Supermarket checkout lines will be a lot less freakishly entertaining in the future. The Weekly World News will no longer be available as a newspaper. It will only be available online.
The sudden shuttering, which reportedly took staff in its Boca Raton, Fla., headquarters by surprise, means that the world will now be without a prime source of information about the activities of aliens on Earth, including the extraterrestrial who is reported in the current issue of WWN to be treating the ailing Fidel Castro.
But at least one presidential candidate can breathe easier: WWN - which bills itself as "the world's only reliable newspaper" - had been the only widely distributed paper with enough courage to regularly report on the romance between the extraterrestrial P'lod and Hillary Clinton, who bore his love child.
Aliens were a proud staple of WWN coverage. Two months ago, the paper invited readers to submit essays demonstrating their fitness to become ambassadors to alien civilizations.
The paper reported it was "overwhelmed with responses."
Note: In one of the Men In Black movies, Tommy Lee Jones' character pronounced a WWN-type paper to be the best source of investigative journalism in America. :)
In its 28 years on Earth, the paper broke many stories, including Saddam Hussein's long tryst with Osama bin Laden, which led to a brief marriage that ended when the Iraqi leader left his mate to return home.
Only the WWN reported that Hussein was found in his Tikrit spider hole by the super awesome sense of smell possessed by Bat Boy, who, "literally sniffed out the filth-covered dictator."
A musical about Bat Boy played off-Broadway in 2001 and suffered brief and critically savaged runs in Toronto and London in 2005. Nevertheless, the Weekly World News, in one of its few forays into theatre coverage, reported that "critics are going hog-wild over the show."
In all honesty, I can't remember even seeing a copy in my local supermarket for God knows how long (circulation's been tanking for years). The last issue is dated July 30. I don't know who actually bought it, but clearly checkout line tastes have moved on to real celebrities.
Anyways, here's WaPo blogger Emil Steiner's top 10 WWN headlines:
10) "The Moon is Made of Green Cheese But -- WHAT ABOUT MARS?"
9)"Man Poses as CPR Dummy To Meet Women"
8)"Mother Nature Endorses Gore for President"
7)"Astronomer Rebuked For Endless Staring into Space"
6)"Man Marries Computer -- Becomes Gigamist"
5)"Seeing Eye Squirrels For Blind Dogs"
4)"TRUCKER ABDUCTED -- RETURNS WITH ALIEN PROSTATE!"
3)"Tiny Terrorists Disguised As Garden Gnomes"
2)"Shopping Mall Where Lions Work As Security Guards"
1)"Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees"