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Wildest supermarket tabloid finished |
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Written by Bobby Bryant, McClatchy-Tribune
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Monday, 27 August 2007 |
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Ah, Weekly World News, how could you make death so boring?
For 28 years, you've been the nuttiest, wildest, funniest, most crazily inventive of the supermarket tabloids.
You revealed Hillary Clinton's affair with a spindly space alien named P'lod. (Cover headline: "MY STEAMY NIGHTS WITH HILLARY IN UFO LOVE NEST!") You uncovered Bigfoot's lumberjack love slave, exposed Abraham Lincoln as a woman with a fake beard, discovered a lost tribe that worships Salma Hayek's breasts, showed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse sheepishly asking for directions.
And now you end it all like this? With a wimpy press release from your publisher, American Media Inc., announcing that after the Aug. 27 issue, you're ending publication because of "challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace"? And that the mighty Weekly World News will only continue as a halfhearted Web site?
No. No. No. It can't end like this. You should die like you lived — with insane gusto.
You should shut down because ... your staff has been kidnapped by Elvis imitators from Mars. (And use this headline: THEY CAME FROM SPACE — TO LOVE US TENDER!) Or because your Boca Raton, Fla., offices are being haunted by the noisy ghosts of dead rappers. (Headline: EERIE HIP HOP JUST WON'T STOP!) Or because giant radioactive cockroaches have eaten your computers. (MONSTER ROACHES CHECK IN; WE CHECK OUT!)
But not because of "challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace." Not that.
But maybe that's just a convenient lie. Maybe the truth is stranger, weirder, darker, Weekly World Newsier. But the editors aren't talking. The WWN staff didn't talk even when things were good. All lips are zipped, except those belonging to a WWN staff writer (and former DC Comics editor) named Bob Greenberger.
On July 21, Greenberger posted on his blog: "(Editor) Jeff Rovin comes in for a meeting ... He's looking harried. ... At 11:30, we're finally shown into an office where we are told the (AMI) board of directors has chosen to close Weekly World News. The reasons given make no sense. We're stunned. ... All I can think is that something's going on that they're not telling us because it just doesn't make sense."
Of course something's going on they're not telling you. Something twisted and evil. The AMI board has been ... replaced by communist zombies from another galaxy! (THEY'RE RED — AND DEAD!) Or possessed by demonic bubble gum from the 10th dimension! (ONE CHEW AND YOU'RE THROUGH!) Or controlled by the ghost of Richard Nixon's dog! (CHECKERS, THE HOUND FROM HELL!) And Weekly World News would have found out about it and told the world. So it had to be silenced. Yes, silenced! Hahahahahahahah!
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BAT BOY UNEMPLOYED!
Bat Boy — half human, half bat — first appeared on Weekly World News' cover in 1992. ("BAT CHILD FOUND IN CAVE!" the headline screamed.) He soon became a weird-news icon, a mascot of sorts for the tabloid and the star of an off-Broadway play.
But with the demise of Weekly World News, Bat Boy has lost his meal ticket. So we came up with some other jobs for him:
Tabloid editor (knows the industry)
Katie Couric's replacement as CBS Evening News anchor — (good name recognition)
Presidential candidate (instantly locks up the huge mutant-bat vote)
Britney Spears' boyfriend (he likes the crazy ones)
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