fficials at the Fox network announced last week that despite record ratings for the first two rounds of baseball’s postseason, the Yankees-Marlins World Series will be cancelled due to lack of viewer interest. The announcement stunned and disappointed sports fans, who thought Fox was talking about canceling the World Cup. Executives have since issued a statement assuring the viewing public that the little-watched soccer tournament, which appeals to foreign-born Americans and small children who play soccer, will go on as scheduled.

“Our focus group research indicates that watching the Yankees play in the World Series has the same level of audience appeal as watching the Iraqi National Guard gang-rape Mother Theresa,� explained Fox Sports head Walter Lawrie. “And the Marlins’ name recognition ranks comfortably between one-hit wonder Jim Basnight of ‘Sex Teen’ fame and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans. Frankly, if we hadn’t made this announcement, I doubt anyone would have noticed the change.�

Fox executives originally announced that the Yankees-Marlins series would be replaced with footage of the cast of Malcolm in the Middle playing catch in their backyard, interspersed with thousands of commercials for the upcoming Fox shows Skin, Arrested Development and 24. But after focus group research conducted by opening office windows and listening indicated that baseball fans would still be interested in watching a Red Sox-Cubs World Series, rules be damned, a mid-season replacement series was organized.

“Yankees-Marlins was underperforming in several key markets, most notably the entire United States of America,� said Fox spokesperson Lana Rauch. “We were originally taking consolation in the notion that we’d at least get strong numbers out of New York and Miami, but it turns out fans in New York consider anything short of a four-game World Series sweep by the Yankees an unwatchable travesty, and the three Marlins fans don’t live in Nielsen households. So even in those markets, the numbers stank like David Wells’ burp-up rag.�

Network executives hope a Red Sox-Cubs match up will breathe new life into the flagging World Series franchise, which lost some if its luster after last season’s breakout star Barry Bonds was unable to return for the 2003 season due to the failure of his supporting cast. Fox executives attempted to engineer a trade of Bonds to the Cubs after San Francisco’s first-round exit from the playoffs, but Cubs manager Dusty Baker vetoed the trade on the grounds that the 39-year-old Bonds wasn’t old enough to warrant displacing any of Baker’s trusted veteran players.

Fox had gone to great lengths in the preceding weeks to ensure a Red Sox-Cubs World Series, expected by many to be a ratings bonanza. But after succeeding in bombarding the Oakland A’s lineup with microwave radiation in the ALDS and scheduling ALCS Game 4 during a flash flood to prevent Boston Achilles-heel John Burkett from taking the mound, Fox was ultimately thwarted by the Red Sox and Cubs’ own considerable self-destructive quirks, ending up with an albatross series slung stinky-like around their necks.

Some baseball purists have decried the move, which goes beyond Fox’s usual postseason gametime juggling and bizarre scheduling decisions. But when questioned, all admitted they weren’t actually watching the Yankees-Marlins series, they were just tired of waiting for The Simpsons’ Halloween special to air.

eports of persistent anal leakage at the White House gained credibility today when it was learned that current resident and alleged President George W. Bush has consented to a deep intestinal probe to determine the source of those leaks. Said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan, "We're looking at this as sort of a Katie Couric-type fiber optic investigation, and anticipate that there will be quite a market for the subsequent tapes and DVDs."

Speculation has grown about the cause of the leakage, with pundits and politicians alike advancing any number of theories as to its origin. According to one unnamed source, the alleged President has had "a whole lot of Olestra" in his foreign policy lately, while another closely-placed informant theorizes that the extraordinarily unprecedented amount of "mainstream media butt-kissing" is having an adverse effect on the chief executive's digestive system.

"I mean, guys like Chris Matthews, George Will, Robert Novak, Bill O'Reilly, guys like that, they just get all up in there with their smooching and licking and sucking and so on, and who knows where else those lips and tongues have been?" said the aide, who asked not to be identified by name. "That's bound to be unsanitary, at the very least, and could be the whole problem right there."

Asked what could be done to curb such behavior, the source expressed doubt that there would be any changes made in the near future. "You know, the big guy (referring to Bush) just really, really likes that sort of thing. It would be awfully hard for him to quit now, to go cold turkey, especially with an election coming up and his poll numbers dropping."

While the analingus theory was popular among a number of people this reporter spoke with, there was yet another faction that maintained that the leak was a result of Bush's recent changes in diet.

"Ever since that brouhaha with the Old Europeans, he's switched his regular lunch of salad and baked baby Mexican hearts to a heavier Continental fare of cheese-covered surrender monkey souffle topped off with a brace of frog's legs and uncircumcised German weiners," one kitchen worker said. "Besides that, he puts that nasty Russian dressing all over everything, and that can't be doing him any good."

Doctors administering the probe said that they will be on the lookout for signs of all these possible causes and much more. Proctologist Quim Lubricus, M.D., suggested that they hope to find in Bush's upper GI tract, among other things, Air National Guard discharge papers from the early '70s, the correct pronunciation of the word "nuclear," and alleged Vice President Dick Cheney's undisclosed location.

I'm madder than a skunk who smells like flowers. 'Cause they usually smell like ass, is what I mean.

I just found out there's a usurper to my crown. That's how my sister, Cassandra, phrased it, and it seemed to fit pretty well. Really Branaghian or something. A usurper, for those of you who don't have a smart lawyer sister to tell you, is a real bitch who thinks she's hot shit and tries to steal what you own right out from under you. Picture Christina Aguilera snaking Britney's number one spot with a cheesy cover of some New Edition song.

The tart's name is Jayme Kristofson, and I know that's totally made up. Her real name's probably Shirley Hemphill or something, but she's all showbiz-smart and is trying to steal all my thunder. Her first target is the Metallichick comic book I do. I was too late to notice and before I knew it she went from being some kind of rabid comic book fan—I should have known something was wrong when a girl said she liked comic books—to Nat Herschel's girlfriend. Nat, if you're reading this, if I got the website address right for the first time, she's playing you, dude. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you to your face, but you were ignoring me and had your ears covered and shit. It's called denial, dude—look into it. But you should know better—no one with a body like that really thinks an Elfquest T-shirt is cool. Face facts, man.

I've had my share of hot-to-trot actresses trying to horn in on my business over the years, I'm no newcomer. There was this short teen-ager who used to stand in for me when I was on Who's Your Daddy? and she was always saying she could rehearse a scene in my place when I was too hungover to do it. She knew how to climb the ladder, always getting coffee for the other castmembers and complimenting the director on his work. But I was a smart kid, and Dusty had friends in the cement business who made sure she broke her leg and couldn't stand in so well afterwards. It's a rough game, that's all I got to say. Don't walk in to a fight without someone covering your back.

There are other examples, too, but some of those I was well over 18 and could legally be considered an accomplice, so let's just skip to the point: I know hardball. If this bitch wants to play, I'm bringing my ball. So to speak.

She may be pinning Nat's tail on the donkey, and suggesting costume changes and cover ideas and whatever, but if she thinks she's going any further than that, she don't know Clarissa Coleman. I can bide my time, I can wait in the shadows, but I'll get you in the end. I don't need Dusty's friends to keep you from stealing my role. Especially not since they're all in their mid-90s by now.

Besides, just between you and me, she'll never fit into the costume. Not without hoarding half the world's supply of Kleenex. Not that I'm scared or anything. The fans wouldn't accept it. They're used to my angry growl on the cover of that book each month. Some people may argue you can only see the bottom 25% of my face, like Nat once did, but I say it's enough to tell the difference between a genuine talent and a hack sleeping her way to the—well, slightly elevated above the bottom, anyway.

Truthfully, I'm not even all that happy with this assignment. Posing in a goofy vinyl/plastic costume with a big-ass sword in a freezing basement is good when you're just starting out, but I can do much better, as I keep telling people. But at this point, even if I wanted to leave the job, I wouldn't. She needs to be put in her place but good. If I let her steal this from me, even if I don't want it, the next thing I know she'll be showing up on the Archipelago Law reunion ten years from now. Then I'd have to get that sword out for real.

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