‐Fading sexbomb Pamela Anderson changed her name to Pamela SpiderManderson to revive her flagging appeal to teen boys.
‐Fear of spiders now being treated by personal financial consultants rather than psychologists.
‐Science textbooks in New York and Los Angeles were edited to substitute the phrase “speed of light” with “speed of $1 billion domestic.”
‐A plastic shortage from the sale of Spider-man toys has resulted in a temporary switch to coal-based Coke and Pepsi bottles
‐The Twelve Days of Christmas may be lengthened to 37 days to maximize the sales window for the Spider-man 2 Deluxe DVD release scheduled for late November.
‐The U.N. Security Council has questioned whether the use of Spider-man face masks and web-shooting gloves by Coalition Provisional Authority personnel to interrogate Iraqi terror suspects violates the Geneva Convention.
‐The application to use the “Spider-man defense”–that character is destiny–has been thrown out by judges in pre-trial motions in the Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and Kobe Bryant court cases.
‐A Village Voice article claimed that Bush-administration operatives tried to influence Sony Pictures executives to redesign Spider-man’s costume to appear 65-percent red and 35-percent blue.
‐A movie reviewer for Hamas blasted Spider-man 2 as “unbelievable” and a “Western militaristic fantasy.” The terror group critic issued an open challenge for Spider-man to face a 15-year-old suicide bomber in a Gaza Strip showdown.
‐Venus Williams, the New York Yankees, and Tiger Woods all blamed recent losses on Spider-man-box-office anxiety.
‐A recently dismissed CIA analyst claimed that the agency relied on “Spidey sense” over common sense in weapons-of-mass-destruction projections; the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee ridiculed the claim.
‐Al Gore claimed that Fahrenheit 9/11 was the highest-grossing movie of the July 4th weekend and demanded a recount of all movie stubs.
‐The Advocate, the leading gay magazine, “outed” Spider-man with photos of the superhero shopping with Thom from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy at a Pasadena flea market.
–Bruce Stockler is a media-relations consultant and humorist. He is author of I Sleep At Red Lights: A True Story of Life After Triplets.