h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Someone should write an Entry, or rather, Entries, as it's such a huge subject, about SNL. There's an unfinished Entry by Jodan, but he never submitted it to PR.

I thought it would be cool if someone did a Uni Project, or even if several people each wrote an Entry about a specific subject, ie general history, cast members, hosts, recurring characters and sketches, etc...

(If anyone actually does want to do a Uni Project, I'm willing to Sub.)

It would probably be easiest to organise by years, easiest to update that way, too. Break it up into 5-year segments, or something like that.

I was thinking about this last week when they ran a special about it. I'm certainly not qualified to write an entry, I haven't really watched it regularly since the mid 1980s.

I watched that special, too!

I'm certainly not qualified either, though I did consider asking Jodan if I could take over his start (like a FM rescue) and fix it up to a disgracefully incomplete single Entry.



Well lah-dee FREAKIN' da!!!

I do still occasionally look at hootoo, y'know.
Someone already asked me if they could use it. I said yeah, but it was more of the bare bones "notes" version of an entry than an entry, so it won't be much use.

Anyone has my permission to use any portion of it if they feel the desire to. But again, it's not very useful. There are better sources to work off of than that.

Also, it would be better to organize the entry by era rather than by years, I think. There have been several distinct eras in the show's history. The humor and the show were much different in the Not Ready for Prime Time Players era than in the Myers/Sandler/Farley era or today.

*faints of shock*

*recovers*

Hi boss!

If I may offer an outline for the organization of an SNL topic?

First will be a bit of back history pertaining to the show's origins, then a short summary of the actual format each show takes.

Once all that has been expounded upon, a breakdown by season should be most appropriate, since an era approach would be somewhat difficult to keep tidy seeing as the cast is so fluid. An example follows:

*Season 3*
-Aired: January 1st, 1882 - January 2nd, 2024
-Principal cast: George Washington, Tony Blair, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Gilda Radner

*Famous moments*
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

*Notes*
blah, blah, blah, blah, this person left the cast, this thing happened.

I've looked at the Wiki article and I would really try to avoid cribbing from that source too much or taking that format too liberally. The H2G2 entry should focus primarily on the show, with separate articles outlining cast bios, particular skits, and special guests or hosts.

Also, due to the wide scope and sheer volume of information behind the show thanks to it's long run, this article should be a fully collaborative effort. I would recommend a team of at least 10 researchers with clearly defined goals and workloads in order to do this particular project correctly and consistently, with additional volunteers required for any ancillary articles.

Were I to recommend an editing strategy, I would suggest one volunteer highly versed in H2G2 tags and formatting intercepting the polished article fragments and concatenating them into one final product, with between 3-5 researchers, 2-3 writers, and 1-2 editors working closely.

Ideally, the info would be researched, verified, and distilled to hard facts, which would then be passed to the writers, who would pull the raw data into an entertaining and easily readable dialogue. The pieces would then be forwarded to the editors, ensuring a proof read, and proper polishing of any points, including if time permitted an embellishment on specific points or markups to ensure the pieces followed a consistant writing style. Finally, the article fragments would be passed to the formatter, who would give a final proof, further polish any rough-spots in writing consistancy, and plug all the fragments into the agreed upon format.

Or am I over thinking this?

One of my favourites from SNL;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JGu9phjQvx8

Not very PC, but then Richard Pryor never was...

"Or am I over thinking this?"

Good god, yes.

Precisely the difference between h2g2 and wikipedia is that h2g2 (and I do still lurk here all the time) doesn't take that approach. Use the entry to show the reader SNL, make him feel like he was watching when it came on in 1975, 1980, 1990, 2000, etc. Show, don't tell. We don't need to have all the facts, we just need to have all the facts, all the info on every season... just what people care about, just what they remember loving.

Or am I underthinking this?