An entertaining history of the late Weekly World News:

Clontz, who died in 2004, legendarily instructed his reporters to stay out of the way, let the sources tell the story: ''You've got to know when to stop asking questions.'' If a guy called in and said Bigfoot stole his wife, then Bigfoot stole his wife. Why fact-check your way out of that one?

''We knew our core constituency wasn't just college kids who are laughing at everything, but many people took the stories straight up and enjoyed them for what they were,'' said former WWN managing editor Sal Ivone, proud author of the tortured-genius-demands-lobotomy classic. ``They didn't want to question it. So that was the way we played it.''

For a while, readers lapped it up. Circulation peaked at 1.2 million in 1988 with a front-page edition declaring ''ELVIS IS ALIVE -- and living in Kalamazoo.'' The tip was phoned in by a Michigan housewife.

A story would often start with a shred of truth and then a WWN writer would ''polish'' it, sometimes to brilliantly ridiculous extremes. That's why the WWN was the only media outlet to score exclusive Hubble telescope photos of Heaven.

''I always thought of it as the ultimate in wish-fulfillment,'' Ivone said.

...Ivone said running characters like Bat Boy were a byproduct of reader appetites for story arcs.

Bat Boy was one of those happy accidents that could only occur at the Weekly World News. Dick Kulpa, the WWN's graphics genius, was Photoshopping a human child's image into another alien baby.

Tired of the same-old, same-old, Kulpa gave the tyke pointy ears, fangs and huge eyes. Ivone, who was standing nearby, muttered: ''Bat Boy!'' The rest is blissful tabloid history.

It will be missed.