic. They have called in ‘The Church’ to perform an exorcism.