Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Invader Zim (revised)

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Invader Zim

Ilovecheeseandsausage 21:19, April 14, 2011 (UTC)

I'll get this one. --Black Flamingo 18:34, April 22, 2011 (UTC)

Humour:	5	Hi Cheesey, for a noob article I'm actually pretty impressed by some of this. However I still think there are a good few things holding it back, if you'll indulge me. Intro From reading the intro the impression I get is that you haven't really thought about what you want to say about Invader Zim. The only concept you seem to introduce is that he's real rather than fictional, which also doesn't seem a particularly well-thought out approach. Another fatal error you make here is the vague way in which you describe him. Where you say some believe him to be part of the Villainous League of Evil, for instance, doesn't work for the simple reason that you never explain what the Villainous League of Evil is. I've definitely never heard of it, and the red link would suggest that not many others have either. To be honest, rather than explaining it, it would probably be more beneficial to just remove the reference. At the end of the day, it's probably not real, is it? Early Life Well, the first problem I notice is that you don't really make many jokes. You talk about a lot of silly stuff but there's a difference between actual gags and just relaying things in a laid back tone. You say he has the intelligence of a donkey, for instance, which is a fairly standard line without much humour. You could very easily insert a "turn" into such sentences - something a bit more unexpected. Humour is about taking the reader by surprise after all. For example, you could say: "it has been said Zim has the intelligence of a donkey, although some donkeys have taken offence to this." While this isn't a hilarious example, I hope you see my point. See what other lines you can insert such twists into. Your writing can be too cursory at times too. There's barely any info in here, never mind jokes. You say there were lots of other aliens who attended his school, some of which were other species, then you quickly move on to the next point. Go into more detail, don't jump around like this. And if it's not integral to a joke; don't bother bringing it up. Assault on the White House Again you don't really go into much detail, you begin new paragraphs at random intervals, and barely make any jokes. Trying To Destroy The Planet The Star Wars references seem a tad too random to be honest. It kind of looks like you didn't have anything funny to say about Invader Zim by this point, so just starting making stuff up. Try to stick the matter at hand. Death Now I don't know much about Invader Zim (in fact, I have no idea what it is), but I'm guessing most of this is made up. The problem is, the article hasn't really taught me anything about him. All I really know is that he's an alien trying to take over Earth, and that he's unintelligent. There's nothing about him being a cartoon character (which I'm guessing is what he is) nor any real life information on him. I really recommend you read our guide to writing for this site if you haven't already, especially the parts about how truth is funnier than randomness. Our featured articles are probably worth reading too, although I'm sure you've already read a few of them. They can give you a good idea of how to write things in a funny way, because most of them are fairly good.
Concept:	5	Well, the good thing about the concept is that it's consistent. That's actually an achievement, as most newer users don't manage to do this (myself included when I was new). The problem is you don't have much of an angle, which is probably why you've ended up with little in the way of jokes. A funny article doesn't always need an interesting angle, but it can help a lot. The article on seminal Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (to give you a completely random example) is written from the perspective of young, poorly-educated kids, which is a nice contrast between highbrow and lowbrow. It's one of my favourite articles. Another random example is the one on IMDb, which is set out to look like the IMDb site (another of my favourites). These don't really have anything to do with your article in particular, but they should illustrate how inventive you can be on this site in terms of your concept. Is there something interesting or unique that you could do with your approach here? As I said, you don't really need to do anything like this, it's just an option. One thing you probably should do, however, is give us a little more info on Zim - and not just his biography, because a lot of that is fictional. What else can you tell us about him? It's a TV show, right? Talk about it's production, writing, reception, plot etc. You know, the kind of thing a TV article normally has? You could also try to develop the character of Zim, as right now you're just making jokes about him being ineffective. Can you think of a running gag based on one of Zim's well known traits? Much like the way the Keanu Reeves article portrays him as a dumb stoner?
Prose and formatting:	5	There are a few issues here too, mostly just sections of prose that are a bit confusing. Again, if you'll indulge me... Intro' "Crazy weird-looking alien technology" - Such an informal tone just isn't funny unless it's juxtaposed with something contrastingly serious like this article does. I would stick to the encyclopaedic style used by the rest of the article. "They probably wouldn't accept him for being unforgivably dumb" - This doesn't make sense. They wouldn't accept him because he is unforgivably dumb. Assignment to Earth This sentence is a bit clunky: "However, despite all the technology at his disposal (he had a spaceship that shot death rays, for crying out loud) and his stupid assistant, he was unable to do so." - The brackets by themselves aren't that bad, but the clause about his stupid assistant doesn't seem to have a place in the sentence. "A ploy to get rid of them" - Do you mean Zim and the assistant? This reads a bit confusingly as you're talking about Zim in the surrounding sentences, with only a brief, unexplained reference to the assistant. It might make more sense to say "get rid of him". "They all thought he was a loser, and it may have had something to do with his previous assignment when he successfully killed hundreds of aliens, before leaving his own planet." - You have three clauses in there, none of which have anything to do with each other. Separate them and give them the full attention they need. Blending in "Invaders" - This just needs an apostrophe. "And thus it is one of the things that Zim is the worst at" - This doesn't make sense. He's bad at it because it's his first goal? Take another look at that and try to clear up what you actually mean. This section also has a sudden break in the person - "Hold on, where was I?" The rest of the article is in third person, I wouldn't recommend suddenly changing. It looks sloppy and non-committal. Death "Obviously dissected" - How can you be obviously dissected? Just get rid of the obviously part. "The other aliens did not care, more or less" - The "more or less" part is one of those meaningless idioms that doesn't really add anything. I would just get rid of it. Then there are just a few formatting problems. First of all, there is a lot of random white space, generally caused by there being too many line breaks. One line will always suffice, whether you're going into a new section or otherwise. You also need a few more links, as towards the end you don't have any at all. And what's with the Satan template? It has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter. You'd be better off getting rid of it because it doesn't add anything and it isn't funny anyway, even when it's in a somewhat-related article. The template's ugly too.
Images:	6	The first image is fine but you should move it higher up so that it's level with the text. The next two are ok but not hugely funny. Serious images are all well and good but you should at least try to make a joke in the captions. The death star one feels a bit irrelevant, and if you're even going to use it then it should be in the section above where you actually talk about it. Apart from that, it would be nice to see some more actual images of Invader Zim, so we can get a better idea of who he is and what he looks like. Again, take a look at our featured articles for ideas on how to illustrate.
Miscellaneous:	5.5	Overall impression.
Final Score:	26.5	So overall some good work here. All you really need to do now is get a few more jokes in there; play with the reader's expectations a little more. And it would also be nice to see some more development on the character and concept you have here. After that it should be in much better shape. 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 on my talky page and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 21:15, April 22, 2011 (UTC)