Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Why?:Buy A Snuggie
Why?:Buy A Snuggie[edit source]
Here is my first Why series article! I would like to make it a tad more meaty (if that needs to be done), but all comments would be greatly helpful! I'm coming to learn that articles become great with multiple reviews/ changes based on input. Thanks uncyclopedia for enhancing my writing skills :D!
S3ahawk 04:18, August 21, 2010 (UTC)
- Me got it. Hopefully tonight, Tuesday at the latest. --Black Flamingo 11:59, September 14, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | Ok, so the article has some decent ideas behind it and also some good jokes. However, having read it a few times now I think I've identified a couple of things you might want to take another look at should you come to revise it. Generally speaking I think most of the issues are with the concept, and once you've sorted this out the humour should follow. But for now I'll just take you through my musings on humour, an area in which you don't have many problems.
There are a few jokes in here that are either a bit too silly or a bit too random to really pay off. None of them are major issues, I just think they could be improved. In your intro you've got the stuff about multicoloured sheep, which really sticks out as being too bizarre and inconsistent with the rest of your introduction. It's not that the idea itself is bad, but I think it would work better if you kept the material on this kind of thing to its own relevant section. Perhaps just retain a brief reference to specially bred sheep in an attempt to build up to it more slowly and carefully. On the plus side, the variety of colours you list made me laugh. Also in the intro is a Cthulu joke, something which has become a bit of a cliche here. While this isn't inherently problematic, the style of humour employed here isn't too successful as again it feels out of place. My point is that if the narrator was a squid-worshipping madman, it might work, but here it just seems like random namedropping. Try the best you can to remain focussed on the subject matter (I will talk more about this in concept), although again I will just say that the joke about him having two arms was pretty good. Then in the "simple as picking up the telephone" section, it gets a tad more surreal. If I can just take a moment to explain my issue with this; it's not that I'm against surreal humour, it's just that if you do it, it has to be consistent. Something like this is a good example of how you can do that kind of thing. But in your article, the surrealness kind of leaps out at you, too infrequent to make any sense. In the section I'm talking about, there are lots of references to metaphysics and telepathy, stuff you wouldn't really expect to see in an article trying to convince you to buy a snuggie. Of course, there is the option that you could rework it so it's obviously a lie from a desperate salesman, though even then it would still be over the top. The stuff about people being so lazy that they can't reach the telephone because it would disturb their blankets is a really good idea, so I would recommend you focus on this instead. Develop it further, try to convince the customers that buying a snuggie would solve this problem (something you don't really mention). Your section on "meaningful tasks" again is good, but the whole dog sodomy thing could be handled better. Being suddenly crude like that isn't particularly funny, but can be if you build up to it slowly. So try starting with just petting the dog, then cuddling it, then kissing it, and getting more and more carnal until it climaxes. The part about defending yourself from your feline ex is also too silly and unrealistic. How about ending on something like "deny what you've been doing when your husband or wife walks in on you". While this isn't a hilarious example I hope it gives you an idea of where to go. The celebrity endorsements section also falls into this silliness trap. The Obama one is good (I like the image), but the other two could probably be replaced. I suggest something more realistic, like the first one (I know Obama wearing a snuggie isn't the epitome of realism but it's more believeable than Pikachu and River Phoenix). If this guy really wants you to buy a snuggie, surely he'd try to convince you that all the big, famous role models of the world wear them and that they're considered cool. Just something to think about. So my main advice would be to stay consistent, decide exactly what kind of humour you want to use here and stick to it, maybe come up with a running gag. This leads me quite nicely into... |
| Concept: | 5 | Ok, your concept is very inconsistent and I would really recommend you make a decision about which path you want to go down, and do some hefty editing to align the article to that. Not only do you need to refine your style of humour and direction, but you shoud definitely have a think about who your narrator is. Do they work for the snuggies company? If so, I suppose they're a desperate salesperson who will try anything (there are hints of this in the text, particularly the book light part which really sounds like it's being spoken by a salesperson). Are they a scientist explaining how intelligent and beneficial to your health they are? Again there are hints at this, at the beginning for instance where you talk about them employing complicated physical science. You could go a lot further with this and I think that'd be quite funny (perhaps the narrator invented the snuggie, and is bitter at how they've been dismissed as being a joke?) but of course, it's up to you. At the moment it's a mix of lots of different voices, and feels too scattergun. You also need to pay close attention to your narrator's speech patterns, again keeping it in line with whatever path you choose to go down. On occasion you lapse into coarse language, which seems uncharacteristic of the speaker you have now (even if s/he is underdeveloped). If you think he's going to be a crude man who possibly abuses his dog, stick with that and run with it. Swear your head off if you want to, but remember; stay consistent. Same with the angle, if you go for the sciencey-style, remove or edit anything unrelated to that.
My last note here, all the cutesy stuff about cuddle bears and things really stuck out as being inconsistent. However, I thought it had some potential if that was the kind of approach you wanted to take. This article might be a good example of what you can do in that case. Note how it exagerrates cute cliches for humour. I'm not too confident this approach would fit in an article about snuggies, but if you can find a clever, consistent way of doing then that'd be fine by me. |
| Prose and formatting: | 8 | Ok, your spelling and grammar and everything is pretty good. I would suggest you have one more read through though just to make sure. Your formatting is also decent, so again well done. The only problems worth mentioning are with your prose, and even they are few.
Firstly, you use the word invention too much in the intro. Nothing to complicated there, that's easily fixable. And secondly, the prose in the book light section becomes a tad weaker than that preceeding it. Perhaps you were getting bored or distracted around that point, which can happen to the best of us when writing for a long time (or after a long gap). It just generally gets a bit frenzied and silly when you're talking about going downstairs and all the other things you can use the light for. It's very unlike the rest of the piece, which is calmer and sounds like it's being spoken by a sane person. So just take another look at this, try to tone down the craziness. |
| Images: | 6.5 | Your images are ok, but your lack of a main image in the introduction doesn't help. Try and find a generic one to go here, it doesn't have to be all that funny in itself because the caption can do that for you. Remember with your captions: keep them in line with the direction of the rest of the article. I was also thinking that your Cthulu joke could work better as an image, because I always feel your pictures don't have to follow the narrator's tone quite as strictly as the text does. A picture of a Cthulu wearing a snuggie could be really effective if you could get someone to knock that up for you, or do it yourself. The guys over at RadicalX's corner will happily photoshop any famous person into a snuggie if you ask nicely enough, so maybe try them. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | An average. Not an exact average, but one formulated in my own head. If I had to rate "that special something that is indefinable", this is the number I'd give. |
| Final Score: | 31.5 | Right, so that was a fairly short review, but that's probably just because your article didn't have any massive problems, and the ones it did have weren't too complicated. None of them should be particularly difficult to fix, the main thing you should do now is think about the direction of your article. Because while it's well written and funny in places, it lacks any kind of direction, and in my opinion, that is what makes an article great. If you need any more help, or you want me to clarify anything in the review, please get back to me and I'll see what I can do. Good luck with your revisions. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 20:14, September 14, 2010 (UTC) | |