Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/American Idol (2nd)
American Idol [edit source]
An old article of mine I want to see if its worth fixing up. Please indepth! Tagstit talk contribs awards 17:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
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PEE REVIEW IN PROGRESS of giving you his opinion and pretending you care. |
| Humour: | 4 | Heya tagstit!
Well, first of all, I commend you for doing this rewrite. I saw the version that existed before you started on it, and you've taken it from "pretty obvious to VFD" to something much better. Unfortunately, this is not funny to me. And here's why: you're describing an extremely typical scene from American Idol. I mean, I could turn on the TV and basically watch your scene on TV. So the only possible humor here is for me to think "Holy shit, I can't believe how well he nailed that." Even that isn't really "funny" - it's just impressive. Thing is, you didn't really nail it. You did okay, but you didn't kick its ass. The ability to perfectly imitate Idol is going to give you a great basis for satire. If you nail the style, you've set yourself up to tell some great jokes. But if all you do is nail the style... it's not really comedy at all. Not in my view. If a comedian says "This is my impression of Tom Cruise" and says some things Tom Cruise would never say, but in a perfect Tom Cruise mannerism, that's funny. If he says "This is my impression of Tom Cruise" and does a perfect, spot-on reenactment of a real Tom Cruise speech in a movie, that's pretty fucking awesome, but not funny. |
| Concept: | 4 | See above. You need a concept that goes a little beyond "here's a scene from Idol." It doesn't have to go very far beyond that, but it has to go at least a little beyond it. |
| Prose and formatting: | 4 | Okay, for about the first time in my reviewing career, this is going to be the section containing the meat of the review.
Since you're doing an impression, the prose is everything. So, section-by-section: Lede: It's not bad. I have a few problems. First of all, I don't really believe that this character would say "ins and outs" or "technically" - it's a pretty big departure from her "Like, oh my god, oh my god!" style. I'm not sure about the sentence "Like, no really, I am a big fan" - is that punctuated right? Maybe: "No, really, I am a BIG fan." Waiting to Enter/Opening: The paragraph on Paula is good. I enjoyed "I think it is great that women can finally judge other people instead of being judged all the time." The paragraph on Randy is weaker. I don't think this character would say "And Randy the black guy!" - everybody knows Randy is black. I can see her ranting insensitively about how much she loves blacks, but "Blacks have always been my favorite color of people" doesn't seem to fit her character either - I see her saying generic idiotic things, not very, very strange things like "favorite color of people." Whereas "They only get mad because they suck and he has the balls enough to point it out!" is perfect, because it's exactly the kind of thing an Idol contestant would say. Waiting to Enter/Dialogue: I don't think you really captured it here at all. First of all, why is the character's name "Woman"? Why not introduce her in the lede "My name's Matty and -", so we don't have to go through iterations of not knowing who she is, and then knowing who she is. Also: why "Matty?" I'd expect her to have one of those white trash stripper names, like "Savannah" or "Misty" or "Cheyenne." My biggest problem with this sentence, though, is Seacrest's dialogue. It doesn't really capture Seacrest at all - and it's punctuated strangely. Instead of "Ryan Seacrest: Hey your about to go on you nervous at all?", maybe "Ryan Seacrest: Hey, you're about to go on! You nervous at all?" Except I'm not sure Seacrest would even say that. Honestly, I've only watched the show maybe six or seven times myself - not enough to perfectly get Seacrest's dialogue. But I'm sure he wouldn't say "Now, please answer, are you nervous?". Seacrest doesn't make demands like "please answer" - he'd probably just make a little quip and mug for the camera or something, like "Wow, this woman's nuts." The Audition: Problems here. For example, Simon, Randy, and Paula don't even say "hi" - Randy just launches into "What do you do in your free time." Then, Matty answers very simply, which I don't buy. I'd expect "Well, I sing - singing is like totally my life - and I watch American Idol. It's, like, my dream!" Something like that. I also don't buy "my unique style would be ruined if I did" - too erudite. Maybe something more like "Well, my mom and my sister are always hearing me sing. I think my voice is just, like, a gift, really." I'd have her repeat the "Oops, I didn't again" joke from the lede - I think it's funnier if she actually doesn't know the song than if she makes different mistakes every time. It's strange to parody Randy without having him use the word "Dawg." Simon just seems way off to me. Simon leans back in his chair, looks disgusted, and makes bitingly sarcastic comments. Your Simon seems to be sitting excitedly forward in his chair and yelling. I don't think I've ever heard Simon say "Bloody hell" or "This must be some kind of joke!" He likes to make weird comparisons - he often compares the contestant to a horrible karaoke bar singer or something like that. Thing is, in an article that largely depends on you nailing Simon's tone, this doesn't nail Simon's tone. If I were you, I'd watch a few Youtube videos of him, find a few transcripts of him, look more closely at the way he talks. Randy and Paula are okay, I guess, except the judges rarely say that little. Paula, maybe - Randy, probably not. Besides, how can you parody their styles with just one short sentence each? Afterwards, Matty's meltdown seems about right, but like I said, it resembles the contestant meltdowns really closely, and I've seen them before. The caption on Simon's picture is all wrong - I've never seen an outburst of rage from Simon. I would personally keep her racism against Randy subtler - I've never seen a full-out racist rant on the show, but an insinuation could be funny. |
| Images: | 7 | They're fine. On the second picture's caption, you misspelled Paula "Paual." |
| Miscellaneous: | 4 | Per other sections. One other thing: the judges right now on Idol are Simon, Randy, Kara DioGuardi, and (I believe) an unannounced fourth judge. So I guess this is taking place in an earlier season? It might not be a terrible idea to at least mention Kara, though, to keep it a little bit fresher. Of course, that would place it squarely in last season. Well, it's probably fine without her. |
| Final Score: | 23 | So, those are my suggestions for nailing the tone. Thing is, once you nail the tone, I don't think you're done. I think this article needs something besides resembling a perfect transcript of a five-minute segment from Idol. Maybe a crazier contestant who does something even weirder than what really happens on Idol - like she brings a moose on stage, or something. I don't know. That's off the top of my head and probably wouldn't work. Point is, it needs something.
Sorry about the low score, tags. I appreciate the work you did on this - it's infinitely better than what was there before. It's just not making me laugh, though. It's salvageable, but it's going to take a lot of work to get it there. Good luck! |
| Reviewer: |  pillow talk 17:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
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