Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/A Day With My Son
A Day With My Son[edit]
Fixed version of this, please give me any critiques, suggestions, cake, etc.
Sir Oliphaunte (განხილვა) 
19:22, January 12, 2011 (UTC)
- That page is AMAZING! I laughed! And I haven't laughed since... this afternoon. Anyway, good job! —Preceding signed comment added by Airhogs777 (talk • contribs • WP) 05:01, January 20, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | Ok, so this is one of those annoying reviews where the article actually doesn't have a whole lot wrong with it. However, I've slept on it now, and I think I've got a couple of pointers that I hope will help.
First of all, a few of the jokes could do with a bit more subtlety, at least in my opinion. I notice you have a habit of having the dad character spin some defensive lie, which on their own are pretty funny, but then ruin it by having him admit the truth immediately after, often using the small font tag. To be honest, I think these jokes would work better without the angry outbursts. Look at the line where he asks his son not to tell his mother about what they've done, for instance, you say: "Why? Well, because I don't want her to be jealous of all the fun we had today ..and I don't need her testimony in court if I get caught..." The line about not needing her testimony doesn't really add much to it, the reader can infer this from the jealousy excuse alone. The little asides don't really make much sense either, who is he talking to here exactly, besides the reader? The barefaced lie is funnier by itself, especially if it's a really bad lie. The one about him ditching the car because it had a broken taillight is another good example, because that's a really unbelievable and bizarre excuse to ditch a car. But again, you don't need to mention the APB, that's a given. I would like to see you experiment more with this too, because let's face it, the whole unreliable narrator thing has kind of been done to death. It would be nice to see more desperate lie-spinning on the part of the father. Like where has he been since he last saw his son? You could probably get some humour out of that, just remember to try and be subtle. And if possible, try to think of ways to set it apart from all the other lying narrators we've seen before (a lot more on this under concept). You have a bit of a running gag in here about the difference between borrowing and stealing, which I personally don't think it executed as well as it could be. Allow me to explain why... When the story about the son's toy truck being stolen first comes about, it feels a little forced. It comes out of nowhere, and this makes it seem oddly placed. Eventually there are various callbacks to it, after which it makes a lot more sense, but on the second read through it becomes very obvious that you're just trying to set these callbacks up. You need to introduce it more smoothly. It would be a lot less awkward if the dad asked about the truck first, then the child could reveal that it has been stolen. If you really wanted to make this flow you could even introduce it after the part about the toy from Mickey D's, so you've got a whole "toy" theme going on. Have a think about this last part, I don't know, it may mess things up too much, but see if you can find a way around it. I think there's a bit of an issue with flow throughout the whole article, in fact. A lot of things don't seem to link up, if you know what I mean. Your intro, for the record, is pretty perfect, but the main body of the text is a bit weaker from then on. It seems to jump around a lot, and starts things without finishing them. There's a line in there, for example, about hot female teachers. I was expecting more from this, but it just sort of stops and disappears rather suddenly. Aren't there going to be any father-son tips on how to pick up said hot teachers? Or other inappropriate discussions? That would seem a natural progression to me. In stream of consciousness stuff like this, try not to bring things up without running with them, and try to link different ideas together. Another thing that struck me in regards to this is the "quick withdrawal" part, why does he suddenly decide to rob a bank? That seems a little random too. The final thing playing on my mind when I read this was that the joke count seemed a little low, particularly during the whole bank job part. A wiser user than me once said that if a sentence doesn't have a joke in it, or set up a joke, then it has no place in an Uncyclopedia article. Quite a lot of this section seemed devoid of actual gag. Sure, it had the whole idea of the bank robbery itself, but on its own it was hugely funny. If you can get a one-liner or two in there, it would really help. |
| Concept: | 6 | The core idea isn't hugely original, although that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. I think the main thing you need to work on here is the characterisation of the father. The problem is, he's a narrator we've all encountered many times before. If we look at your strongest section, the intro, there's loads of stuff in there that doesn't really get utilised as well in the later parts of the article. You seem to focus more here on him being a bad dad, rather than just being a general criminal, which is a lot more original and probably funnier too. One of the best lines is the one where he gets his son's age wrong. Not just the idea, the way you worded it too was really good. I didn't see that coming, and that's what was so funny about it. The part where he was talking to him about girls too, that was one of the strongest jokes. You need more stuff like this; stuff where he's just basically being a really poor father who has no idea how to talk to a young child. Once you get past the intro, you don't really do anything like this again. The hypocritical aspects of the character could probably be heightened too, like the way he chides the man in the restaurant for swearing in front of his child, but then goes on to use the exact same swear word himself seconds later (I believe the word in question was bitch), and then obviously there's all the stuff about stealing being wrong, despite him doing it throughout the article. The only problem with these jokes is that they were very subtle, almost too subtle, and I was worried people wouldn't pick up on them. In fact, they were so subtle I found myself wondering if they were even intentional. In any case, these are probably the two most interesting aspects of the dad character, and are definitely more original than just having him be a desperate criminal who tells terrible lies. I would highly recommend you experiment with some of this, and see what you can do. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | In terms of spelling and grammar and everything, you've done a pretty good job. As for the prose, some of the stream of consciousness style is hard to follow at times. One part in particular is the bit where the kid is in the car with him, and the kid starts crying and kicking him. I struggled with this, and had to read it a couple of times. I'm still not 100% what was going on. Is the kid upset? Why is he upset? Does he lock the door on his father, or something? How does he even do that? You just need to clear this part up so people know what's going on.
The other issue here is with all the shouting. There are large sections of all caps in here, and it can be a bit of a chore to read, as well as looking sort of scruffy. I recommend you try to trim as much of this as you can. The line where he tells the lady driver to take her top off for instance, he repeats himself unnecessarily, and this could very easily be much terser (and therefore easier to read) if he didn't do that. So get rid of anything like "I said now!" or "now, damn it!" or just anything where he says something to reaffirm what he's already said. |
| Images: | 5 | Well, more pictures would definitely be beneficial, however I realise how unhelpful that is as advice. I'd like to see something that helps to characterise the father, as this article does with its narrator (a similar narrator too, might I add), because in the one you've got there already you can't really see him all that well, and the picture doesn't really suggest anything about his personality. Or perhaps something that visualises the conversation between father and son, much like this article does. That last one really helps the reader get an idea of who the two conversationists are, hopefully it will demonstrate to you how pictures can be used for characterisation.
You should also make your main image higher, because the first line is above it. Finally, the dead body one. Although a nice 'chop by ZB, it's kind of hard to see what it is. And is there any reason it's in black and white, because that doesn't help? Making it bigger might work, but it's already pretty big. I don't know what else you'd want to do really, but they're the problems I can see. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | My gut feeling on the whole thing. |
| Final Score: | 30 | So overall, nice work, especially for one of your firsts. Seriously, I know I've been critical but noob articles are rarely this good. The key things to work on are the characterisation of the father, who as I've said gets clichéd at times, and the general flow of the piece, which is occasionally awkward. Sort some of these issues out and the article will immediately 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 and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 12:36, January 30, 2011 (UTC) | |