Talk:Yakov Smirnoff

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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).

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.17.205.130 (talk) 23:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

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)

O.D.!--Krashlia (talk) 03:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

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.  &gt; I r i d e s c e n c e &lt;  ( 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 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)

Done
See it here. (I've fixed redirects)

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 @ r ē ino 16:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I would assume the emphasis on the final "you" might, possibly, indicate that the form of the statement was inspired by a pre-existing Russian Reversal. Aside from the well-known joke, "Under Capitalism, there is the exploitation of man by man. Under Communism, it is exactly the reverse!", which does not really qualify, I am not aware of examples of the Russian Reversal which predate Yakov Smirnoff, but I have the nagging suspicion that such may exist. Possible places to search would be the comic Lil' Abner, by Al Capp, the movie Ninotchka, and, perhaps even more likely, the single-panel cartoon Grin and Bear It by George Lichty. 75.158.3.244 (talk) 18:26, 28 January 2011 (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) In America you catch train In Soviet Russia train catches YOU!!! Sioraf (talk) 01:37, 21 September 2008 (UT

I took out one of the two russian reversals, because they display the exact same joke with different words. and they are not yakov jokes, and yakov jokes, and have no place here except to tickle the author of them 71.62.245.166 (talk) 17:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I edited the "Family Guy" reference to fit the actual quote from the episode, I happened to be watching that particular episode while reading this article Parcanman (talk) 00:20, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Do all of Smirnoff's "In Soviet Russia" jokes date from the time that the USSR still existed - if so then presumably the Big Brother one isn't by him, since the TV series didn't exist in 1991. MFlet1 (talk) 09:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The Russian Reversal section mentions that it is a type of Chiasmus, but the Chiasmus page says that there must be no repetition of words. Since Russian Reversals frequently do repeat words, it would be what the Chiasmus page calls a Antimetabole instead. But the Antimetabole page says that a Antimetabole is a special case of Chiasmus. So either a Chiasmus does not repeat words, or else it sometimes does and is called something else because it's a special case. In any event, the actual Russian reversal page never mentions a Chiasmus at all. Moose Hole (talk) 19:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

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

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)

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)

-- In Soviet Russia, phone number errase YOU! (sorry, I couldn't resist. I'll see myself out) Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 07:22, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

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 06:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

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". --Metropolitan90 05:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

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.  Æµ§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)
 * All I have to say about this is; In Soviet Russia, articles merges you! – xeno  ( talk ) 20:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In Sovte Russia, my ass kisses YOU!!--Baruch ben Alexander - ☠☢☣ 03:03, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

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)

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)

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 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 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)

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)

family guy
was it also on family guy that it said:


 * In America, you assasinate president (l.h. oswald)
 * In Russian, president assasinate you! (putin) Mallerd (talk) 12:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that in the episode mentioned earlier, that Peter says Boris Yeltsin rather than Yakov Smirnoff, but either way, somebody just deleted that whole paragraph anyway unless they're just trying to reformat it as mentioned in an earlier post Parcanman (talk) 13:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Nationality
It is a bit jarring to see Yakov Smirnoff's nationality referred to as "Ukrainian Jew". His national origin is Ukrainian; his ancestry is Jewish. This is like claiming that the nationality of Barack Obama is "African-American". He is black, but that doesn't mean that's a property of the country he comes from. I can understand that Nationality: Ukrainian; Race: Jewish would be even more bizarre and objectionable by current standards, and perhaps changing "Race" to "Ancestry" or even "Ethnicity" wouldn't fix it entirely.

Of course, this is a general question, and does not apply to only this one article. 75.158.3.244 (talk) 18:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * --Confession0791 talk 08:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Now at the other extreme after what must have been one or more edits, I'm struck now that there is zero mention in the article anywhere of his being Jewish. I absolutely agree with the original comment in this section, but it's also odd that nowhere (but the categories) -- not in Early life or Personal life -- does it mention that he is Jewish, or at least of Jewish heritage (not sure if he was raised as religiously Jewish). This is also odd. Soviet Jews were treated in distinct ways, both inside the USSR and for US immigration purposes in the 1970s, so his historical Judaism is a relevant fact to mention in passing. Moncrief (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Ray Stevens
Does anybody else think that this guy looks like a Russian version of Ray Stevens? Jdaniels15 (talk) 19:59, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Nice article...
Nice article ya wrote Yakov. (By party?) Now can someone else write it instead?Tapered (talk) 02:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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