Most people, if you dig down deep, go to the supermarket for tabloids, and not just the glossy celebrity magazines that have multiplied like gremlins in the last ten years. I mean real, honest-to-badness tabloids, the newspapers for which truth and responsibility and even reality are other people's hang-ups.
And now, the world is poorer, thanks to the news this week that American Media will cease publication of one of the great pieces of trash this country has ever produced: the Weekly World News. (Read more about it here and here.)
Published since 1979, the WWN has staunchly refused, for the most part, to tell us about Lindsay or Paris or Britney, instead opting for stories about aliens, Satan, giant pigs rampaging through the Georgia woods, Nostradamus-like prophets, time travel, and, of course, Bat Boy. In an increasingly frightening world, the Weekly World News provided regular -- you might even say weekly -- respite in the form of pedal-to-the-metal stupidity. It's too bad that WWN didn't break the story of its own demise, because then we would know that it wasn't true.
[Ben Greenman's acclaimed new book of fiction, A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both, is now available. Order it here.]
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 12)
16. I don't know what to say. The very center of my life is folding now, it is dieing. What will I do now for my news intake? All of my favorites must now be buried in my subconscious, Bat Boy, the stories about propehcy from the Book of Revelation, the stories about the secrets of the Catholic Church (how come they never saw the abuse scandal coming but knew of other things that could never actually happen?). I will also miss all of the news about aliens in contact with the various government officials.
My life is over now.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.) at 2:25PM on Jul 24th 2007
17. my favorite was the bermuda toilet, anyone that sits on it disappers
kathi at 2:27PM on Jul 24th 2007
18. My favorites were about the World's Fattest Cat. Last December, he saved Christmas and just a few weeks ago, he got buff. I'll miss ya, chubby!
matthew at 2:28PM on Jul 24th 2007
19. Favorite headlines: "Man brought back to life" ... "NEW HOPE FOR THE DEAD" ... "Doctors Amazed" Favorite Article: Ten signs that your neighbor is a Werewolf: ... large pets disapear ... smell of moldy hay
Gerry at 7:59PM on Jul 24th 2007
20. I think my favorite cover was Osama bin Laden in a ballet pas de deux with Saddam Hussein. I'm really going to miss WWN. Whether I was depressed, angry, or just plain bored, a few minutes reading the latest issue of WWN had me laughing myself silly!
Sylvie at 2:28PM on Jul 24th 2007
21. See "BatBoy - The Musical" if you ever get the chance. We saw Jon Groff, now on Broadway in "Spring Awakening" (and nominated for a Tony, mind you) do it a couple years back, and it is just as fun and smart as the WWN ever was. Maybe a TV series?
johnnydomino at 7:09PM on Jul 24th 2007
22. My Uncle and his late wife posed several times for WWN back in the early nineties for a flate fee of 150.00 ea shot. While in the check out aisle shopping with uncle "Tricky" Dick as he's known,my late Grandmother picked up the rag and said " Richard this poor guy with this horrible story looks just like you!He never told his Mother of his "part time" escapades but it sure made for some great laughs over the years! We all have read it and I will admit I will miss the "Trash" The stories were as always way out farces that you came to expect but non the less entertaining. We have some great pictures to reflect upon.
Jim at 2:34PM on Jul 24th 2007
23. I always looked forward to the Space Alien's political prognostications (it's our great loss that he never appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows), and Bat Boy has earned a place in the generous heart of America. But it's also hard to forget the time Saddam Hussein was killed when his bunker was destroyed - but, miraculously, his mustache survived! I believe it was going to be put on trial. Elvis in the toaster restored your faith in American know-how. The ghost of Dale Earnhardt saving a woman who had been in a car crash was also pretty uplifting.
But really, the best stuff was inside -- the astrologers (pardon me if i misremember the spellings) Countess Sophia Sabak and her daughter Serena, "America's sexiest psychic." Because, really, sex appeal is what one wants most in a psychic.
Or Dear Dottie, the snarling advice columnist who bluntly told all those who wrote to her that they were losers who needed to get off their fat asses and get jobs/leave the bum/quit whining. The photo of "Dottie" showed an attractive, somewhat sharp-featured blonde with a Helen Gurley Brown-ish helmet of hair and who you knew had killer legs and was a dominatrix on the side.
But my all-time favorite was Ed Anger, the ultrajingoist, hyper-gung ho-Americanist columnist who made Dick Cheney look like Hubert Humphrey. You knew a hot button issue had truly arrived when it made Ed "pig-biting mad." The world would be a much safer, though eerily glowing, place if we had simply launched the nukes as regularly as Ed urged our leaders to do.
I will always regret, too, that I never orderd a "wanga doll," these little straw-man-looking figurines you could order from the bag of the magazine. You had your Money wanga dolls, your Love wangas, your Power wangas ... though really, if you were smart, all you had to do was order the Money wanga and everything else would fall into place.
I can't believe the WWN is gone. I've lost an old friend.
chris at 2:36PM on Jul 24th 2007
24. My favorite was the cover years ago of the Titanic's Capt. Smith. It read that he was found frozen in ice with his pipe still lit. The picture was fantastic showing him in his white suit. The best part was that coming from a family of Titanic enthusiasts we knew that because the ship went down in April he was wearing a dark, navy blue suit and not the whites. You will be missed WWN! So many great stories and memories!
John at 3:20PM on Jul 24th 2007
25. I hate the cover
kim at 2:35PM on Jul 24th 2007
26. My all-time favorite: "Possessed Toaster Pops Bread Burned With Devil's Mark!"
Vanessa at 2:37PM on Jul 24th 2007
27. don't despair...have you noticed that AOL is slowly taking over the trash that the weekly world news was spouting?
bill at 2:37PM on Jul 24th 2007
28. My favorite headlines are:
GEORGE W. BUSH GETS BRAIN TRANSPLANT
CHENEY CHANNELS SADAM HUSSEIN AND USES SADAM'S THOUGHT PROCESSES TO SET POLICY.
Mariana Petoom at 2:38PM on Jul 24th 2007
29. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! DON't LET THIS TERRIBLE THINK HAPPEN!!! Nothing gets me and friends through a long car ride to a place to drink and smoke our minds like WWN. Who will tell us if we are safe from the giant Kaiju or what new predictions Chuck Lee will see after eating large amounts of hot musturad. No my friends, we will look back one day an mourn the tragic death of WWN.
aarontbutler at 2:38PM on Jul 24th 2007
30. My Favorites were "Alien Backs Clinton" and "Hilary and Alien Having Torrid Affair!"
Farewell to Nessie, BatBoy, The Survivors of the Titanic rescued at sea, the Alien spacecraft landing on the deck of a US aircraft carrier, and the REAL Elvis, living in seclusion in the back of a diner in either Tennesse or Alabama.
Save the WWN!
Lovfldx at 3:39PM on Jul 24th 2007