Apocrypha Now! Archive
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Steve 'Blue's Clues' Burns - still not dead
05/04/02 — A reader writes: "I am hearing that Steve, the host of 'Blue's Clues,' has committed suicide. Is this a rumor, or is it true?" Answer: It's a rumor (an old one), and it's false. Earlier versions alleged he died of a drug overdose, a claim Burns has had to deny countless times. The rumor was revitalized by Burns' permanent departure from the show last month after a highly successful five-year run. He may be Clue-less now, but he's very much alive. |
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Stop the presses: 'Jackass' lives!
05/02/02 — MTV yesterday denied a rumor that Johnny Knoxville, star of the aptly-named daredevil stunt show "Jackass," was killed in a parachuting accident earlier this week. "He is alive and well, fine and dandy," a spokesman assured the BBC. The rumor was kickstarted by the posting of an elaborate fake obituary on a Website spoofing MTV.com which read, in part: "He was being filmed parachuting from a biplane whilst eating a catering-sized tub of Heinz baked beans, when his parachute failed to open. Tragically the backup chute also failed, and Knoxville plummeted to his death." MTV presumably felt compelled to disavow the hoax because, alas, diehard fans of the show would have found it all too plausible. |
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Return of the butt spiders
04/25/02 — A forwarded email currently circulating in South Africa claims nine women have died in that country after being bitten by the "dangerous South American Blush Spider." The Johannesburg daily newspaper The Star rightly pegged the message as false, a new eruption of a 1999 Internet hoax first spotted in the U.S.A. The original email alleged that the deadly species — supposedly known to scientists as "Arachnius gluteus" — hides under toilet seats and attacks its victims at their most vulnerable. |
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Sex in outer space
04/25/02 — Remember the alleged secret documents revealing that space shuttle astronauts conducted "sex experiments" at the behest of NASA several years ago? Those proved to be an silly Internet hoax, you may also recall, but according to a CNN article passed along to us by Michael Brooks, an organization called the Mars Society is proposing that such experiments be undertaken for real — only using mice, not human beings. The experiment, which could cost as much as $10 million, would consist of launching a nest of randy rodents into orbit for a minimum of two months to allow sufficient time for procreation, then shuttling their offspring back to earth for scientific evaluation. This giant leap for mousekind is tentatively scheduled for 2005. |
