Why they stopped reading the Weekly World News
Image via Wikipedia
The great double joke of the Weekly World News in its glory days was that as you chortled over the wildly funny stories, you assumed that somewhere there were rubes who really believed in the animal-human hybrid called Bat Boy, the space alien who could accurately predict the outcome of presidential elections and the rest of WWN’s merry menagerie.
And then there was the highly excitable right-wing columnist Ed Anger who, true to his name, was always pig-biting mad or mad as an Eskimo at a salad bar or as a tranny with a busted heel.
He hated (to quote Wikipedia quoting The Economist) foreigners, yoga, whales, speed limits and pineapple on pizza; he liked flogging, electrocutions and beer.
Nor was he pleased with those he referred to as “A-rabs” and “froots.”
WWN was the tabloid version of pro wrestling: Everyone knew it was fiction except the believers. At least we assumed there were believers. I never actually met one, presumably perhaps because they all lived in states we like to make fun of and stayed inside watching Deliverance and rooting for the rapists.
The movie Men in Black, you may recall, did a witty bit on WWN, having its Fed secret agents read the paper to get the lowdown on trouble-making space aliens.
I’m using the past tense here because although WWN still comes out online, it left the supermarkets and newsstands some years ago. Somehow, the web version isn’t as satisfying.
What got me reflecting upon WWN was a news item that it has signed a deal in Hollywood. Creative Artists Agency is peddling the tabloid’s characters and Dreamworks is developing a TV show based on some of them.
I don’t suppose any true believers still extant would notice that the deal kind of gave away the fictionality of the enterprise. (What, Bat Boy wouldn’t have his own agent, lawyer and manager after all this time in the public eye?) Logic was never their forte.
Anyway, I think I know why the fortunes of Weekly World News declined to the point that it stopped coming out on paper. Its readers discovered a better place to get their kind of truth: the Fox News Network.
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In my defense, I stopped subscribing when I was 14. But yes. I thought Bat Boy was real. Seriously.
Lewis, you added a picture of Bat Boy in a police chase. Great reporting sure, but why would Bat Boy drive? He’s part bat for christ sake. If he were really a bat, and I’m starting to doubt that very notion, he would obviously fly.
Brian, that’s an excellent question. But you have to remember that while Bat Boy is half bat, which means that yes, he can fly (as well as catch and eat his own weight in insects every 24 hours) he is also half boy, which means that he’s a mischievous imp who loves speedy automobiles and pranks played on authority figures. And that’s why the adorable mutant led the police on that merry chase–for the sheer fun of it!
In response to another comment. See in context »A Weekly World News article that doesn’t mention the time Hillary Clinton cheated on Bill with a little gray alien? Or Satan’s face showing up in the 9/11 dust? Or “Dear Dottie”?
If major U.S. newspapers had to have mascots like Bat Boy in order to be legit, what would be the New York Times’ mascot? Washington Post? LA Times?