History Magazine / WeeklyWorldNews

* InOneEarOutTheOther: They ran several stories using this trope, ranging from a man with transparent brain tissue (so one could shine a light in one ear and have it come out the other), to a DumbBlonde woman who discovered someone blowing in her ear would result in a breeze coming out the other side, to a dimwitted Californian surfer dude who was cleaning his ear with a Q-tip, and "not finding much resistance" decided to see how far it could go (right out the other ear it turns out, which the surfer found "way cool").

** Ed Anger was legitimately taken at face value by a loyal base of conservative readers despite his ove-the-top insanity and was even considered one of the more "mainstream" elements of the tabloid at one point.

The tabloid published deeply weird, tongue-in-cheek 'news' about bizarre 'science', astrology, {{Atlantis}}, {{Bigfoot|SasquatchAndYeti}}, aliens, [[Music/ElvisPresley Elvis]], vampires, the Loch Ness Monster etc. Famous for recurring stories about 'Bat Boy', a pop cultural icon that inspired [[Theatre/BatBoyTheMusical a hit off-Broadway musical]].

* DanBrowned: Of course, it's all part of the parody.

* RuleOfSexy: Serena (or Sonya) Sabak, "America's Sexiest Psychic", did a fortunetelling column. She was also kind of their resident PageThreeStunna; she seemed to require a bikini for her job more often than is standard in the news industry.

* EvilMentor: "Dear Dotti", a hilarious EvilCounterpart to Dear Abby, giving advice on taking petty revenge and getting away with cheating, among other things. Or just giving a written TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to anyone confessing to a wrong they committed and asking what to do.

* {{Kayfabe}}: For decades, they ''never'', ever, ever broke character or included a disclaimer that the "newspaper" was a parody, even when publishing stories that could potentially get them sued for libel. This finally ended in 2004, a few years before it ceased publication entirely, when it began adding the statement "the reader should suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment". Around the same time, they published a book about the paper called ''Batboy Lives!'' with the winking introduction that while Reader A may read the paper for real news, Reader B will read it for laughs.

* RogerRabbitEffect: They once ran a story about a construction worker who watched too many cartoons. Over time, he developed FourFingeredHands and astonishingly started to follow ToonPhysics, resulting in much ConstructionZoneCalamity on the job.

* RecycledScript: Dotti and Serena's columns would occasionally reuse letters from previous columns with minor changes.

The tabloid published deeply weird, tongue-in-cheek 'news' about bizarre 'science', astrology, {{Atlantis}}, {{Bigfoot|SasquatchAndYeti}}, aliens, [[Music/ElvisPresley Elvis]], vampires, the Loch Ness Monster etc. Famous for recurring stories about 'Bat Boy', a pop cultural icon that inspired a hit off-Broadway musical.

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: Averted. The magazine once ran a CoverStory on a set of [[ConjoinedTwins conjoined septuplets]]: 5 male, 2 female.

* RuleOfSexy: Sabrina, "America's Sexiest Psychic", did a fortunetelling column. She was also kind of their resident PageThreeStunna, she seemed to require a bikini for her job more often than is standard in the news industry.

* EvilMentor: "Dear Dotti", a hilarious EvilCounterpart to Dear Abby, giving advise on taking petty revenge and getting away with cheating, among other things. Or just giving a written TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to anyone confessing to a wrong they committed and asking what to do.

* HarmlessFreezing: In one issue a lifeboat full of survivors of the sinking of the Titanic was found frozen in a block of Atlantic ice. When unfrozen the survivors of course came back to life.

* {{Kayfabe}}: For decades, they ''never'', ever, ever broke character or included a disclaimer that the "newspaper" was a parody, even when publishing stories that could potentially get them sued for libel. This finally ended in 2004, a few years before it ceased publication entirely, when it began adding the statement "the reader should suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment." Around the same time, they published a book about the paper called ''Batboy Lives!'' with the winking introduction that while Reader A may read the paper for real news, Reader B will read it for laughs.
** This was perhaps lampshaded during a "Guess the Fake Story" contest they ran featuring four real 'weird news' articles and one fake. In the description they wrote "While it's not like us to print a fake story, we're making an exception for our latest crazy contest."
* InOneEarOutTheOther: They ran several stories using this trope, ranging from a man with transparent brain tissue (so one could shine a light in one ear and have it come out the other), to a DumbBlonde woman who discovered someone blowing in her ear would result in a breeze coming out the other side to a dimwitted Californian surfer dude who was cleaning his ear with a q-tip, and "not finding much resistance" decided to see how far it could go (right out the other ear it turns out, which the surfer found "way cool").

* PoesLaw: Especially in its website incarnation. For example, when it declared that Website/{{Facebook}} [[http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/27321/facebook-will-end-on-march-15th/ was going to be shut down]], a lot of people who found the article via a web search and didn't know anything about Weekly World News thought it was real and panicked.
** Ed Anger was legitimately taken at face value by a loyal base of conservative readers despite his over the top insanity and was even considered one of the more "mainstream" elements of the tabloid at one point.
* RogerRabbitEffect: They once ran a story about a construction worker who watched too many cartoons. Over time he developed FourFingeredHands and started to astonishingly follow ToonPhysics, resulting in much ConstructionZoneCalamity on the job.

* RuleOfSexy: Sabrina, "America's Sexiest Psychic," did a fortune telling column. She was also kind of their resident PageThreeStunna, she seemed to require a bikini for her job more often than is standard in the news industry.

* YourCheatingHeart: P'lodd once had an affair with UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton, which ended when a pissed off UsefulNotes/BillClinton gave him a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown.

* ShoutOut / AscendedMeme: Some media specializing in the strange, including ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' and Film/MenInBlack, cite WWN as being a reputable, informative news source.

Tragically defunct (as of August 2007) American absurdist/parody supermarket tabloid. Published deeply weird, tongue-in-cheek 'news' about bizarre 'science', astrology, {{Atlantis}}, {{Bigfoot|SasquatchAndYeti}}, aliens, [[Music/ElvisPresley Elvis]], vampires, the Loch Ness Monster etc. Famous for recurring stories about 'Bat Boy', a pop cultural icon that inspired a hit off-Broadway musical.

Trivia note: After the ''National Enquirer'' switched to color, its publisher started the ''Weekly World News'' as a way to keep using their old black-and-white presses.

* {{Kayfabe}}: They ''never'', ever, ever broke character or included a disclaimer that the "newspaper" was a parody, even when publishing stories that could potentially get them sued for libel.

It survives as a web site, [[http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/ found here]], and has reappeared as a section in the pages of the Sun (US). A ComicBook was published in 2010.

It survives as a web site, [[http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/ found here]], and has recently reappeared as a section in the pages of the Sun (US). A ComicBook was published in 2010.

Trivia note: After the ''[[UsefulNotes/AmericanNewspapers National Enquirer]]'' switched to color, its publisher started the ''Weekly World News'' as a way to keep using their old black-and-white presses.

* StrawmanPolitical: Ed Anger's extremely right-wing editorial page "My America" veered into this territory. Ed Anger himself may have been a StealthParody.