Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 16, 1993 TAG: 9310160365
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANTHONY FAIOLA KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Enquirer/Star Group, the supermarket tabloid publisher based in Lantana, Fla., is launching a racy television version of The Weekly World News on CBS with the aid of Brandon Tartikoff, the former NBC honcho.
"If someone says they've been picked up by aliens and taken to a golf course in heaven, by god, we're going to send a film crew to get that story," said Eddie Clontz, editor of The Weekly World News. "And if the spaceship is gone when we get there, we'll take shots of our subject pointing at the spot where it landed. That's just as good, you know."
A CBS spokeswoman who asked not to be named said the network has agreed only to buy a single one-hour episode. Future shows will depend on the nation's reaction to the pilot, expected on prime time early next year.
Clontz said the video version of The Weekly World News would stay true to the content in the newspaper, best known as the first to inform the nation that Elvis was alive and in line for a Whopper at a Burger King in Kalamazoo, Mich.
"In our first show, we're going to bring a woman who had 15 babies - all at once - to the small screen," Clontz said.
by CNB