Arnold's New Show Is a Hoax— Right?

Spend a little time online today, and you’re sure to see lots of very excited posts about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to the world of showbiz as cartoon and comic book character “The Governator”—but it’s got to be an April Fool’s joke, right? The details, first reported in Entertainment Weekly, “are cartoonish in the best (or, depending on one's taste, worst) sense of the word,” writes Ray Gustini in the Atlantic. “There are colorful sidekicks, a cadre of villains called Gangsters Imposters Racketeers Liars & Irredeemable Ex-cons (ie, GIRLIE Men), and, yes, an Arnold Cave.”

Plus, “the magazine's April 1 newsstand date is the first major red flag,” Gustini notes. In the Hollywood Reporter, Scott Roxborough expresses similar doubts, but notes that Schwarzenegger had already announced plans for a new TV series, and promised to unveil details next week. But some of the other details Roxborough notes do sound awfully jokey: Schwarzenegger says the project, a collaboration with Stan Lee, is his Plan B since he can’t legally run for president … and claims he didn’t tell Maria Shriver about it in advance. (More Arnold Schwarzenegger stories.)