Complaining: Critical Research Failure

There are so many examples on this page that are much more adequately explained by Rule of Funny, or Rule of Drama, or Poe's Law, or Artistic License. Here's a few examples that really aren't examples:

• Jimmy does a report on Thomas Edison. Why? Because Edison invented electricity.
  • Quite sure the writers did mean the lightbulb and just made an honest mistake. Admittedly, Edison didn't invent the light bulb, but this example seems to be making fun of the writers because whoever wrote that thought they really believed Edison invented electricity.
• In Yakko Warner's otherwise wonderful song from Animaniacs where he lists all the nations of the world Ireland isn't noted as being two countries, and Wales is the only country in the United Kingdom that's not mentioned at all. South Africa, Singapore, Cote d'Ivoire, Central African Republic, San Marino, Vatican City, and various countries in Oceania (such as Samoa or Tonga) are also not mentioned, and Transylvania is mentioned as a separate country from Romania.
  • Fair points for a song named "Nations of the World", but the writers are also constrained by the tune of the song and trying to make it rhyme.
• In the Family Guy episode "Road to Germany", they make a jab at modern American politics by saying that America didn't attack Germany for building nukes because they didn't have any oil. Everything about this is wrong.
  • Rule of Funny. Pretty sure this was a joke about how America only invades countries for oil and someone took it too seriously.
• Some Miiverse posts are downright idiotic. For example, the proof for the Wii U selling well states that 7 million people live on Earth.
  • Again, it's the common joke "How can X be if there are only 7 million people on Earth". 7 billion sounds like 7 million.
• "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" has Homer accidentally eat a poorly prepared Fugu (blowfish) at a Japanese restaurant. He was then told he'd be dead by the next day and there was no way to survive it, and the episode treats it as a standard poison. On the one hand, poison doesn't last that long — if you survive ingesting potentially lethal poison to the next day you've probably metabolized it safely. On the other, it's irrelevant, because Fugu poison is a neurotoxin that causes death by paralysis and then asphyxiation, not generic poisoning, and it's very survivable granted you get medical aid (if you can get assistance breathing when the paralysis sets in you can survive until you metabolize it, though it has long-lasting, crippling effects). It's also illegal to sell fugu in the United States. Even in Japan you have to have a certificate.
  • Part Rule of Drama, part Artistic License – Biology. The writers probably picked Fugu because it's a well-known Japanese food that's dangerous to eat.
• Menage A 3 is a reasonably diverse webcomic, but its creator has clearly never spoken to or researched any actual trans women, as the only "trans woman" character is written like a bitchy gay male drag queen with a boob job.
  • I don't think I even need to say what's wrong with this one.

Really, the biggest issue with this article is that some examples seem to be "Hurr durr writers r so dum" and not considering good writing means sometimes, Artistic License is required.

edited 11th Sep '17 11:08:20 AM by BreadBull