Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Fisher Price (company) (re-review)

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Fisher Price (company)

I have improved my 3rd requested article, Fisher-Price_(company), by adding more images and cutting down the lists. I reposted for Pee Review to get a better score because I have worked very hard on that article.

DJ Mixerr 07:24, January 23, 2011 (UTC) User:DJ Mixerr/sig

I'll have a go at this. --Black Flamingo 16:02, February 5, 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much!! DJ Mixerr 22:22, February 5, 2011 (UTC) User:DJ Mixerr/sig

Humour:	5	Right, there are a couple of issues here in my opinion. The first is that the article uses way too many of the old Uncyclopedia clichés (Fisher Price joke aside, of course, but I'll get to that later). To begin with, there's the opening quotes. Now I'll admit that I have a bit of a personal grudge against them in general, but that doesn't change the fact that these particular opening quotes don't really add anything. In fact, they kind of subtract from the article as a whole. One of the reasons I don't like them is that they don't look at all encyclopaedic; Wikipedia doesn't have them, by comparison. Anyway, let's look at them separately. The first is ok I suppose, it's just a reminder of the old in-joke; not funny but at the same time it's not hurting anyone. Then there's the one of the company motto, which is a tad silly, but again not awful or anything. I wouldn't recommend having more than one though, in fact I would prefer to see none at all (unless they're fucking hilarious, which they rarely are), but it's up to you. The problem with opening quotes is that they're a cheap way of telling a joke. You could easily tell the same jokes using proper, flowing prose and it would be much funnier and would look a lot less rushed. In fact, you do talk about the motto later, so I don't see any reason for it to be a quote too. Finally there's the Russian Reversal one. Please get rid of this. Russian Reversal stopped being funny before Uncyclopedia even existed. There's no better way of shouting "article by a noob" than the inclusion of a Yakov Smirnoff joke. Another overused cliché on this site, which again all the users here are long tired of, is the black highlighter thing. My issue with it is that it's a really unsubtle mode of suggestion. You can use language to imply things; you don't need a huge, ugly black rectangle on the article. I don't really see how they're funny, because as soon as you see them you know there's going to be a joke that contradicts what was previously said. They're too predictable is what I'm saying. You could be equally as funny just by saying something like "one of those in excellent condition, or even any condition, would be worth a lot today". While this isn't a hilarious example, I hope it demonstrates how language can be a more successful surrogate for any of the overused code-jokes. Another problem I had was all the references to sex toys. It's not that I don't like adult humour, it's just that I don't think any of these jokes were quite as successful as they could have been. All you really do is occasionally declare that Fisher Price make sex toys, but to be honest that approach seems a bit non-committal. You can't just baldly state something silly and expect it to be funny. You have to find a funny way to say it. A joke's humour is in its telling. To demonstrate, let me give you two examples of a joke. The first version is: "My grandfather crashed his car and killed everyone inside because he was too old and senile to drive". That's not funny. The second version is: "My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep, while the passengers in his car who died yelling and screaming". Now, that is funny (at least, I think so), because of the way it's worded. A joke has to conceal its punchline so the reader doesn't see it coming, it has to twist the path at the last second. This isn't the only way to tell a joke, obviously, but I think it will help you. The vast majority of our best of use tactics like this, so it might be worth checking them out. One totally random one that springs to mind is this. That does a truly excellent job of going against the reader's expectations. So remember, it's fine to claim Fisher Price make sex toys, but be subtle about it.
Concept:	4	The biggest problem with concept is probably that it relies way too much on the in-joke. Rather than writing a fresh, original piece of satire, it's basically just a riff on another article (or two articles, technically). Unfortunately, I can only foresee two responses to this; those who have read the original will dismiss this as an homage at best and a rip-off at worst, and those who haven't will be completely and utterly bemused by it. So either way, I can't see anyone really liking it that much. Not that it's bad or anything, it's just been done and it requires prior knowledge of Uncyc history to get. Another reason this is such a problem is that even the original only ever had a very limited appeal anyway (that's what makes it an in-joke). I personally would vastly prefer it if the main focus was on the company itself, with very little (if any) reference to the infamous bit of vandalism. I would also totally do away with the last section, which is basically a rehashing of the accompanying retrospective. Again, there's no need to repeat it. Especially in an article that really is supposed to be about a toy company. That's the key issue here, with a title like "Fisher Price (company)", you need to make sure you're focussing squarely on that. So reign in any unrelated stuff, such as the in-joke, and anything else that shouldn't be under that header.
Prose and formatting:	5	There's a couple of things here too, the main thing being the fact that the article lacks a proper flow. It seems to jump around way too much. One minute you're talking about a new toy line, then the next sentence will be about something completely unrelated like a telephone number, and the next will change again to be about the retirement of the original founder. But what do you even mean by "you could even call this number"? And what does it have to do with the little people line taking over earlier toys? You don't even explain what the number is actually for, you just move on to the next "fact". It kind of reads like a list at times, actually; it's all random facts and silly trivia rather than a smooth piece of prose. You have to take your time; tell a story, elaborate on your points, establish setting and characters. Don't just say "Fisher Price is this, Fisher price is that, Fisher Price is (something really far removed from the previous point)." It would help the situation dramatically if you had an intro too; something broad and gripping that introduces the company and the style of humour you're going to be using. Even if it's totally straight, you still need one, just to set everything up. The article would also benefit from the removal of all the lists of toys. Lists look scruffy and unprofessional and becomes tiresome to read after a while. Normally I make my stock point about them not being funny too, but the weird thing is that yours don't even seem to have any jokes in them. It is literally just a list of toys. I see no reason for its existence. The article could do with a bit of proofreading too. The spelling is fine, it's just the grammar and punctuation that are a little messy at times. At one point you say "good value for the money", but you don't need the "the" part, and you don't need to put any of it in italics either. There are lots of other little mistakes too, like at one point you put a space before a full stop. Then when talking about the factory vandal, you say "on the back" twice, and for some reason go into a different tense (it should be "had" not "has"). The encyclopaedic tone requires use of the past tense, so keep it consistent. There are probably things I've missed too, so proofread it, or get someone else to. I find pasting it all into a spellchecker can help too. Then there's just some issues with formatting. A few parts of the article have dotted boxes around them and the text runs far off the side of the page. I'm not too sure what causes this (I did take a look to see if I could figure it out, but couldn't) In any case you need to sort it out, it's really scruffy looking. Another thing adding to this is the use of the 3= headers, rather than the standard 2= ones. Is there a reason you've done it this way? Because I couldn't see one. This latter point, coupled with the sloppily laid out pictures really ruin the look of the article. Don't only does it look haphazardly arranged, but it makes all the edit buttons stack up against each other. Try using proper headers and move the images around a little to free up some space. Try to keep the images equidistant from each other if you can, and try keep them all a similar size; that might help. You can always use this __noeditsection__ to get rid of the edit buttons too, if you want.
Images:	4	Unfortunately the images all seem to be related to the in-joke rather than the company. Why aren't there any images of toys? Or any of the people involved? It doesn't make sense that there's so many pictures of the recent changes things. As I said in concept, try to keep everything relevant to the subject matter. Also, the first image is too small, your main image needs to be much bigger as its job is to grab the reader's attention and set the article's tone, and also establish what you're going to be talking about. I couldn't understand why it was for the Wii either. I don't get that. A more basic image might be better here, and you should try moving the wikibox down to accommodate it better too.
Miscellaneous:	5	My overall feeling. Don't worry about all the reddy-yellowy numbers here, I find numbers can't really say anything on an article's quality, they're just there as a guide on how much more work is required, I guess.
Final Score:	23	Ok, so to sum up the key things to work on are the article's closeness to the original Fisher Price stub, and sorting out the rather messy prose and formatting. Sort some of these issues out and the article will immediately be in much better shape. Apart from that good work, I can tell you've worked hard on this already. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 17:29, February 5, 2011 (UTC)