SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Fading or forgotten celebrities have done a lot of things to rekindle popular attention, even if that attention is generally negative. Lady Gaga, LeBron James, AnnaLynne McCord, Lindsay Lohan and David Hasselhoff are just a few of the celebrities who immediately spring to mind. But until today, perhaps no public personality has been as desperate for attention as Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the German socialite husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor. At age 47, the eccentric “royal” purchased his title from an elderly princess who legally adopted him in exchange for various favors, some of them monetary. Since that day in 1980, his antics have become the stuff of TMZ legend: Von Anhalt attempted to run for governor of California, claimed to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s illegitimate child, showed up naked in a Rolls Royce in Los Angeles, and most likely ate his wife’s amputated leg in a Teutonic purity ritual inspired by a group of German malcontents from the 1940s. But von Anhalt has yet to relieve himself on an airplane or campaign for president under the cloud of the Libertarian ticket.

Gérard Depardieu’s Penis Confuses Airliner with Outhouse
On Wednesday, before a flight from Paris to Dublin could depart, Gérard Depardieu demanded to use the restroom. Flight attendants informed Depardieu that the lavatory doors could not be unlocked until after the plane was airborne. Unable to hold his bladder long enough, the revered 62-year-old French actor instead unleashed what witnesses described as a urinary flood of biblical proportions. Reporters subsequently printed articles attributing other outrageous escapades and vulgar displays to Depardieu.

“To read the papers, you’d think Oliver Reed was an asexual schoolmarm next to Gérard,” one friend said. “The situation was not caused by too much wine or ego.”

Sources close to the actor said the incident was the embarrassing result of a prostate condition, not intoxication or insanity.

And while micturating down the aisle of a packed plane seems an ill-advised publicity stunt, media-starved presidential candidate Ron Paul said it was just extreme enough to get him back in the papers.

Ron Paul Blames Lack of Attention on Libertarian Party Background and “Two First Names” Syndrome, Then Pees in Plane
Despite a second place showing in the Ames Straw Poll, media coverage of Ron Paul has been virtually nonexistent. In print and Internet news, he was surpassed by all potential 2012 GOP nominees other than Rick Santorum* and Herman Cain. Even the undecided Sarah Palin and not-in-contention Donald Trump beat Paul in election coverage.

“I took a step back and a good, hard look at the situation, and I said to myself, ‘Are you a Depardieu or a Depardon’t?’ Paul told The Bennington Vale Evening Transcript from a TSA holding cell at Des Moines International Airport, where he is being detained by federal agents. “I suppose it still accomplished nothing since your, uh, publication is the only one running this story. I pissed all over that Airbus for no reason at all.”

TSA officials and authorities with the FAA said that Paul could have avoided arrest had he been French, a prominent public figure or a more politically liberal person in favor of government regulations, such as those overseen by the FAA and TSA.

The lead investigator interrogating Paul over the disturbance said, “All I know is it’s a damn good thing for him that he decided to be a ‘Depardieu’ instead of a ‘Depardieudieu.’ Because there’s no leniency for that, no matter who the hell you think you are.”

*Editor’s note: while the term “santorum” received more hits than an Internet search for any of the candidates mentioned in this article, queries for presidential hopeful Rick Santorum generated little, if any, traffic.

(c) 2011. All stories are works of satire and parody.