Category: Weekly World News - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

All the News Fit to Fake- Car Magnets (10/31/05)

5/21/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company that owned the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor (the long time editor of WWN), in an attempt to give the Cracked writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get my footing but soon I was working on some straight-forward fake news stories.

Another WWN quickie. I was the first to uncover the risks of auto magnets. But people still put them on, even more so now. Whether it's now your smart kid's school pride or your pet's breed announcement these things are dangerous! Also, GPS was just coming out and that was all but useless.

All the News Fit to Fake- Secondhand Cholesterol (10/24/05)

5/14/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company that owned the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor (the long time editor of WWN), in an attempt to give the Cracked writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get my footing but soon I was working on some straight-forward fake news stories.

This is actually one of my favorite stories. Before people were claiming vaccine recipients were "shedding" corona virus, I had people shedding cholesterol! When I was a shoddy teenager, I complained about my uncles smoking. He countered by complaining about me biting my nails. I responded, "Yeah, but I'm not blowing my fingernails in you face." I don't know how I got away with that. Anyway, the idea of a personal bad habit effecting people around you stuck with me. There were all these stories about secondhand smoke affecting non-smokers and the big focus at the time about cholesterol levels. Combining them seemed a natural. Plus I got to mock the wearing of lapel ribbons for causes. Always fun.

All the News Fit to Fake- Bad Inventions (10/3/05)

5/7/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

This one I can't believe got used. This is one of my older premises, bad inventions. I did variations of it for Cracked, The Plague, and The Staten Island Advance and this blog. Similar bits were rejected by all the regulars. But here it is. This always happens. I never throw anything out, and when I get stuck for material, I resurrect something from my dead file. Sometimes it works. Other times, I'm so busy trying to remember stuff, I forget to think up new stuff. But when you are chasing a paycheck, it's an easy trap to fall into. I simply had to pad out my bad idea with some factoids to accompany it. At Cracked, the name of the thing was usually enough, with art. But for WWN, it had to be a well-researched presentation.

All the News Fit to Fake- Hollywood Handbook (9/26/05)

4/30/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

Another article I can't believed they used. Once again, I was digging into my old files and found several sketches and bits about bad restaurants (as well as toys, candy, rollercoasters). There might have been one or two to get me started, but the material is mostly original for the article, except for the closing Fast Food restaurant gag, which I had kicking around for a while. Jerome Howard was able to make it work (and frankly, publishing a weekly fake newspaper ate up a lot of content).

All the News Fit to Fake- Hollywood Handbook (9/26/05)

4/23/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

One of my repeating obsessions was with Hollywood. Sure, they weren't buying my scripts, so there must be a reason, right? And the reason was "they were stupid." Whether I was writing sketches about colorization, stories about altering old movies, or just my takes on Hollywood rules, I constantly goof on Hollywood and the studio system. During the aughts, the studios were starting to fall apart. And was didn't fall away was absorbed by others. The last generation of 70s whiz kids who venerated Old Hollywood were starting to age out. Movies coming out covered the gambit from great to awful (which was always the case, but there were fewer movies, competing entertainment outlets and dwindling expendable income. My take was there had been an actual handbook to how to make great pictures and they lost it. Frankly, I didn't think this story would get bought. It was an amazingly light premise and a very niche topic but they bought it. I managed to marry the bit to one of their op-ed pieces and I think that helped.

All the News Fit to Fake- Pizza Fax (9/5/05)

4/16/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

This was part of a double-header for me. I had 2 articles in the Sept. 5, 05 issue. Once again, I was able to take a perfectly ridiculous idea, long before the idea of Grubhub was even a pixel of an idea. It's a sci-fi parody, combining The Fly, Star Trek transporters and an international arms dealer. I presented the idea as cutting edge technology, and did some solid counter-points and even mocked Wall Street to boot. It's a cute little story that hits a lot of bases.

All the News Fit to Fake- Rogue Icebergs (9/5/05)

4/2/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

After writing about rogue dolphins, the only natural follow up would be a story about rogue icebergs. How this happened? Who knows? The movie "Titanic" had come out in 1997, so that was part of pop culture. Fears of global warming and the disappearing artic ice was totally a thing. And there had been a increase in iceberg traffic recently. I had done an article about sequels to the movie and one of them was about Rose coming back to hunt the iceberg that killed Jack, so the idea of a rogue iceberg had been kicking around my head for a while. But the fun part was a) trying to come up with a "logical" reason for it happening and b) unwinding the danger because of climate change. Pretty slick.

All the News Fit to Fake- WWN: Trading Holidays (8/15/05)

3/26/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but soon I was working on some straight forward fake news stories.

After they moved all the federal holidays to Mondays to make three-day weekends for people, what would be next? Reshuffling holidays to make them more seasonal. Not sure how I came up with picking Groundhog's Day and April Fools Day as the two least consequential "holidays" that I could make an argument for switching but I pulled it off. Man, I hope the Federal Board of Observed Holidays is able to survive the DOGE chainsaw of 2025. I really like my little topper at the end.

All the News Fit to Fake- WWN: Amazing Bubble (7/25/05)

3/19/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper but after a while, I was submitting some straight forward fake news stories.

For some reason, I feel like this story got pitched to me. I can't imagine thinking up a bubble story. It's a solid little story and a surprising show business parody at the end. It's now I started to realize that getting the article sold didn't mean it was going to get featured. I had some one and two page spreads made up from my stories, so I was surprised this was printed as a 1 column piece. Oh, well.

All the News Fit to Fake- WWN: Pizza Parlor Horror (7/11/05)

3/12/2025

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News. During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.") It took me a while to get the hang of the paper. I worked my way in with some straight forward fake news stories.

This kind of story was inevitable. Everyone knows about Chuck E. Cheese, right? The original draw was a various points, animatronic figures would appear on a stage to sing some songs and entertain the customers. It was cute, but Disneyland it wasn't. But what if one of them went all West World? Again, ridiculous situation, but if you include the right quotes from the "eye witnesses" it plays out fine. I even pulled a twist where the company decides to make rouge robtos part of their new business plan!

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