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 4 of 12)
46. No, Jay. Bat boy is not going to Iraq; he is 4-F because of flat feet. I thought everybody knew that. Being noctournal and all, he is currently attending night school, in hopes of being a brilliant journalist. He was inspired by the good people at Weekly World News who have been so kind to him throughout the years... I hope he doesn't let this defer his dream.
differentdrum at 2:56PM on Jul 24th 2007
47. I've always loved the "Freaks, Geeks and Weirdos" specials. WWN has been a staple in our house as the best thing to read when you're under the weather (got my son through his apendectomy post-op pain)
Deasal at 3:02PM on Jul 24th 2007
48. Thank God. This was the biggest waste of paper ever. It wasn't even worthy of buttwipe.
Steve at 2:57PM on Jul 24th 2007
49. What about that guy that could predict the future by eating large ammounts of mustard? Wouldn't you think he would have seen something like this coming?! Who would I go to now for all my alien news and events? >cry cry cry
retkofsky_565 at 2:58PM on Jul 24th 2007
50. LOL i remember this mag... i always pick up a magazine everytime i go to walgreens or K-mart and i always remmeberd seein BatBoy on the WWN MAG when i was younger.. my older brother thought it was genius. I never thought about buyin it though because i knew it was fake and ridiculous and nothin i was reading was true anyway so whats the point? lol otherwise it was funny as heck.
VaneSsKa at 2:59PM on Jul 24th 2007
51. "Cat Born With Human Face!" The Best!!!!
Ronni at 3:00PM on Jul 24th 2007
52. the real reason theyu are cancelling this publication , is that they found info on the secretly funded programs of long ago ! with our tax dollars at use at the time ! understand ? not yet ? then read this , they knew real info in regards to the rfid chip that us fefderal gov . just bought 300 million rfid chips for implantation into americans by the order of the idiot freemasons that have 666 on the back every dollar bill ! the stars ! go look match up lines to those crose word puzzle people who know where reverse geometry is !
jennifer at 5:02PM on Jul 24th 2007
53. Those people who run the tabloids are "Liars".
Chaz at 3:02PM on Jul 24th 2007
54. Bat Boy has to be my favorite. A new Bat Boy story came out every summer it seemed and we would be at the beach. Everybody had to read the WWN it was tradition.
jcr
jcr at 3:03PM on Jul 24th 2007
55. No - the best cover was "Woman Swallows Toothpick, Gives Birth to Baby With Wooden Leg!" - almost bought it as homage to the guy who came up with that headline. I think later the guy became a "news" anchor at CBS.
chs4106 at 3:05PM on Jul 24th 2007
56. My favorites were always the huge, gigantically impossible to be real, humans.
Also on the opposite end of this spectrum I liked the excessively, impossibly skinny as a skeleton, humans...
Maybe another company will form and do the same type of journalism.
rose at 3:06PM on Jul 24th 2007
57. My favorite issue was..... AHH wait wwn is crap i can't belive people fall for theis junk.
Corey at 3:11PM on Jul 24th 2007
58. I have to say I didn't really buy this magazine that often, but I always checked it out while waiting in line. However, there was one that I thought was sooo funny, I just couldn't pass up buying it. It was the wedding album of Saddam and Bin Laden. It was just too funny.
edugan at 3:14PM on Jul 24th 2007
59. My favorite cover was Bill Clinton backed by Aliens.....my most memorable story was the workaholic that had his wife's funeral at the office and her casket was placed by the water cooler! The demise of WWN is on my list of the saddest things I've ever heard.
Nancy at 3:36PM on Jul 24th 2007
60. Bat Boy was the best. It spurred one of the greatest musicals of all time.
Frecklefacechick at 3:12PM on Jul 24th 2007