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 6 of 12)
76. Working as a cashier, I was required to smile for even the most ignorant of customers. In many of those situations all I had to do was look up at the WWN headlines and I was smiling away! What am I going to do now?
eerie1 at 3:42PM on Jul 24th 2007
77. Obviously, Bat Boy is WWN's mascot. But my favorite cover of all time has to be 'Coyotes protect alien baby from cops'. Can't we start some kind of letter writing campaign or dump a truckload of WWN papers in front of someone's office to save it?
Theo at 3:45PM on Jul 24th 2007
78. My personal favorite was the horse born with a human head. First of all, the head was ugly as sin. Secondly, a few years later a camel was born with a human head. The SAME ugly-as-sin head, as a matter of fact.
Gina at 3:49PM on Jul 24th 2007
79. My son and I will greatly miss WWN. I used to put this in my son's Christmas stocking! He loved it, we shared many laughs over their stories. Please reconsider. Lindy
Lindy at 3:48PM on Jul 24th 2007
80. We used to get our supplies of WWN as hand-me-downs from my dad, who got it from his neighbor, who got it from someone else. No one knows for sure who actually went to the store and bought them...we just passed them around. What I want to know is: what in the world will my husband do now for bathroom reading material???
Kim at 3:48PM on Jul 24th 2007
81. My favorite cover is 'UFO shoots down angel' with the picture of an woman with two HUGE wings, one of which had a gapping hole. You will be missed Weekly World News, otherwise known in my life as 'the paper'.
Becca at 3:52PM on Jul 24th 2007
82. One of the few things these days to make me feel hope and happiness in the world is the WWN. Now it is to be no more. Doom, despair and anguish...all is dark, the center cannot hold...the horror, the horror....
Rev M at 3:52PM on Jul 24th 2007
83. My personal favorite "Tiny Mermaid Found In Tuna Fish Sandwich!" This will definitely leave a void in my family's quality of life...it has held a place of honor all these years next to the porcelain throne in our home - where will we ever again see a picture of Saddam in a pink tutu?
Liberty816 at 3:54PM on Jul 24th 2007
84. BYE BYE WEEKLY WORLD NEWS...BYE BYE...GOOD RIDENCE....FAREWELL..SO LONG....FOREVER AND EVER...THIS NEWS PAPER WAS FULL OF SOME SERIOUS GARBAGE.......EVEYTIME I CAME ACROSS ONE ALL I COULD SAY WAS.....WHAT????????????????????????????
georgia at 4:46PM on Jul 24th 2007
85. Anyone who puts down this paper as "dumb" has never read it. The Weekly World News was not only brilliant, it was funnier than anything that has been on Saturday Night Live in 20 years. As a published humor writer, I dreamed about leaving behind my columns for "respectible" newspapers and writing for this great newspaper. What a loss!
And now how do I trace down John Lennon's parrot to hear his final album?
mike at 3:57PM on Jul 24th 2007
86. Nothing beats the never-ending saga of Batboy, America's greatest living hero. With the WWN gone, who now is left to chronicle his amazing heroics and feats of derring-do? And for those who never thought Batboy was real...PICTURES DON'T LIE!!!
Cliff at 4:07PM on Jul 24th 2007
87. Alas, now of all times do Americans need laughs wherever they can get them. Think about it--we can't depend on our President to fulfill this need.
befred8 at 4:01PM on Jul 24th 2007
88. By far my favorite headline stated "Eight Senators are Space Aliens!" The only senator I remember pictured was John Glenn. I also loved the cover with Bill Clinton shaking hands with the alien. Farewell, fond friends at WWN- you will truly be missed!
Big Maude at 4:42PM on Jul 24th 2007
89. I remember getting the Bat Boy issue when I was in college. My friend and I laughed for about a week at that silly front page. It's really too bad they are stopping the presses. They could have had many years of good headlines regarding this global warming hoax. But I guess we have Al Gore and Michael Moore to take their place with the same silly unfactual crap.
Mark at 4:03PM on Jul 24th 2007
90. Does any remember from way, way back the man who made his late wife's glass coffin into a coffee table? You could see she was laughing in the picture. And Ed Anger's column, and that mean advice lady (can't remember her name)who told everyone to shut up and lose weight. Whatever will we do???
Liberty816 at 4:05PM on Jul 24th 2007