Talk:Mr Creosote

Name

Why was he called Creosote? Any ideas?--Jack Upland 01:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

This is pure speculation, but eating food or drinking water containing a lot of creosote, a sort of liquid obtained by the distilling tar, causes stomach pains, etc. Perhaps it's a reference to the character's obvious gastric problems. --Polylerus 22:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

That being said, the Pythons did refer to creosote in a sketch in the episode "Face the Press" (Episode #14, aired 9/15/70). It's the one where Eric Idle, playing the moderator, interviews a governmment official in a pink dress, played by Graham Chapman, as well as patch of brown liquid ("...such as creosote"). The Pythons liked to reuse words and names in their sketches. --Polylerus 22:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia entry on creosote mentions that the wood-tar variety of it has been used medicinally as a laxative, an expectorant and an emetic (it makes you vomit) among other things. Pretty simple really. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.59.136 (talk) 11:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Death

Did he die? Cuzandor 04:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC) No he didn't, he explodes and then pay the bill. So we can assume that he has done this procedure before.

That would be a foolhardy assumption. -- 71.102.194.130 07:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I am fond of telling people that the Mr Creosote sketch is the world's shortest tragedy. He is destroyed by his own failings. There are surely useful parallels elsewhere with the role of the waiter as facilitator. A pity that Terry Jones in no longer with us. He would surely have had something to say. Python must have thought about this; they are generally very interested in form and structure. Is there anything helpful that can be said?118.67.199.162 (talk) 04:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Mr?

Why does "Mr" not have a period after it in the title, and in other places? Is it supposed to be like this? Should this page redirect to "Mr. Creosote"? Something is wrong, because both "Mr" and "Mr." are used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.160.123.246 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 6 March 2007

"Mr" with no period is UK use, "Mr." with period is US use. Izaakb 22:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe you're wrong, Izaakb. If you'd check earlier works by well-known British authors now in the public domain, you'd find that dropping the period after abbreviations such as Mr., Mrs. and St. is a rather recent development, most likely introduced by lazy and/or semi-literate tabloid journalists. We find other, but similarly nonsensical punctuation anomalies in contemporary journalism emanating from American sources. Just because an error is fashionable doesn't make it "right".—Quicksilver^{T @} 15:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia also does not use Middle English, which at one time was correct and proper. Languages are not monolithic, and on Wikipedia, current usage is preferred. Mr with no period is current usage in UK English. References:

Oxford Grammar and Punctuation: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Grammar-Punctuation-John-Seely/dp/0199233462/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237571452&sr=8-2

English Grammar Online: http://www.ego4u.com/en/business-english/communication/business-letter/salutation

Among other references. regards! izaakb ~talk ~contribs 17:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

"pronounced 'caruso' "

I'm taking this out. There is no citation, and it sure sounds like the fish in The Meaning of Life says "Creosote" if you ask me. The "t" may be barely (if at all) audible, but I hear no "u." Funkeboy 03:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

References

In the "References in popular culture" section, a previous editor added:

• In Sourcery by Terry Pratchett, the ruler of Al Khali is named Creosote.

I have removed this on the basis that it is a reference to Croesus and it has nothing to do with Mr Creosote at all. 64.232.207.151 (talk) 01:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Mr Creosote.PNG

Image:Mr Creosote.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

I'm not going to revert/change the edit, but the trivia sections of IMdb are not considered reliable sources per: WP:SPS and archived discussion on RS/N. Protonk (talk) 00:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger_proposal

If the article survives deletion, should it be merged with the main article on the film? I'm leaning toward merge, but I am not a member of the project and only came to know this page existed through the AfD. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• No, thanks. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• I would recommend notifying the relevant project if you have not yet done so. Best, --Happy Independence Day! Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Pretty sure we aren't going to reach consensus on the merger. Protonk (talk) 05:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Importance

Protonk asserts that this article is of low importance. I studied the scale and consider that the article is obviously of high importance. The discussion at the AFD, where Protonk seems out of step with the general consensus, seems to confirm this. I shall therefore continue to edit accordingly. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Need	The article's priority or importance, regardless of its quality
Top	Subject is a must-have for a good encyclopedia
High	Subject contributes a depth of knowledge
Mid	Subject fills in more minor details
Low	Subject is mainly of specialist interest.

Whatever man. It's "mid" for now. Mr. Creosote is a character in a sketch in one of Monty Python's less successful movies. do you mean to really tell me that with regard to the history of film, he is more important than Jake Gittes, Rick Deckard, Tom Joad, to name a few? Heck, Charles Foster Kane is only above him in your scale because he is of "top" importance. And I see the general consensus is that he is notable, not that he is of high importance to the project. Protonk (talk) 15:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC) Edit. Turns out CFK redirects to the film. Protonk (talk) 15:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• My opinion was formed by reference to the scale. The difference between depth of knowledge and more minor details is a matter of degree but I consider that Mr Creosote is more than a minor detail. As compared with your other examples (two of which I had to look up), I consider that Mr Creosote is more significant as, while they are fairly conventional heroes/protagonists, Mr Creosote is more distinctively memorable. I am not inclined to edit immediately over this difference since the matter seems unimportant so suggest we wait on input from other editors before returning to this. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• Depth of knowledge here refers to the field itself. The way I look at it, this question should be similar to asking a film professor how important topic X is to the study of film. Or a historian. The ranking should help guide the project toward making edits on subjects that are more central to the field. I'm going out on a limb here (I'm not a film historian), but I suspect if you ask a historian how important Mr. Creosote is to film (Or, to phrase it in the terms used by the ranking, "How important is knowledge of Mr. Creosote in establishing a breadth of knowledge in the field?"), the answer would either be "who?" or "not very". Even a student of film who rightly recognizes British sketch comedy as significant among developments in the medium will probably tell you "not very". Try this. Assemble, in your mind, the most important elements of WHATEVER the Pythons have done, in rank order. This includes the pythons as a group, individual members, TV shows, and films, scenes, etc. How far down the list do you have to go before you reach a character? I have to go about 15 spots, and the first character I come to is Chapman's Brian. Now, imagine where on the list of FILM each of those elements of the python list fall. Protonk (talk) 22:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. DMacks (talk) 11:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Creosote → Mr Creosote — It's the correct spelling of Mr in UK English. Ericoides (talk) 09:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment what does the creditroll say? Was this creeping informalism in UK English used in the film's credits? If not, it should not be renamed. UK English certainly didn't drop the dot before. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 14:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• Good point. I can't find the creditroll on YouTube and don't have the DVD. Do you mean before 1983? Ericoides (talk) 15:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• I just popped in the DVD. The film does not have separate listings for characters at the end credits (and has no opening credits). It just has listed at the end that the film "was written by and starred" followed by the six of them. However, for what it's worth, in the DVD's episode selection feature the section is listed as "Mr Creosote: the Meaning of Fat".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support. I have searched Google Books and though Mr. is somewhat more common, Mr is also well represented and this does not appear to be directly a common naming issue, but simply based on the author's manner of abbreviating mister based on their background. Because this is a British-related subject, and because this is the prior name of the article that was moved without discussion in December 2009 because the person was unfamiliar with the British convention (see the edit summary), it should be moved back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Notability

At present, there is no indication that this article's topic harbor any notability that is independent of The Meaning of Life". Of the four references/citations currently in the article:

• One is just a link to the clip on YouTube, which is not a secondary source, and cannot go to notability.
• One is just a recitation of some of the dialogue.
• One is a link to a Channel 4 story that has gone dead. I tried using that site's search engine to find "Creosote" and "Tarantino", but found nothing. Interestingly, the editor who added it didn't even bother including the Volume number that was clearly a part of that story's title, because it just said, "Quentin Tarantino on Kill Bill Vol." Fortunately, a found a replacement url via Google, but this isn't really about critical reception, as Tarantino merely mentions the scene grossed him out. That is hardly something that goes to notability, and the one passage in that section that is about critical reception, which mentions "other critics" and Leonard Maltin, would go to notability if it were sourced, but it isn't, and I could not find a replacement for it. I removed that passage.
• The Yorkshire Post citation is the one secondary source that is valid, but by itself, and even with the Tarantino bit, this does not demonstrate notability that is independent of the film itself. The material in it should simply be added to the article on the film, which I have just done now with the Tarantino passage.

Unless secondary sources can be provided to establish independent notability for this one scene, it should be deleted. Nightscream (talk) 19:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, of course an article should be deleted if there are no reliable secondary independent sources substantively treating it. But we only delete articles if those sources do not exist, not if they haven't been substantiated through citation. The only way this could be properly deleted is at AfD, and the very first thing you should do before taking it to AfD is to spend thirty seconds doing a Google Books and News Archive search and then you wouldn't properly take it to AfD because that search would reveal that there are huge numbers of those sources in existence so there's no basis for deletion on notability grounds and you would be wasting everyone's time in nominating it (which is also why a prod would be inappropriate). Your choices would appear to be: source it yourself, tag it with an appropriate maintenance tag (e.g., {{refimprove}}) and/or call attention to the issue, maybe at Wikipedia:WikiProject Monty Python. For those reasons, I'm not sure what your purpose is in stating how poor the sourcing currently is. Note that I am in no way defending the sorry state of this article's sourcing (and in fact believe and have in the past argued that we should delete unsourced and poorly sourced articles [and not doing so has gotten us into the current mess of a few million such articles]; I support making verifiability have teeth for present sourcing, such as through something like Wikipedia:Requests for verification. Those pragmatic policies have never caught on and so we molly coddle the unsourced and poorly sourced. But that policy, that I would support, is not now nor has ever been the state of actual policy and guideline.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)