Talk:Yakov Smirnoff

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[edit] Opinion vs Objectivity

This sounds more like gossip than an entry. Should it be removed? Maxim isn't noted for its scholarly reviews.

In a fall 2006 issue of Maxim magazine, Smirnoff was selected as #4 in the list of the twelve worst comedians of all time: "We get it—life in Russia was difficult. You had to wait in line for everything (even toilet paper!). But you know what's worse than life in Russia? Having a schtick that only plays to 75-year-olds in Missouri who still think Communism is the enemy." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.132.27.200 (talk) 19:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Borat vs. Yakov

Someone needs to tell Yakov Smirnov that Ali G is ripping off all his schtick. --M.Neko 00:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

    In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia helps the world change YOU! --aparapal  —Preceding comment was added at 14:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Split

I suggest we split off the Russian reversal section to make it easier to email the link to people. We can always use transclusion to make the section appear to still be here. What do you all think? --unforgettableid | talk to me 17:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Great idea!!! --82.101.190.184 18:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree :) I agree, but I think the article should be called In Soviet Russia, maybe In Soviet Russia (joke), as that is what it's best known as I would have thought. Nuge talk 12:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I was looking for this on Wikipedia, as I thought it would have an article, and eventually found this one. I earched for "Russian Reversal", as thats what I thought it was known best as. Born Acorn 23:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we should split to a new article called "Russian Reversal (humor)" or "In Soviet Russia (humor)" :)

DJLarZ 21:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please split out.

Yes to split. --TheTruthiness 02:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes --Sillybulanston 23:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes --Luigivampa

Yes damnit yes. But Russian reversal should do - no need for the "(humor)" part. What else could be called Russian reversal? As a matter of fact, Russian reversal already re-directs here. Jobjörn (Talk | contribs) 01:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes to splitting, though "In Soviet Russia" is the more familiar term to me. --Grace 04:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes... although, in Soviet Russia, article splits YOU! --Bobak 22:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose What's wrong with keeping this trivial crap where it belongs? ˉˉanetode╞┬╡ 02:47, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The article should split, with the actual title of the article being "Russian reversal", but I also think that "In Soviet Russia" and "In Soviet Russia (humor)" should redirect to "Russian reversal" to ease finding the article in the first place. > Iridescence < ( talk )( contrib ) 05:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Strongly oppose Leave it with Yakov where it belongs. If you want to e-mail the link to someone, just use Yakov_Smirnoff#Russian_reversal, or if you like change the Russian reversal redirect to redirect to that. It's a great running gag, but it shouldn't have its own article. Its origin belongs to Yakov Smirnoff, and we should leave it with him. - Rainwarrior 23:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

yes to the split -anonymous

yes to the split, it would also be better if more "in Soviet Russia" jokes were included in the article - Ariel

Yes, but I say we create a new article and leave this section here. --Snake712 05:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Russian reversal is often mentioned in popular culture, it's important enough. --Rake 01:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree to split the comment since it has become a phenomena apart from yakov. I came here looking for it and did not find it by typing "soviet russia". had to goggle to get here. --Xenocidic 20:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes! to the split --Smileman66 20:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

In the US you split articles, in Soviet Russia article splits you! Definetly Yes! evil_oatmeal 16:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and I vote for "In Soviet Russia" for the title --Caleb 19:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I imagine most visitors to this page are looking for the "In Soviet Russia stuff..."

Yes: I agree to the split Dfrg.msc Image:DFRG. MSC.jpg 09:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think this should be split. --Psiphiorg 15:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and use transclusion, and call the article Russian reversal, with a redirect on "In Soviet Russia" --Quintopia 17:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Done

See it here. (I've fixed redirects)

[edit] Russian Reversal

1947 Rand HUAC transcript of possible interest: ...Mr. Taylor is an American who came there apparently voluntarily to conduct concerts for the Soviets. He meets a little Russian girl [...] He asks her to show him Moscow. She says she has never seen it. He says, "I will show it to YOU." http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/texts/huac.html—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.223.242.38 (talk • contribs)

  • How is this relevant? Not all sentences ending in "you" are Russian reversals.--M@rēino 16:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this article should include the best one: "Roses are red, violets are blue, in Soviet Russia, poem writes you!" Grsz11 (talk) 05:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lollerpedia who?

Lollerpedia is dead. Not only that, but the cache is dead, too. Should we get rid of it? --User:Thematrixeatsyou/sig 04:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Futurama

In Crimes of the Hot Fry cites Yakov Smirnoff's phrase "That ice dispenser is so big, the ice crashes you.". Leela claim that he didn't say that. --Yuriy Lapitskiy 21:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, yes. I found it here Russian reversal. --Yuriy Lapitskiy 21:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's up with his telephone numbers?

Someone added, someone removed... Why is that? I liked that idea and added that numbers to the russian interwiki page, what should I do with them know? --Yuriy Lapitskiy 22:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism

Part of this article is from here. It says nothing about the text as far as I could find, but I'd just like to bring this up. TέΉ ѕΡίɗΣR ( ŢάḶκ | ÇόηṬŕĺβs ) 06:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doubt?

The first sentence of this article says that Smirnoff is "according to his own description, a Ukrainian-born American comedian and painter". Why the "according to his own description"? Is there doubt about whether he is actually Ukrainian-born? Actually, I question whether his own description is that he is Ukrainian-born, since his official site refers to him as "famous Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff". [1] --Metropolitan90 05:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge back

The Russian reversal page should be redirected to Yakov Smirnoff, at that page the only content there is a definition and a trivia section. There is already a definition at the Yakov Smirnoff article, and the addition of a trivia section does not make a good article. The manual of style also suggests avoiding trivia sections, and without that the only content there is pretty much redundant to what is here. Also the entire russian reversal page is solely sourced to two wikis, one of which is a satire and comedy site Uncyclopedia,while being funny, it also becomes inimical to reliable sourcing. --MichaelLinnear 19:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd very much like to continue to be able to reference the russian reversal, without having to link to some comedian my readers aren't interested in, and won't at all help them understand the russian reversal. --213.235.202.173 09:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The article is heavily in the context of "some comedian my readers aren't interested in" - he's mentioned in every paragraph, and his creation of the joke is the only real encyclopaedic fact about it. I don't see how it's any different to linking to a sub-section of a comedian's article, or how the description of the joke would be any less enlightening. --McGeddon 17:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
The redirect can be section-specific. And the article has readers, not anonymous users. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't get it. This discussion page has a dozen people voting to give "Russian Reversal" it's own article last year, and when it's suggested again, people object to it - yet somehow it gets merged back, without even a vote that I can see. Could someone explain to this novice what happened? 24.105.133.184 18:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of Russian reversal

Under Russian reversal only examples of online communities using russian reversal are shown, no examples of TV shows or movies are given although it is stated that russian reversal appears in "television parodies", perhaps some examples should be added? The only one I can think of is when Family Guy made a reference to it in the episode "There's something about Paulie" from season 2, Peter's new car says such things as "In Soviet Russia, car drives you" "In Soviet Russia, road forks you" etc. Some feedback on this would be appreciated, I'm unsure of whether this kind of information is worth a mention. --Marshmellis (talk) 06:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not every article needs a blow-by-blow account of the subject being mentioned once on "Family Guy."

'nuff said. I'm off to suggest this become policy. --66.129.135.114 (talk) 21:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russian reversal generator

If there is a groundbreaking Russian reversal joke generator available on the internet, should it not be linked to in the "Russian Reversal" section of the page? 72.241.252.97 (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

External links should be added if they are considered to have vital information that cannot be given by the article itself. With the explanation and the several examples given in the article, there is no need to have a link to a phrase generator. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The space constraints of the article hardly provide an opportunity to explain the nature of Russian reversal jokes nor do they deal with the resurgent popularity of such jokes. While such jokes have not risen to the same level of popularity as Dragonlance or manga, I believe an external link that opens the doors to the limitless possibilities of such jokes deserves a small mention on the article page. 72.241.252.97 (talk) 01:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Usually, external links to "XXX generator" or "XXX creator" or similar are not accepted because they are an open invitation for spam ("If that site is there, why not mine?"). I think this falls in the 14th point of the list of sites to be avoided, Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. The subject of this article is Yakov Smirnoff, not the reversal. That is why there is no article about Russian reversal and they are here instead, to prevent links regarding to that to be added to an article. As I said, I believe it is not necessary for the article. However, you can ask at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page‎ what they think about the link in this article, and act according to their suggestions. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Your argument fails completely. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of similar external links on wikipedia pages. The facts state that the Russian Reversal article was merged with this article because Mr. Smirnoff is the main proponent of that high style of comedy. Because the articles merge, the merging article suddently becomes castrated? No, the goal is to keep the content and put it in a more user-friendly setting. Therefore, the link and all similar links should stay. I should also point out that I have no affiliation with the external website at issue, so this is not an issue of "spam" or "my website should be on there too!". I simply believe that the external website provides an informative and interesting look at the subject matter of the article and its subsection. 72.241.252.97 (talk) 02:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
That there are thousands of dubious links in Wikipedia doesn't mean a new one should be added. And when merging, the article being merged is usually reduced in size and content (if it is being merged, it is supposed it is not encyclopedic enough to be standalone).
As I said, you can ask there or at Wikipedia:External links. Personally, I do not think the link is absolutely necessary (fails all the points of What should be linked). However, if consensus agrees it is necessary, I won't take it back. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed it in the first place because I couldn't see how the link was "groundbreaking" or overly significant. All it essentially was was a very simple version of a Mad Lib using Smirnoff's popular structure. I think it's very clear from the article and the section how such phrases are built. I should also point out that upon visiting the website it seems the generator isn't even significant on the webpage. It's tucked away in a corner. I've seen plenty of these generators before, this one's certainly not unique, it's a very simple piece of HTML code somebody with basic training could produce. It's not very advanced, all it does is ask the user to put two words in and then just puts those words in the "Russian reversal" statement, something that you don't need an HTML interface to do, especially because it asks the users to do the only hard part, think of a noun and a verb. It's spam, plain and simple. NcSchu(Talk) 19:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image formatting

I can't seem to fix the image size and formatting. Can someone look at the code and fix it? Bearian (talk) 13:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)