Matt Groening shimmied across the mall Saturday night in an inebriated mood of disco bliss, when all of the sudden he heard a rustle in the bushes.

At first he said he thought it was the booze or the glue he had sniffed earlier that night that produced a blur of black and white fur in his peripheral.

But not two seconds later Groening said he was knocked to the ground, saddled and rendered helpless by a large, drooling panda.

“This panda was straddling and grinding me. I couldn’t move,” Groening said. “I thought pandas were indigenous to bamboo forests. What the heck is a panda doing on campus?”

Groening was one of 200 students attacked by giant pandas, or Ailuropoda melanoleuca this weekend, as a result of a University experiment gone completely ape s!*t.

In another University effort to increase its standing among the nation’s top colleges, University administrative officials said they thought students would be happier and more apt to apply to a campus with hundreds of pandas roaming wild and free.

“Everybody loves pandas,” said University President Mark Yudof. “Pandas and pancakes.”

The University’s evil scientist guy, Michael Swearingin, said the experiment was designed to make students – who are overburdened by the pressures of an over-priced education, dwindling financial aid, a hopeless future and famine – happy.

“Approximately 1,000 years ago the Western Jin Dynasty, located in southwestern China, extolled the panda as a symbol of peace and gladness because it doesn’t feed on other creatures,” Swearingin said.

But University officials didn’t know that when pandas – which are mostly solitary creatures – are compacted into an area with too many of their own species, they become vehemently protective over their territory and are likely to mate with anything that enters it.

And Groening has the scars to prove it.

“Yes, I can say it now. I was raped by a rabid panda, and I’m not ashamed,” he said.

The University dropped more than 200 Chinese giant pandas by helicopter last week.

Some students remembered the spectacle and said initially, it made them happy.

“I saw hundreds of parachuting pandas in the sky. It made me happy, and I rejoiced in the sight of panda troopers,” said Anela Sceelena, a University sophomore.

But because of the viscous attacks, administrative officials are quickly trying to round up the creatures.

“We’re trying desperately to get the pandas under control,” said University police Capt. Rollins Indasac. “But the damn things keep breeding so fast.”

Approximately 118 students were taken to Fairview’s Emergency Hospital as a result of the attacks. Two students were diagnosed with rabies.

“We’re not really sure why the pandas are going rabid. It seems to be some sort of sexually transmitted disease for the species,” Swearingin said.

Yudof said administrators are crossing their fingers in hopes that this blunder of an experiment dies off soon.

“There will be no more panda troopers here ever again,” he said.

Crazy Howard says treat others as you would like to be treated. Play nice and no one will hurt you.