Template:Did you know nominations/Back to Backspace and Pillywags Mansion

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 ^talk 09:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Back to Backspace and Pillywags Mansion

(

)

... that while critics saw high-concept and New Aesthetic qualities in Back to Backspace, Pillywags' Mansion was compared to Pee-wee's Playhouse?

ALT1:... that Back to Backspace and Pillywags' Mansion were created by CalArts alumni?
Reviewed: Painter Run

Created by 23W (talk). Self nominated at 07:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC).

This is my first DYK review, so someone else might want to give the article a quick look through after me. But I'll give the review a shot. Article was new enough at the time of nomination and meets the character count criteria. Tone is neutral. Everything that needs a reference appears to have one. However, I'll still need to check the actual sources being used for reliability, copy vios, etc - will try to get to that soon. There were a few issues with the prose that I noticed. I don't believe that these would necessarily hold back the nomination, but they would be worth taking a look at all the same.

Plots - Back to Backspace

...its CEO rejects a proposal for a small cartoon man named Mustacki - How is Mustacki "small"? If he's alive and interacting with the CEO during this scene, then that should be clarified. If he's depicted as an inanimate drawing before arriving in Backspace, then "small" probably wouldn't be needed as an adjective here, since most drawings are small compared to people - if this is the case, then I would recommend changing the sentence to read, "...its CEO rejects a design proposal for a cartoon man named Mustacki..." or something along those lines.

Makes sense: removed. 23W Y

"'good' bad ones are sent back; 'lousy' bad ones are counseled and repaired; and 'evil' bad ones are tortured and shredded." - I assume that by "bad ones", you mean "bad ideas" (i.e. rejected ideas that wound up getting deleted by someone). Is this the actual phrasing that was used in the TV show? It sounds like the kind of thing that would make sense when spoken by a character, but it comes across as somewhat unclear in an encyclopedic article.

It's the actual phrasing in the show; the pronoun one refers to "deletions" in the previous clause. 23W

Like I said, this would make sense in spoken dialogue, but it doesn't seem right in the article. I watched the episode myself, and the actual quote that they use is "bad ideas" - if you want to say "good bad ideas", "lousy bad ideas", and "evil bad ideas", then I think that would be okay. Or you could simply say "good ones", "bad ones", and "evil ones". --Jpcase (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I decided to hyphenate them as "good-bad", "lousy-bad" and "evil-bad" while putting them in quotation marks. 23W Y

"While Patti goes to collect some sound cubes, the brothers explain that "Krampses" are a group of "evil" bad deletions whom are difficult to purge." - A few problems here. First, what are "sound cubes"? Does the episode provide any context at all for these? Second, who are the brothers? I assume that they are Herschel and Sweatpants, but the text never actually clarifies this. And again, "'evil' bad deletions" sounds a little strange.

Clarified. 23W

The text still doesn't explain that Herschel and Sweatpants are brothers. And again, I'd either put "evil bad ideas" all in quotations or simply describe the Krampses as evil deletions. --Jpcase (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Added to the first sentence and put "evil-bad" in quotes. 23W Y

"Ranklin tells Mustaki to ask Patti how she got sent to Backspace in the first place before he escapes to the real world." - Who is "escaping to the real world" in this sentence? Ranklin? Mustaki?

Clarified (it was Ranklin). 23W Y

"When they ask what they should do next, Patti shrugs it off and tells them that she has to go and suggests that he get a job at Backspace." - Who is the text referring to when it says, "they", "them", and "him"? I could guess, but the sentence should make this more clear.

Clarified. 23W Y

Plots - Pillywags Mansion

"Pillywags Mansion is a puppet-animated series..." - Does the series actually blend animation and puppetry, or does it just depict puppet characters through animation? If the former, then which elements are animated and which elements use puppetry? If the latter, then which characters are puppets?

While it technically is a blend of puppetry and 2D animation, "puppet-animated" means "animated using puppets"; in the same way, "computer-generated" means "generated using a computer". 23W

Gotcha. While I would agree that puppetry should be considered a type of animation, it generally isn't thought of that way. Hence, in 2011, The Muppets was ineligible for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, even though, strangely, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and The Smurfs were both eligible. So while it's technically not incorrect to say "puppet-animated", it is confusing. I changed that part of the sentence myself and made a few other changes to the plot section for this segment. Let me know if you disagree with anything. Y --Jpcase (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

"In the pilot, Pillywags interviews a pair of dolls propped up on a shelf before preforming a song about love." - Are the dolls depicted as inanimate or anthropomorphic?

Clarified (inanimate). 23W Y

"He then invites a guest onto the set, his neighbor Professor Steve, who was swallowed and captured by Pillywags' pet monster. When asked by Pillywags why his monster chose to swallow him, Steve posits that, due to his small stature, he was mistaken for prey." - Where is Professor Steve when he comes onto the set? In the pet monster's mouth? In its stomach? Or has he been spat back out?

Clarified. 23W

Better - I tweaked it just a little bit more myself and am happy with it. --Jpcase (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC) Y

"As the credits roll, Screen and Greg take five before preparing themselves for the next show." - See WP:EUPHEMISM

Put "take five" into a quotation. 23W

It might be better to simply say, "take a break", but I'll let you make the call on that. Y --Jpcase (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Production

I understand the desire to avoid redundancy, by finding different words to express similar ideas, but given the shortness of the production section and the fact that the casts for both pilots are simply listed off, I would recommend against switching from "played" (for Back to Backspace) to "portrayed" (for Pillywags Mansion). Just pick one word and stick with it.

Done. 23W Y

"Both pilots were produced by Nate Funaro, with supervision by Mike Roth only for Back to Backspace." - I'm not sure whether this is grammatically incorrect or not, but it reads rather awkwardly. And if Mike Roth only provided supervision for Back to Backspace, then who provided supervision for Pillywags Mansion?

Clarified; no supervising producers are credited in Pillywags Mansion. 23W Y

"Additionally for both, Phil Rynda and Sue Mondt served as creative director and art director respectively." - This reads awkwardly as well. I would recommend simply saying, "Phil Rydna and Sue Mondt served as creative director and art director respectively for both pilots" or something along those lines. Y

Recast. 23W

You might want to consider consolidating all of the information about the directors into a single place. You could start the production section by saying who directed Back to Backspace and who directed Pillywags Mansion, then talk about how the directors for both pilots attended CalArts and how Marin provided a voice on Regular Show, and then move onto the cast and crew information. That way, readers won't have to look back to remember who Bisignano, Levari, and Marin are.

Done. 23W Y

Release and reception

"Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Paul Fraser of CalArts's 24700 blog both published articles receiving both positively." - Awkward phrasing.

Recast. 23W Y

Does the Strange Kids Club review specify how Pillywags Mansion is "the manifestation of their own website"?

Clarified. 23W Y

I made a few other small changes myself, that you might want to take a quick look through. Oh, and is Pillywags Mansion supposed to have an apostrophe? --Jpcase (talk) 18:36, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: Thank you kindly for your review and copy edits! I don't think DYK reviews necessarily have to be this thorough (helps if you're a lazybones like me), but your comments are definitely valid. I'll try to assess them if time permits. 23W 02:33, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: Sorry for the lateness. I tried assessing your comments as best as I could. There's no apostrophe in the opening title for Pillywags Mansion (checked the copyright records too; same). Hope it reads better! 23W 21:47, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Thanks for taking care of these! I went ahead and watched Back to Backspace on YouTube (cool show!) and made a few changes of my own to its plot section. Let me know if you disagree with any of them. I'll try to watch Pillywags Mansion as well, and will evaluate the rest of the article at that point. In the meantime, I left a few follow up comments above. --Jpcase (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Okay, I'm happy with the Pillywags Mansion plot section now (Also a very cool show! Thanks for bringing both of these to my attention). I'll go over the rest soon. --Jpcase (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: Thank you for these comments and additions! Hope I didn't miss anything; I think it looks good enough for GAN now. ;) 23W 17:07, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Blerg! I lost track of things and am sorry that I haven't gotten back to you in a while. Things have been a bit busy for me, but I'll try to finish the review entirely by Monday. Thanks for your patience. --Jpcase (talk) 17:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It's fine! Take your time. :) 23W 17:17, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

* Sorry for being a day later than I said. I made some final tweaks, and everything looks pretty good to me. I still have to do a source check, but my hope is to get that done today. One last question - why isn't anyone listed as the director for Back to Backspace? --Jpcase (talk) 15:08, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Well, it took me quite a bit longer than I intended, but I've finished with the source check. Everything looks good, except that the two Cartoonnetwork.com refs aren't working for me for some reason, and I don't see anything in the Cartoon Brew article about the November 5 date. You'll either have to just say "November 2014", or you'll have to find another reference for that information. Also, in case you didn't see my post directly above (I forgot to ping you), I'm wondering why no director is listed for Back to Backspace - do we not have this information? --Jpcase (talk) 19:18, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: Sorry for the late response. Changed the date to say November 2014. Since animation is done a bit differently than live action stuff there is no true "director" for Back to Backspace; Rydna and Mondt are credited as creative and art director, but they aren't the same as a television director, which is what that parameter has it out to be. Anyway, it's just a small part of the infobox; shouldn't be too glaring for the DYK process. Thanks for all these comments! 23W 04:45, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the nuanced differences between animation and live-action directing, but I've never heard of anything animated that didn't have a director. I took a quick look at some of the articles on SpongeBob episodes, and those list an animation director and a storyboard director in the infobox - could something comparable be done for this article with the creative director and art director? I'd like to see something done about this if at all possible, but you're right, it's not a big enough issue to hold back the DYK process. I'd be glad to pass the article, as soon as the referencing problems are fixed. --Jpcase (talk) 18:38, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: As a compromise, I've added a link to the production section where the director field is. Also squeaky-cleaned the body and references. I couldn't find an archive for the video links, so trademark records are the next best thing. 23W 19:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Alright, I'm good with that change. There might be a better way to go about it, but the "See Production" link will do for now. I changed the Annies information back to how it had previously been written, since I feel that it would be better to use the official name of the award - saying "Best General Audience of an animated television production" almost makes it sound like the audience is being honored, rather than the show. The trademark records should work fine as references (is this where you saw that the title for Pillywags' has an apostrophe?). However, the url links for those don't work for me either. It says that the "search session has expired". Also, why did you unlink everything in the work and publisher fields? I'm pretty sure that it's standard practice to use links for the first occurrence of anything in these fields. I noticed these three changes, as well as that you swapped the order in which Fraser and Amidi are named in the second sentence of the "Release and reception" section; however, since you changed the spacing for much of the article as well, it's not very easy for me to tell what changes have been made in the text by looking at the edit history - did you make any other changes? --Jpcase (talk) 20:28, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: Added back some of the links in the citations not already linked and replaced the trademark links. The only other changes were stylistic ones just 'cuz. The core of the content is the same. 23W 21:05, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

@23W: Okay, those urls are working for me, but I don't see any crew information on those webpages. Do I need to open a file or something? --Jpcase (talk) 00:31, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jpcase: The links to the pilots (from where I got the production information) were taken down from Cartoon Network's website, so unfortunately there's no alternate ones we can use in the citations (linking to the YouTube dupes would be a copyright violation). That the citations are offline shouldn't discredit their verifiability, so it's the best we can do for now. 23W 20:20, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@23W: If you want to use the end credits of the episodes without providing a link, then yes, that should be fine. In that case though, I'm not sure what the trademark records are being used for. Let's just go back to using the episodes themselves as references, and then this will be a pass. :) --Jpcase (talk) 21:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the url links to the trademark records myself, since I'm not really sure that those are necessary. So everything looks good! Great work addressing all of these issues! --Jpcase (talk) 21:58, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@23W: You're welcome; thanks for the detailed feedback! It really made the prose shine. :) 23W 22:11, 2 May 2015 (UTC)