Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/UnNews:SFPD puts large dent in Mexican toy cartel
UnNews:SFPD puts large dent in Mexican toy cartel[edit source]
Joined uncyc quite a while ago but I haven't used my account much. This is basically my first serious article. Tell me whatchu think, holmes. Oh, also it probably helps that you know about SF's toy ban in the first place. That is all. --Fishalishalish 05:07, November 13, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | I'll start just by saying that this is a pretty good article. There does seem to be a split in terms of humour though, the first half of the article feels unfocussed and the jokes aren't told as well as they could be. Meanwhile, the second half is much better, due to it being completely centred on the concept of toys being treated like drugs by the SFPD. I'll go through a few of the jokes that aren't so strong now, and give you my thoughts on what you can do about them.
So to begin with, the joke where you reveal the undercover officer's identity is pretty good, but you should probably get rid of the brackets. Generally speaking, parenthesis spoils a joke's flow. This isn't always the case of course, but with this one it looks like you're making an aside, which tends to make it look really obvious that there's a "humorous" comment coming, which spoils the surprise of the punchline. As well as all this, brackets don't look that professional, and you don't see them very often on Wikipedia, or in actual news articles. The joke about the over-the-top raid on the criminals isn't quite as effective as it could be either, in my opinion. I think it's something a lot of reader's are going to have heard before, to be honest. However with a little more background I think you can probably pull it off. Right now it seems a little random, but if you take more time to establish the SF toy ban (its reasons/causes etc), just briefly, then this overreaction on the part of the police officers will be a lot more fully grounded in reality. Maybe try to get a quote in there too, from a police chief with a stalwart dedication to the "war on fast food", for instance, just to give it even further grounding and help to explain the their somewhat irrational actions. Next there's the line about the kid who "stabbed his neighbour's cat yesterday for a McRib". To help with the whole drugs comparison, which in my opinion is far and away the best thing about the article, it would be better if you said, he stole the neighbour's TV to sell for burgers, or something more stereotypical of a drug addict. This is good advice for the article as a whole; play off the stereotypes here, give them interesting twists, much like this excellent UnNews article does. It would also be less random, as how would killing a cat furnish him with a McRib? Anyway, that's probably it for humour really. |
| Concept: | 7 | I really like the way you've basically switched toys for drugs in this story. However, I think you could still do more to blend the two concepts properly. The quote from the police chief is probably the best example I can find where you already do this: "We got there right after the goods arrived, right before they could be broken up and distributed among the local dealers. Couldn't have had better timing"- and I also liked the line about it leading to harder stuff. But what else could you do to cement this idea? What were the kids' reactions? Were there any cases of cold turkey? Or even people being checked into rehab? What would toy-rehab be like? If at all you feel the article is getting too long (which may be the case if you start adding stuff; it's already kind of long for an UnNews) then perhaps try trimming some of the stuff that doesn't add to the blended concept, like a lot of the stuff at the beginning about the raid and the child labour jokes. This may be a good idea anyway, since the first half of the article does seem a little distracted from your core concept. Remember - keep it consistent. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | Generally your prose are actually really good, so well done on that. There are a couple of instances however where they're a little awkward, or you make a simple mistake, such as the following:
"a total street value exceeding 47 million dollars, an average value of thirty times the hourly wage of the small asian child that assembled it per toy." - This sentence is little awkward, put the "per toy" part first, so say something like "each toy has an average value of..." This may ruin the joke here (at least, I think it was a joke), but it was an awkward one anyway, and you can probably just as easily make another in its place. How about something like, I don't know, implying they're actually working unpaid? So you could say "a total street value exceeding 47 million dollars. Each toy has an average value of thirty times the hourly wage of the small Asian child that assembled it, at least, it would if they were being paid." Not hilarious I know, but this way it all makes sense grammatically and you get another potential laugh out of it.
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| Images: | 6 | It's nice to see an UnNews with more than one image, that's something I feel is missing from a lot of them; more images. Obviously I understand why (it's because they're short), but well done anyway. In terms of the quality of the images, I really liked the second one, as well as its caption about street names for drugs. The only thing missing from it is that it doesn't reflect the absurd nicknames drugs often have; like "miaow miaow" and "frogspawn" (that second one might be made up, but you get what I mean). As for the first one, of the kids eating burgers, there's nothing particularly funny about it but I guess it serves its purpose. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6.5 | My gut feeling as to the whole thing. |
| Final Score: | 32.5 | Right, so do something about those weaker jokes at the start and clean up the errors in the prose and you'll have yourself a decent UnNews here. In regards to the humour/concept you have two options: trim or rework them to get the article more consistent (my recommendation) or at the very least, try to strengthen them as per my above instructions. In fact, you could probably do a little of each, I trust you to use your own judgement here. 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 12:17, January 2, 2011 (UTC) | |