Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Why?:Buy A ShamWow

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Why?:Buy A ShamWow

S3ahawk 08:28, August 21, 2010 (UTC)

Here's another Why series article. I enjoy these ones quite a bit, but let me know how I can improve them!

Hmm... guess I'll review this. In one earth day, give or take a time zone and a daylight savings time, it shall be reviewed. It's been sitting in the queue plenty long, eh? ~ *shifty eyes* (talk) (stalk) -- 20101009 - 02:34 (UTC)

Humour:	6	A lot of this just seems to fall short, somehow. While the thing as a whole seems to be a salespitch, it would really have to go with that to be majorly funny; a spattering of jokes does not make an article. And the MacBeth references you've speckled through it, if you could actually parallel the thing more to the play as a whole, it might help, since for the first few, they just confused me. It was like, wait, what? Blood? You may or may not be able introduce the play with more consistent parallels of plot and development. Just something to consider, I guess. The introduction introduces well enough, but perhaps it could bring in the ShamWow! itself more effectively. For now, it's just like, okay. So it could be helpful. Take it further - actually start to answer the buying part of the why - for now it's just why it's useful, not why the reader must buy it. You know? Hi, it's Vince with Shamwow - that header seems more like it'd do better starting the entire thing. As in, if that's Vince, who was saying the last part? Good, good, emphasising the amazingness. But just saying something else cannot work while burdened by moisture doesn't mean this will - maybe make the point in full? And the digression about it being german, why mention itś a digression? Just jumping into it would probably be funnier (especially if you make it do that kind of thing a lot, always coming back to the main thing, it's amazing, buy it...). On the other hand, the allusing to the holocaust, why even bother? It's been a goodly long while since that and past is past. Go with a current conception of German craftsmanship, like Russian stuff falling apart and Swiss stuff keeping perfect time, maybe? I rather like the MacBeth references in this section, though am slightly disappointed how they're all blood related. There really was more to that play, you know. I don't entirely understand the statistics part. Is it supposed to be a joke, using the Gallup for such a specific matter? (Or do they do such specific things? Eh, I plead cluelessness.) If it is, though, well... I guess mad-up statistics are good. The real quention, I guess, is why something so short has its own section... anyway, why not the lawn? I feel like I'm missing something funny, here. Using nice round numbers, while perhaps more profssionaloid, makes them also feel like estimates. Saying over ... works fine, but when referring to specifics, you might as well add a significant figure or two. Why even address the critics at all? Something this amazing shouldn't have critics! Although reality would say otherwise. I guess the real issue is... you mean smother your wife with it? And is it used to clean the knife, or something else? Again, I feel like I'm missing something, here. Maybe if you go into each point a little more, emphasising how much more amazing the ShamWow! would be in these circumstances than something else, it would emphasise the funny and make them less confusing... There should really be more such italic messages, don't you think? For consistency, and all. And let's face it; it's making the why point. That's generally good. You following me... - my whining about this wound up in the prose section. Since it's almost entirely a prose/formatting issue, I think. Testimonials - This could be introduced better. Since, well, voice to reader, again with the text, it really doesn't fit. But it's trying to get the reader to believe it from other sources as well, and testimonials are a classic form of advertising nonsense. Perhaps they could have more to them, or more to them, or more over the top... are they being bribed to say this, perhaps? (with money, booze, or the kingdom, who knows...) Now that you are aware of what I am speaking of - I am surprised this is the first section actually saying to buy it... except it doesn't entirely do so, either. This strikes me as odd... should it not be answering the why? and taking it to the sale? At any rate, what's with the working girl? Is that a dead hooker reference, or something? Rerelating to the punched-out hooker, or the mess in the apartment complex? either way, it just does not fit. A salesperson would not wander off to a hooker at the end, would certainly not announce it. Perhaps hinting with an excess of grins and winks while making the sale, you know what I mean? But it just feels wrong.
Concept:	6	This is clearly a sales pitch of sorts - not unlike an infomercial in wiki form, which begs the question... why is it in the Why? namesspace only and not the underdeveloped Unfomercials one? Might as well add it to the category, at any rate. But to the matter at hand - sales pitches do make rather wonderful Why?s, but they have to really embody the nature of the salesman. The typical, or dare I say it, stereotypical, salesman will be pushy, animate and embark upon every fallacy possibly simply to make the sale, coming back to, oh, this is wonderful and this is wonderful, and this is wonderful, and I really think this would be particularly suited to you, ma'am, because if you buy a ShamWow, you'll never have to worry about cleaning up after your cat again, see here, I'll just spill this water all over you, and now, see, it absorbed it all, just imagine what it could do when your cat pees all over the couch; your life would really be improved, and see here, what it did for Moses, and... Well, okay, maybe not like that (which would be a horror to read an article of, anyhow), but the point it, salesfolks are pushy. They might ramble, but they stay on topic and always get back to the point, the sale, because that is what they are paid for. Thus, here, you will also want to do more of that. Really answer the Why?. Or, perhaps, don't actually answer the Why?... just dance around it and make the victim buyer think it has been answered. I'm saying this because it seems to be the direction you are already going for, mind. If you take it all the way, so to speak, and stay in character and remove excess digressions, and really sell the ShamWow, it should really help the overall piece. Also, you may want to check out the other Unfomercials to see what other people have done, see some of what has worked and not worked, for instance. And if you haven't already seen the other ShamWow one (you could do better, since it looks like it's just an unrated version), take a look (and then do better).
Prose and formatting:	7	It's readable, the formatting makes sense for the most part, and most of the grammar is decent, buuut... You need to keep your capitalisation consistent. If it's ShamWow, spell it ShamWow all the way through. If it's Shamwow, do it that way the whole way. Your headers have inconsistent formatting - some are first-person introductions to what the sections are about, others just the nouns that the sections are about. Pick one and stay with it. (Also, Now that you are aware of what I am speaking of, it only needs one 'of', althoguh I'm not sure why you called the section that at all; something about calling and buying it would probably work better) It's not redundant enough for a sales pitch. Normally redundancy is bad in these parts, but... come on. It's a sales pitch, for crying out loud. (I could also be horribly wrong about this, so I'd advise, again, seeing what others have done successfully) Addressing the reader as reader is not something that has widely been in practice for almost a hundred years... I suspect it is because readers tend to find it annoying. And granted, salespeople are annoying, but still. Just saying 'you' will get the point across just as well if you are going to do that, dear reader. (Although You following me probably isn't the best header, anyhow. Perhaps head the subsection with what the subsection is about then follow with the following? statement) And when it gets to the demonstration, why, exactly, are you trying to do it is as if he's transcribing his actions as he goes? You are writing text; why not take advantage of that? You can go into florid, exaggerative detail of a past event, complete with awed bystanders and however much made-up content you feel like. After all, images for ads are modified; why keep to a reality in text, let alone so ineloquently? I don't really like present tense, sorry. you will be announcing your fondness? - why not already? The thing has been demonstrated and discussed; in theory, the reader should already be at that point, and if so, it is certainly sale making time. And the salesperson would of course assume the sale is made and thus be telling, call now and buy it, why not buy a dozen? but you'll have to be quick. And why not, special offer, first 100 callers... get something extra, or something. And emphasise the too late; it's a common scheme to get people to feel rushed and thus not think things through so much. Also, it could use more links. Funny links. Ones emphasising points (or inaccuracies of points, or what the speaker isn't mentioning)... or some such. Admit it, they'd help.
Images:	5	Make your images bigger! I can hardly see what they are without zooming in... I'll admit, I tend to make images on my articles err on the side of too large, but a good general size 200px wide, more or less depending on the image in question. Here, the Moses advert is fine, but you're using some poorly cropped and rather busy photos. Crop down the dog so as to eliminate the the extra space around the edges and zoom in on the dog so the reader's eye will be more drawn to it, and it'll be easier to tell that it is, in fact, peeing. I mean, the pose makes it fairly apparent, but it'd be more effective and improve the overall quality if cropped. The demonstration image, on the other hand, is much too small to even see properly; just make the thumb full-size. This one also could use a better caption. While the other two make jokes and come across as funny, this one just swaps out another product; perhaps you could do something more with it? Another joke besides and perhaps link it to the Zorbeez instead of crossing it out... Also, perhaps it could just use more images - flashy packaging, ShamWow!s looking amazing (like the Moses one), that kind of thing. Really get the point across that these things are wonderful and the audience should... no, must... no... will buy it. Because they're amazing and wonderful and just look how pretty and effective and godly they truly are.
Miscellaneous:	5	Overall impression, whatever that means on an arbitrary scale. And have a general apology for not necessarily putting things in the right sections. I put them where I thought of them.
Final Score:	29	I guess I'm going with five being average, so don't worry too much about the numbers. At any rate, this thing has great potential. Hopefully, the comments will prove helpful, but I'll just repeat that... it should make the sale. Really make the sale. Like a salesperson. Making a sale. Damn, those people are annoying. Have you ever been accosted by a guy in a mall trying to sell you a watch and borrowing your hand and putting it on you and telling you you have to admit it looks dashing on you, admit it, it does, and see? Since it looks so dashing, you just have to buy it. Won't you buy it? Because it really is premium fake silver and definitely not made by mexicans and it really does look dashing on you... Damn, those people are annoying. And yes, that a bit of a digression. At least, I think it was. But that's what some of them are like! *flails*
Reviewer:	~ *shifty eyes* (talk) (stalk) -- 20101010 - 17:03 (UTC)