Talk:Saturday Night Live TV show sketches

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Contents 1 Title 2 Page too long? 3 Uncle Jemima 4 Scary warning 5 The Franken and Davis Show 6 Mr Bill 7 Disaster article

[edit] Title

Is this sketch making fun of Appalachians for not being able to spell, or is the missing "p" a legitimate mistake in this entry? 141.157.47.190 09:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page too long?

Is the page too long, or are there simply too many sections? Either way, it doesn't seem right. There are too many empty sections. Suggest grouping empty sections into a "contribution requested" area as a simple list.

The article can be broken down (like the SNL characters list) to Alphabetical and Chronological groupings. --Madchester 09:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It's great to have a comprehensive listing of all these sketches, but do they need to be linked to blank sections of the page? It makes things look somewhat unprofessional. Also, I'd suggest reordering the sections and making each sketch a subsection of a massive, all encompasing section. This would allow the list to exist as well as teh outline linking to the sections written, thus providing both a comprehensive version of the list as well as a more detailed version. Darquis 21:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uncle Jemima

Merger proposal from individual article to this compilation,

• Support. Jtmichcock 23:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Darquis 21:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Where the hell did all this "factual" information on the character come from? There's nothing about the actual sketch here. It just lists a bunch of made up facts (I don't recall the sketch making any comments about his birth and age). I see that there's a long history of merging from another article, but did anyone take the time to read the article? Sorry for all the hard work, but this needs to be scrapped and totally rewritten. Wavy G 11:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. So long. Wavy G 12:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scary warning

At the top of the article is a comment with the following decree:

“

READ BEFORE EDITING: Please take note that there is a specific format that applies to all recurring characters write-ups. Three things must be included: A brief description of the character(s) - including which cast members were involved; a story arc, detailing the changes or phases the character went through; and a list of episodes in which the character appeared, in a subsection below. See "Chico Escuela" on the Weekend Update Characters page for a good example. Write-ups should NOT include insignificant jokes or bits of dialogue, unless they received media coverage, or were mentioned in behind-the-scenes interviews. ADDITIONAL NOTE: The official term for the format of SNL is "sketch comedy". The scenes in the show should NOT be referred to as "skits".

”

Does anyone else see any irony in putting such an ominous warning at the top of a comedy article? Wikipedia covers much more serious subjects without the need for such a comment in the article itself. Wmahan. 18:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It is rather silly, I agree. The problem is, it appears throughout several of these SNL articles. Before, it actually included the disclaimer, "See Dog Show for an example of a bad write-up." I went through each one and manually took out each occurance of that obnoxious notice, but now I wish I had just removed the whole damn thing. It could very well simply say, "Please use the word 'sketch', not 'skit.'" It would be just as effective, and without telling us one person's opinion of what is "good" and what is "bad." (And the Dog Show write-up wasn't really that bad anyway.) Wavy G 19:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Franken and Davis Show

...Their best-known skit consisted of Davis appearing in normal dress, while Davis appeared in a flowing garment, with a shaved head and a pony tail and announced he was becoming a Hindu. David responded by cutting off the ponytail, angering Davis who said, "Now people will think I'm a Buddhist!"

This part doesn't make any sense. The two people can't be the same in the first sentence, and there's no "David" in the section.

PFrisbie 12:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mr Bill

The Mr. Bill subsections seem oddly crammed with pointlessness. Lots42 09:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disaster article

This is the best example I've seen in a long while of how bad an article written by committee can get. It violates all manner of style guidelines (in different ways in different sections), there's no consistency to the so-called references (which are usually no more than external links), and the structure defies attempts to improve this condition (which it appears some editors have been attempting). This isn't a fatal flaw, as Wikipedia is all about gradual improvement and often starts with such unorganized but useful tidbits to craft solid articles. But it does present quite a barrier to this task as it stands.

For the references, I've added a missing "References" section at the bottom (where it's supposed to go) to collect two references I added (based somewhat on the existing material for "Mr. Bill"). I'm hoping this can provide practical examples of how this can be done. More information on how and why to cite specific references can be found at Wikipedia:Footnotes and related pages mentioned there.

If I can, I'll try to do more of the work down the road, but I'd rather help other editors learn how to do this so that we all can work toward improving these kinds of articles. I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone might have on my talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)