FARMVILLE, INTERNET – Local farmer Buck Jansen was involved in a drug bust Thursday after selling marijuana to local mobster Joe Zamboni, authorities said. Jansen, a highly respected farmer in the area, is best known for his completion of Level Two Daffodil Mastery after just one day of farming.

Locals are shocked at this sudden turn of morality. “Last time I checked his page, Jansen had rescued a lonely pink cow from his farm,” said Farmville resident Johnson Smith. “He was always willing to help others fertilize their crops,” said Smith’s wife, Marion. “He always shared his mystery white eggs with us.”

After creating quite an impressive farm, filled with several crops and livestock, Jansen grew tired and wanted to move onto bigger and better agricultural pursuits. After illegally watching the showtime program Weeds online, Jansen said he realized the only way to make the most money in Farmville and to finally beat all of the friends he met in chat rooms was to grow and sell drugs.

“It made perfect sense to me. Luckily, moments after I thought of the idea, Mafia Wars came on the news [feed] and I knew just what to do,” Jansen said, without remorse.

Zamboni, an avid player of Mafia Wars, was pleased to do business with Jansen. Although he would not comment, Jansen assured us that Zamboni loved the idea of the two great apps working together. “He kept sending me notifications to join his Mafia, so he must have known I could grow some pretty legit dope,” Jansen said.

Jansen remains happy despite this blemish on his previously-untarnished reputation. “All great stars need a scandal to really put them on the map,” he said. “I believe my drug operation shows my capacity as a farmer, and will only bring more blue ribbons to my farm.”

And what does the future hold for Jansen?

“When I get out of jail, I’m considering moving to Fishville,” he said. “Of course, I’ll still keep my farm, but I think fish are where the money is.”

EVANSTON – As freshman Jared Blumenthal prepared to go to sleep last Thursday night, he did not think he would be setting history. However, as he turned off his desk lamp, he quipped, “I love lamp,” a quote from the Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. At the moment the words left his mouth, streamers rained down from the ceiling. Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” began to play as Bob Barker entered the small dorm room to make a big announcement: Blumenthal had just made the millionth out-of-context Anchorman reference.

“The shock still hasn’t worn off,” explained the startled freshman, “I knew I was making an incredibly obvious and ill-fitting reference, but I didn’t realize it was such a significant obvious and ill-fitting reference.”

The university plans to commemorate the occasion by screening Anchorman at Tech Auditorium this Saturday, allowing the three NU students who haven’t it to leave their rocks and join in on the out-of-context quotation bonanza. Blumenthal is expected to give a keynote address before the film. “It’s an honor to be such an important part of Anchorman-quoting history,” he said, “this is a proud day for douchebags everywhere.”

In other news, junior Keith Remsen quoted a line from the cult film Eraserhead for the third time ever. There was no notable celebration, but his two friends were seen chuckling contently to themselves for getting the reference.

EVANSTON – After watching the Dolphin Show, in my expert marine biologist opinion, I would give it about one and a half out of a possible five flippers.

The show did not suit my fancy, and I was not a dolph-fan. Pardon my dolph-french, but the fact that sea life was so under-represented in a dolphin show sucked blowhole. The only water in the show was the ocean of tears everyone was crying at the end. The closest thing to use of sonar communication was a student texting on a cell phone in the third row.

The plot of the show was so deep that no dolphin in their right mind would ever swim in waters of that depth. It seemed that there was no way to tell the porpoise of any of the action and the story was too difficult to wade in. Not to go overboard on the nautical measurement metaphors, but this show was leagues below what I expected. The main character was always sad; dolphins do not like to see dark drama, instead preferring light comedy such as the wildly imaginative sketch involving a seal with a beach ball on its nose.

Next time I go to a dolphin show, I think I will just stick with Sea World. Shamu and his dolphin friends have never failed to impress.

JERSEY SHORE – Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, a cast member of MTV’s popular reality series “The Jersey Shore,” has been denied a role in the Broadway remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, after much speculation. Casting directors, who have already picked Rosie O’Donnell for the role of Augustus Gloop, stated that Snooki was just “too orange and too short.”

Being denied a callback has been rough on Snookers, particularly since she received the rejection letter just hours after Ron “Ronnie” Magro agreed to play the role of Machamp in Pokemon on Ice! Furthermore, Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio is reportedly slated to play the role of Goku in the Off-Broadway rendition of Dragonball Guido. Meanwhile, in an effort to give back to the community, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has teamed with Home Depot to give home supplies to the impoverished in a program dubbed “Tools from Tools.”

Sources tell the Flipside that the increased presence of cast-members outside their breakout show has boosted ratings immensely. MTV responded in a statement that their producers are ecstatic about the increased popularity, as well as their recent potty-training.

Snooki, however, has not reacted so pleasantly. “When I heard the phone quack, I just knew it was bad news,” stated Snooki. The guidette’s fake tan ran as tears dripped down her face. “Why do they, like, get to do everything when I am so hot?” she continued. “It’s like a punch in the face.”

CHICAGO – Image-conscious afternoon television host Jerry Springer formally announced Saturday that he has signed golf superstar Tiger Woods to a four-year, $25 million endorsement deal, ensuring that The Jerry Springer Show will have the backing of Woods’ now-considerable white-trash marketing power for the foreseeable future.

“Let’s face it, Tiger is now the most marketable and well-liked athlete for my audience,” Springer said. “He’s someone who exhibits many of the lowlife qualities our show presents on a daily basis. It’s an honor to have Tiger on board to help promote the show.”

This is the first new endorsement deal for Woods since reports of infidelity poured out after his neighborhood car accident. Many of his previous sponsors have since relieved Woods of his spokesman duties.

“Tiger is not only the best at what he does, but he’s also able to fake a supposed professional demeanor — he’s a true swinger, and that’s what we’re looking for,” Springer added. “He has all the qualities I want people to think of when they think ‘Jerry Springer Show.’”

“Jerry Springer is a great guy to work with,” Woods told The Flipside reporters. “I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life, and this is the perfect way to do it. It’s apparent that everyone who goes on The Jerry Springer Show finds the right path. Jerry’s ‘final thoughts’ should put me back on top of the golfing world in no time.”

Springer is busy arranging a special primetime edition of the show that would feature Woods, his wife, and all of the alleged mistresses in Tiger’s life. If that’s not good TV, what is? Jerry! Jerry!

EVANSTON – James Norton woke up in the hospital Sunday morning after new group N(e)Urythmic´s Saturday night performance with two full leg casts and a throbbing headache. Nick Simons, a fellow group member, charged him with a baseball bat while he was changing out of his sequined leotard. The motive was apparently related to the wild success of Glee, the new Fox television program.

Simons said this morning that he just couldn’t stand the pressure of the Northwestern a cappella world. “Nothing was working. We tried these new costumes, more hip thrusts, more witty banter… hell, we even started incorporating underground pieces like Jason Mraz´s acoustic album and John Mayer’s material from back when he played jazzy guitar. I noticed, though, that everyone was talking about the show Glee. That’s when the idea hit me: maybe everyone loves a kid in a wheelchair.”

Heather Matthews, although disappr oving of John´s method of brutality, does agree that the pressure was getting crazy. ¨The competition is grueling. I mean, Thunk goes to the third world every summer, Freshman 15 has that Nick Carter kid who was infamous before he even arrived here, and I hear Extreme Measures is adding another beat boxer that can even make two distinct sounds. Sometimes you just want to get an edge.¨

Simons said he got the idea after Brown Sugar forced a member to get a voice-change operation and regressive hormone therapy to resemble the homosexual student on Glee and a member of Thunk reversed her nose job to resemble the lead actress of the TV program.

“The kids on Glee say their success is in their eccentricities. It’s clear, then, that what we need to do is try to be exactly like them. At NU, if we have to get major surgery to accomplish some eccentricity, we’re gonna do it,” Simons said.

Norton will be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life but his hopes for this year´s a cappella season are high.

EVANSTON – Northwestern University prides itself on its nationally acclaimed theatre program. Widely recognized by students across the country, Northwestern theatre prepares young artists to cope with rejection, the typical outcome of real-life performance auditions. One hopeful freshman, Jeff Sachs, is actually convinced that I was aware of and had time to attend The Taming of the Shrew, a student-organized show he worked on.

Sachs, a dazed theatre major, clearly faltered in logic with that thought, failing to recognize that my attendance at his show would have been statistically impossible. This is a common mistake, it would appear.

First, consider the amount of time a college student works. Multiply that value by eight to determine the time a Northwestern student spends working. By this logic, the average NU student works 169 hours per week, or one hour more hour than the total amount of hours in one week. Next, multiply the number of performances in one quarter by two hours, the average length of a production. Given the amount of performances nightly, this time value overflows most standard calculators.

Some have sacrificed their grades in an attempt to attend all the performances. In addition, it has caused cast members from different shows to engage in intense competition. They lure audience members by whatever means necessary, even resorting to violent threats. One anonymous audience member voiced his concern: “I literally saw ten shows in one night because I have a lot of friends who are theatre majors. I thought I was being a good guy, supporting the performers and everything, but apparently I wasn’t. When I woke up the next morning, someone had spray painted ‘the cast of Eclipsed knows you weren’t there’ and ‘the theatre community will make you pay, jackass’ on my door. I really am scared for my life now.”

Jeff Sachs, you silly young artist, are you serious? If there were a million hours in a week, chances are good that I still would have been unable to attend The Taming of the Shrew. Sachs is simply “dream[ing] the impossible dream” like Don Quixote did in Man of La Mancha — for the few of you that had the chance to see the NU show.

CHICAGO – This week, Sesame Street, which brought America wonderful things like “The Letter W” and “The Number 9,” is over the hill. The beloved television program planned to celebrate its 40th birthday with cake and parties until Sharon Kim began to questions its involvement with children.

“It’s just not right, a 40-year-old playing with children in dark alleyways,” stated the mother of three. Kim’s comments have drawn interest from parent organizations all over the country, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has called for a federal investigation.

The middle-aged program has been linked to disturbing involvement with millions of unsuspecting children. Some of the allegations against the show have been pretty alarming. It is purported that children were asked to “tickle Elmo,” a phrase that has repeatedly come up during debriefings. Authorities can only guess at its meaning.

Ernie, who stars in a segment of the show along with his life-partner Bert, was quoted as saying “[these children] make bath-time so much fun.” Said Kim: “Its ridiculous: children have been inside [Sesame Street’s] bedroom, with two men no less.”

In related news, Sesame Street’s treatment of its workers is being thrown under scrutiny as well after it became public that one of the show’s characters is living in a garbage can.

BOSTON – Thomas Fine, a linguistics professor at Harvard University, reported that he was “stumped for the first time in his life” after trying to analyze the words in Soulja Boy’s new single, “Trix be smackin my 24s, nah?” After a full perusal of the song’s lyrics, Fine concluded that the rapper’s lyrics “do not match up with any sort of language ever observed in the vast canon of human speech.”

Fine began his press release by speaking on Soulja Boy’s rhyme schemes. “In the second verse, Mr. Boy attempts to rhyme the words ‘hoes and bitches’ with ‘I throw them some fifties’. I have searched the Harvard database and there is no dialect known to man in which these words have even slightly similar phonetic construction.” The linguist also noted that approximately 75% of the rhymes consist of words ending in ‘ah’, such as ‘nah, ‘yah!’, and ‘cuzz ah’. “There are simply not enough words that end with this particular phoneme,” Fine noted, “that would make it possible for about half of these rhymes to be remotely original.”

In addition to nonsensical ryhmes, Fine explained that Soulja Boy also displayed a perplexing lack of sentence construction abilities. “He constantly interrupts his sentences to interject with seemingly random shouts and hollers. For instance, he starts a line with ‘I say to the hunnies every day,’ which seems normal enough, but then continues “YUZ SAYS WHAT CHYA YAHIN IN MY GRILL,” which makes absolutely zero lexical sense.”

Fine’s final analysis reported 90% sentence fragments, 4 words per sentence, and a second grade reading level. “The most bizzare line in the song,” he said, “is the 3rd to last one. Mr. Boy raps, ‘I wanna chill around.’ Doesn’t he know that prepositions aren’t something you can end a sentence with?”

ORLANDO – After announcing plans to retire its trademark cartoon, Disney unveiled yesterday its new icon, Mick Maus. A company spokesperson, Sven Britton, said the change is indicative of Disney’s shift in target audience from the family sector to surly teenaged douchebags.

According to Britton, Maus’ newly-penned backstory details his past as a juvenile delinquent. “He wears a lot of black. He blows cigarette smoke in your face just because he can. He’s generally the type of tool you take one look at and realize you should make sure he gets nowhere near your children,” he said.

Disney decided to revamp its outreach strategy after noticing how many costumed employees dressed as members of the Mickey Mouse Club got the shit beat out of them at its nation-wide theme parks.

The company decided to conduct intense, laborious studies on kids. Researchers examined many components of young people’s psychological state, from their Facebook statuses to their Twitter tweets.

“It was an interesting endeavor, targeting and stalking kids on the Internet,” said developer Marc Remlinger, who recently appeared on Dateline NBC’s program To Catch a Predator. “But what we found is that this generation of children is overwhelmingly self-centered, rude and essentially evil. For years, Disney has tried to promote the opposite values, but it became clear that we needed to adapt our methods in order to survive in this changing social climate.”

It was then that Remlinger and his team of animators created the concept of “a complete dick who adolescents can look up to as a sort of anti-hero who encompasses all that is wrong in this world,” he said.

Disney already has big plans for Maus, whose new features include a thick German accent and a more colorful vocabulary.

In a bold and creative campaign, Disney will be releasing a video game making the mascot change interactive. Coup d’Etat, which is set to be released before Christmas, will feature players controlling the new Disney icon through levels of “a horror version of ‘It’s a Small World,’” trying to find and eventually slaughter the old Mickey Mouse.

Britton added that Disney will update other classic characters like Snow White and Cinderella, though he was unable to disclose many details. “The specifics don’t really matter, so long as [the characters] become extremely slutty. Our goal is to make all our female cartoons into whores. And Donald Duck is really just a quack, we might as well eliminate him,” said Remlinger.

Said Britton: “I’d like to think our company’s founder and my personal hero, Walt Disney, would be really pleased with the direction we’re going in. His top priority was always children’s happiness, and I think we killed it… I mean, in a good way.”