CHENEY: SCOOBY-DOO FILM IS "INEVITABLE"
Shocking news for us all, as conveyed by US satire site The Borowitz Report - now well into its second week of intelligence-failure mockery - in the acidic vein of its most successful running gag "US Issues List Of 5,000 Bad Things That Might Happen Someday".
A genuine stand-out amid the welter of satire (funny and otherwise) currently blossoming across the net, Borowitz's 5,000 Bad Things... list includes such gems as a feared al-Qaida plot to "rent apartments, rent pianos, and then push the pianos out of the apartment windows". But the American vice-president's dire warning of this summer's (all-too-real) canine blockbuster has its moments: "Instead of frightening the American people with the spectre of a Scooby-Doo film," demands [House Democratic Leader] Richard Gephardt, "Why not tell them what you're doing to keep future Scooby-Doos from being produced?"
One possibility comes from tech-comedy site BBspot, whose "Copies of Spider-Man 2 Already on the Web" describes how the hotly awaited sequel has "been pirated before it has even been filmed". Studios are blaming net users with sophisticated electronic equipment for scanning the movie directly out of director Sam Raimi's brain while he slept, with Raimi confirming that the version circulating on the web "is indeed the movie he is about to film".
Suspicions of "an inside job" increased when the pirates were found to have edited out unnecessary portions of the captured footage, including "images of Raimi's mother yelling at him because he forgot to take out the garbage".
Meanwhile, George Lucas's latest Star Wars epic continues to attract flak, though Ireland's The Evil Gerald site gives Attack Of The Clones a muted thumbs-up in its arts coverage: "Triumph for Lucas as new Star Wars film hailed as 'not shit'."
The Gerald has yet to tackle the World Cup at the time of writing, leaving it to the UK's The Brains Trust to pursue an entertaining flight of fancy in "Roy Keane to take on World Cup 'by himself'" - the exiled Irish captain fielding a "Keane United" team consisting of himself in every playing, coaching and management position. Elsewhere the site sticks to its traditionally topical reputation, with solid Radio 4-style fare such as "Byers Claims Resignation 'Will Not Interfere' with Cabinet Duties".
But the king of the one-two punch remains America's Ironic Times, whose science coverage this week includes "Creative Geniuses, Manic-Depressives Have Similar Personalities - Manic-depressives celebrate, then lament findings." And don't miss the one-liners on their scrolling tickertape - which, if such a thing is possible, are even pithier: "Study: anti-genocide commercials not working."
