The 8 Most Needlessly Detailed Wikipedia Entries

8 List of Ancient Jedi

Summary:
This is a comprehensive list of Jedi that, oddly enough, have never actually appeared in a Star Wars movie. Instead, the list includes any and every Jedi who was referenced, even in passing, in every Star Wars book, comic or video game. Right now, if you make up a Jedi and draw a picture of him on a napkin, you can bet your ass he'll end up on this list by tomorrow with a full backstory and list of allergies.

Word Count: 24,801. That's more words than Oedipus Rex (15,636).

Notable Excerpt:
"S'diawae was a famous Jedi Master who lived sometime between the Ruusan Reformation and the Separatist Crisis. During the Crisis, in order to boost patriotism and historical recognition, Biscuit Baron released commemorative holocubes of S'diawae in their QuickSnack and QuickSnackLite bundles." It wasn't written by George Lucas, but, dammit, it' so pointless and crazy, it' close enough.

Why We Can Do Without It:
This is a warning: The more attention that get' paid to inconsequential members of the Star Wars universe, the more likely it is that George Lucas, spotting a possibility to make additional shitloads of money, will make yet another trilogy and, if history is any indication, it will be worse than its predecessor.

What We'd Rather Read:
A court order forbidding anyone from adding to, and thereby further ruining, the Star Wars franchise.

7 List of 7th Heaven Episodes

Summary:
Basically, somebody pitched a show about a Protestant minister' family to the WB, and that show ended up dragging on for 11 seasons and garnering a staggering 29,601-word Wikipedia entry. We've never seen the show, so we can't judge, but ... No, you know what? It was probably pretty terrible.

Word Count: 29,601. That's more words than The Old Man and the Sea (26,601).

Notable Excerpt:
"Eric asks Matt to take his friend' daughter to the senior prom, but he is unaware of her tainted style and her being a harlot. Eric gets 'Snappy the Stegosaurus' tickets from his ex-girlfriend for Ruthie. Meanwhile, Simon is uncomfortable after viewing a school film on the 'facts of life' while Ruthie learns the truth about her costume character hero. Also, Mary and Lucy trick their way into a date with boys they do not know, but the joke' on them."

Why We Can Do Without It:
What was that, code? What the hell is this show about? We can't stress this enough, there are 29,601 words in this entry and not one of them gives us the slightest clue as to why even one person felt the need to devote that much thought to it. Sure, it ran for 11 years. But The Simpsons has been on for 19 seasons and its entry is only a fourth as long.

What We'd Rather Read:
We found the episode list for another show that happens to feature the father from 7th Heaven, It' Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Unlike the wordy, full-of-itself recap of 7th Heaven, this series manages to sum itself up in a mere 6,787 words, and, it should be noted, seven of those words are "ass," and three of them are "hooker."

Can you guess how many times 7th Heaven mentions ass? Not nearly as many times as it does "church," we can tell you that.

6 Tennis Performance Timeline Comparison (Women)

Summary:
As massive as it is, the author promises more to come. "When completed," the introduction threatens, "this article will present in a tabular form the career tennis Grand Slam and Olympic singles results of every woman who has reached the singles final of at least one ... tournament during her career." It doesn't say when the article will be completed, though, so don't start planning your "Women' Tennis Wikipedia Entry" party just yet.

Word Count: 14,411. That's more words than The Book of Revelation (11,952).

Notable Excerpt:
"Through 1923, the French Championships were open only to French nationals. The World Hard Court Championships (WHCC), actually played on clay in Paris or Brussels, began in 1912 and were open to all nationalities. The results from that tournament are shown here for 1922 and 1923. The Olympics replaced the WHCC in 1924, as the Olympics were held in Paris."

Why We Can Do Without It:
We don't mean to put anyone down, but for god' sake, it' women' tennis. Did somebody honestly think that the way to make women' tennis more exciting was to compile more than a hundred years of performance rankings? We've got 30 e-mails in our junk folder right now promising nude photos of Anna Kournikova and none promising detailed stats on Dorothy Round Little' singles performance from 1929 to 1935.

What We'd Rather Read:
We'd even read this entry, if they'd just stick some pictures of Anna Kournikova on there. And that goes for any Wikipedia entry, on any subject. We say if you ever don't have photos handy, just use Anna as the default image.

Maybe, we'll just do that from now on.

5 Line of Succession to the British Throne

Summary:
We're not sure exactly what they do, but being British royalty seems like a pretty important job. Still, when this article set out to give us the line of succession, they didn't fuck around. It lists everyone who is currently in line to claim the throne of the United Kingdom. And when we say everyone, we mean everyone--the list goes all the way down to 17-year-old Franziska Wassmann, who' just 1,268 people away from becoming the Queen of England.

Word Count: 33,504. That's more words than Death of a Salesman (31,147).

Notable Excerpt:
"Anyone who is Roman Catholic, becomes Roman Catholic, or marries a Roman Catholic is permanently excluded from the succession; this provision removing 'papists' from the succession has never been tested." Well, we're officially accepting bets on which of the people on this list is going to be the first to step up. You didn't hear it from us, but the smart money' on Benjamin "Pretty Boy" Sewell. He' got that Roman Catholic fever, and he' got it bad.

Why We Can Do Without It:
Look, we don't want to ruin Franziska Wassmann's day, but there' no way in hell that all of these people are going to die in time for her to claim the throne, short of an asteroid impact that would hardly leave the kingdom in a condition worth inheriting.

What We'd Rather Read:
A Wikipedia entry on a related subject, namley the John Goodman film King Ralph, is much more interesting, and it' only 2,458 words! While the Line of Succession to the British Throne entry goes into exhaustive detail about every single successor, the King Ralph entry sums up the tricky succession issue by saying that Ralph became King after every member of the royal family was "entirely wiped out in a freak accident." That's how you write an entry, Britain.

4 Universe of the Metroid Video Game

Summary:
A record-breaking number of virgins got together to describe in exhaustive detail, the history, culture, physiology and life cycle of any creature that has ever been featured in a Metroid video game. This isn't, as one might suspect, an article about the people who created the Metroid series or how they created it, nor does it include tips on being a more effective Metroid gamer. So if you searched for "Metroid" because you needed some codes or hints, anything that might make playing the game a little easier, this is not the place to go, unless Metroid 2 has a level where an in-depth understanding of the Space Pirate' culture and physiology comes in handy.

Word Count: 30,106. That's more words than Shakespeare's fifth longest play, Henry IV, Part 2 (27,561).

Notable Excerpt:
"A Dark Luminoth was shown briefly in an early video for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, but was taken out of the game because scan data reveals that most Luminoth choose to self-terminate before an Ing takes full control over their body." Someone honestly thought this article would not be complete without this crucial inclusion. That without it, there would be thousands of kids lying awake in bed at night thinking, "There was a Dark Luminoth in that early Metroid Prime 2 video, but he never appeared in the game ... something just doesn't add up."

Why We Can Do Without It:
Wikipedia warns that this article "may contain original research or unverified claims." If we're going to waste time--which, given the size of the article, would be around eight days--reading facts about the ins and outs of the fictional Metroid Universe, we'd like to believe that the information is reliable. Just imagine how embarrassed we'd be talking about Metroid around the water cooler:

CRACKED: Boy, Metroid Prime sure was impressive escaping that series of tunnels in the Impact Crater, eh gang?

Co-workers: Uh, what tunnels? Metroid Prime was incased in a sealed chamber, asshole. Where'd you get your pirate data, The Chozo Library?

CRACKED: Damn you, Wikipedia.

What We'd Rather Read:
The Wikipedia entry on Metroid, The Video Game Series discusses the creation of the game, gameplay features and a (listen up, other Metroid article) brief summary of the characters and the storyline. It' 5,526 words which is, admittedly, a lot, but when you compared to something six times as long and possibly pulled from the author's ass, it's not so bad.

3 Jason Mewes

Summary:
The entry for Mewes, the actor who played Jay in all those Kevin Smith movies, describes his years of drug abuse in frightening detail. If you'd never heard of Mewes, and you stumbled upon this entry, you'd assume that he was a celebrity drug addict who happened to do a film every once in a while. For good measure, the entry also contains a section that explains what words like "snoogins" mean (Hint: absolutely nothing).

Word Count: 2,208. That's more words than Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (1,670).

Notable Excerpt:
"Mewes then began the methadone program and started to successfully kick his heroin habit and spent more and more time with Smith, frequently going on trips to find Star Wars action figures at Toys "R" Us to take his mind off things… After finding out that respected English actor Alan Rickman was going to star in Dogma, Mewes proceeded to memorize not only his lines, but the entire screenplay as well so he 'wouldn't piss off that Rickman dude'."

Why We Can Do Without It:
Kevin Smith' fans may be a bunch of 12-year-old morons, but even they can surely tell that Jason Mewes has a history with drugs. Do we really need to chronicle every up and down of that history?

This is a talentless actor who has made a career mootching off of his friend, spent one movie getting outsmarted by a monkey, and another movie dancing with junk tucked between his legs. Still, this is a fairly embarrassing entry. Really, take some time to let that all sink in: We want this entry taken down to leave the guy (who, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, farted on a cop), an ounce of dignity.

What We'd Rather Read:
How about the one for Christian Bale? Bale, as opposed to Mewes, is actually an actor. He' older than Mewes, gets more publicity, and has made more films... and yet his entire entry is only about 1,000 words longer than Mewes'. Maybe if nerds didn't spend so much time detailing the Star Wars-shopping sprees that Mewes and Smith went on, we might be able to learn a little bit more about actors that are actually talented--like where Christian Bale buys his action figures.

2 List of City Nicknames in the United States

Summary:
What's depressing about this entry on city nicknames is that most of them are small towns that have decided to bleed their one meager accomplishment for all its worth.

While some of the information is useful (for example, knowing that Camden, N.J., is also known as "Murder City" should be considered when making any vacation plans), knowing that Brevard, N.C., is "Home of the White Squirrels" is just a waste of Internet space. Yes, we're aware that space on the Internet is basically infinite, but that doesn't change the fact that no one should care where white squirrels come from. For more pointless nicknames, consider Reading, Pennsylvania, which is the pretzel capital of the world, or Paducah, Kentucky which is "Quilt City." Also, did you know that two cities in Oregon--Halsey and Tangent--have laid claim to being the grass-seed capital of the world? We'll bet a lot of blood' been spilled over that one.

Word Count: 16,361. That's over 12 times as many words as The Declaration of Independence (1,326).

Notable Excerpt:
"Cedar Bluff-Crappie Capital of the World"

Why We Can Do Without It:
Well, it doesn't really... wait a minute, hold on. There' a town in Alabama that went out of its way to declare itself the crappie capital of the world? Okay, we may owe this article an apology because that's actually pretty awesome.

In fact, why couldn't the whole article have been about the crappie capital? We'd have read that. If you're a resident of Cedar Bluff, Alabama and you'd like to start a petition to get your city council to change your town' nickname to something that isn't completely embarrassing, then let us know and we'll be glad to help bring it to national attention.

It is our position that nobody should have to live in the crappie capital of the world, with the possible exception of the cast of MadTV.

What We'd Rather Read:
The mayor of Cedar Bluff' formal application to change the nickname to something less hilariously embarrassing.

1 List of Unicode Characters

Summary:
This was the largest entry on Wikipedia at the time that we compiled this list. We can only assume that it' gotten even bigger since then, because site users have flagged the entry as incomplete and encouraged others to "help" by expanding it. There' also a lively debate over whether or not the entry should be merged with another entry about the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics character table, which is even more fascinating than it sounds.

No matter what the fate of this giant article might be, its mind-boggling scope makes us think the elderly might be onto something with that whole "afraid of the Internet" thing.

Word Count: 60,296. That's more words than The Great Gatsby (50,051).

Notable Excerpt:
"This is a list of Unicode characters." We know that' a short excerpt, but it' also the only part of the article we understood. The rest was just pages and pages of code that took forever to load.

Why We Can Do Without It:
Unicode is a language, so putting every single character in this entry is basically like pasting the entire Oxford English dictionary into the entry for English. We're certain there are people out there who worked hard to build this list, and we're just as certain that they are deserving of our pity. But, there' got to be a topic more worthy to wear the crown of longest Wikipedia entry. What about Cracked? Our 50-year history is rich with incest, matricide and diabetes. Make it happen, Internet!

What We'd Rather Read:
Anything. Really, anything else at all. Put anything in front of us and we would choose it over a list of Unicode characters every single time. Hell, even the Wikipedia entry on "Anything" is more appealing and certainly more succinct (144 words). Did you know that "Anything" is a drink in Singapore? Can you name four different bands that have recorded songs titled "Anything?" We can, and it' not because we read over 145 pages of Unicode, that' for damn sure.