Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Black Forest ham
Black Forest ham[edit source]
Hamburger 06:23, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
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PEE REVIEW IN PROGRESS of giving you his opinion and pretending you care. |
| Humour: | 5 | Good morning, Dr. Hamburger! So, I see you're brand-spanking new on Uncyclopedia. And you've already written an article. And it's in extremely readable English, it isn't about having sex with cartoon characters, and all the pictures are generally in the right place. And you've even taken the step of contacting another Uncyclopedian and politely requesting feedback on your article. Well, that's a really promising start on the site! It's good to have you here, and welcome!
This is kind of an unusual article to get on Pee Review. It's good, and it belongs on Uncyclopedia, but it really isn't that funny. At least, not to me. But I feel like it doesn't really go for the funny. Let me talk about that in the "concept" section. |
| Concept: | 4 | Running through some of the most common categories of humor - slapstick, smut, misdirection, satire, character-driven, absurdity - what is this? Your concept is that ham doesn't come from pigs, but rather grows on the ceilings and floors of caves.
That's certainly not satire. I guess it's absurdity. But, as absurdity goes, it's not really *surprisingly* absurd. It's just, basically, not true. Usually, when newcomers to Uncyclopedia get absurd, they do it in a very juvenile way. They might have said "Black Forest ham was invented in 14,523 B.C. when Princess Peach farted it out of her ass." I'm really, really glad you didn't go that way. But the way you did go, while not rage-inducingly annoying like that, was actually no less random. It's just a piece of misinformation, and then additional layers of misinformation to justify the first piece of misinformation, in order to make the whole thing logically coherent. And let me say, I really am encouraged by the fact that you're even concerned about making your article logically coherent, because few people find internal contradictions funny, and it takes a lot of writers a long time to realize that. I just think you need a more satirical concept. Some real-world analogue to poke fun at. For example, this article could have been used to poke fun at the European "regionalism" of food and drink, and the American tendency to ignore it (i.e., to them, it's very important that champagne be made with specific grapes from a specific region; to Americans, pour vodka in a Sprite and you can call it champagne for all we care.) Or, you could simply make fun of the concept that ham tastes better if it comes from the black forest. There's actually plenty to work with there. But just saying that the ham comes from German caves... it doesn't really get me to crack a smile. Then you give a false etymology, which is also very, very dry and not really a joke. Then there's a false history, and a false assertion about Black Forest caves...and then there's a weird global warming section - and frankly, I just don't understand why that's in the article. It's not really on topic at all. It feels like padding. Now, at the end, you do sort of touch on something satirical, saying "A special task force assembled by the German government in the late 1990s found that only approximately 5% of so-called “Black Forest hams” circulating worldwide are authentic" - and I think that's kind of funny. Because that sentence is probably not that far from the truth, and in the context of the silly article, a true statement is actually kind of funny. So, I guess it's your punchline. But as punchlines go, it's not a big enough payload. Uncyclopedians read articles because we want to laugh at them. Getting through three very dry sections for a little satire at the end isn't going to cut it. |
| Prose and formatting: | 10 | Your prose and formatting are exceptional for a first article. My only real complaint is that I think the pictures are a little smaller than they should be and not optimally placed. But, really, you can write, and that's awesome, because we need people who can write. |
| Images: | 7 | The images don't knock my socks off. They're kind of small, and they don't add a lot to the humor of the article. But they're also unobtrusive, don't detract from the humor, and make the thing look finished. So... a score of 7 usually means "acceptable," and 7 it is. |
| Miscellaneous: | 10 | For a first article, this is great. Much better than my first. |
| Final Score: | 36 | So, for your next offering, how about an article that uses an encyclopedic tone to poke fun at something? I have a hunch you're pretty well capable of satire. Welcome aboard! |
| Reviewer: |  pillow talk 18:46, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
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