Off the wall news stories tend to generate huge consumer and political interest. Consider, for instance, the Michael Jackson trial. In the 1970s and 1980s, the singer Michael Jackson became the single most important icon of American pop music. Michael was always an eccentric, but his oddities played well to an adoring public back when he was king of the charts.

In what seemed an attempt to escape into a childhood he never had, Michael Jackson constructed the Neverland Ranch, a fantastical playground populated by zoo animals, a ferris wheel, and a bumper car racing track. Fans looked the other way, until Michael Jackson ran into accusations of improprieties with some of the guests he entertained on his ranch. As allegations of Jackson's involvement with children surfaced, his iconic status began to crumble. The many bizarre twists and turns of this case made it classic off the wall news fodder.

Modern Off the Wall News Stories

Another off the wall story surfaced in 2003, when Austrian muscleman-cum-American movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger won an historic midterm recount election to become governor of California. Schwarzenegger's meteoric rise to power and prominence paralleled Michael Jackson's decline. Although both men were iconic figures of the 1980s, and both were entertainers, today they face vastly different fates.

Off the wall stories happen to regular folks as well. In the spring of 2005, a woman claimed to have found a fingertip in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Her dubious accusations prompted a rash of false "finger findings," and eventually put pressure on the Wendy's company to offer a $100,000 reward for the finger. When it comes to America's appetite for the offbeat, the truth is usually stranger--and stronger--than fiction.