Shel Silverstein / YMMV

Adaptation Displacement: The poem "Ladies First" was adapted into one of the skits on the TV special Free to Be... You and Me. A number of changes were made (for instance, the cannibalistic "savages" were replaced by a pack of tigers, so as not to clash with the special's pro-diversity message), but nevertheless this version is much more well-remembered, especially by children of the 1970s. Another poem of his, "Helping", was also included in the special, but without any changes.
Alternative Character Interpretation: In "Ladies First", Pamela Purse is always using the titular excuse to rudely interrupt others and take whatever she wants, but when she and her friends are on a jungle expedition and end up in the clutches of a cannibal king who is trying to decide who to cook, she pushes to the front of the line and yells, "Ladies first!" Is she Too Dumb to Live, or is she trying to redeem herself by making a Heroic Sacrifice?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: The poem "People Zoo" concerns a kid who gets kidnapped by animals and put in display in a human zoo. People zoos have existed, although they're usually not run by talking animals.
Award Snub: Silverstein was a Grammy winner and posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame, but never won an award for the children's books, cartoons and poetry he's best-known for.
Bellisario's Maxim: Silverstein was astonished at all the distress and analysis of his "Now here's my plan" gag cartoon; he said it was not supposed to be pessimistic but optimistic about how there's always hope.
Covered Up:
- "A Boy Named Sue" is more known for the Johnny Cash cover.
- "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is best known as a Marianne Faithfull song.
- "Cover of Rolling Stone" is best known as a Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show song.
- "The Unicorn" is best known as an Irish Rovers song.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- The poem "Screamin' Millie". She screams so loud that she literally explodes, and it's explored in gruesome detail.
- "The Father of a Boy Named Sue". Not to go into too much detail about the song's Perspective Flip, but there's a pretty good reason that Silverstein had to record this one himself, and it rhymes with "Parental Incest".
Designated Villain:
- In "Ice Cream Stop", the ice cream man gets attacked and eaten by the circus animals just because he won't give them ice cream for free.
- We're supposed to see the fate of "The Silver Fish" as Just Desserts because he tricked the narrator, except that he tricked the narrator because he would have been eaten otherwise, which is like a murderer justifying their crime because the victim fought back.
- "Magic Eraser" has the narrator essentially mutilate someone just because she called him a liar.
First Installment Wins: Where the Sidewalk Ends is Silverstein's best known poetry collection. It's also the first one published.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: His lyrics for "Still Gonna Die", recorded by the one-off supergroup Old Dogs (Waylon Jennings, Jerry Reed, Mel Tillis, and Bobby Bare). Included in the lyrics are "You better have some fun before you say bye-bye"; given that the Old Dogs songs were some of Shel's last works before his death, and Waylon's last project before his, it seems that both men took the message to heart.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- One of his poems explores the idea of a snowman who wants to live to see July.
- Another features a character named "Dirty Dan" as the protagonist.
Nightmare Fuel: has its own page.
Older Than They Think: As previously mentioned, one poem involves a snowman wishing to see July. There is a German WWII era cartoon, Der Schneemann, in which a snowman actually does get to experience July, only for a few minutes, after staying in the freezer through spring.
Paranoia Fuel: "The Toy Eater", about a creature who sneaks into the rooms of kids who don't pick up their toys at night and eats them.
Tear Jerker:
- The poem "The Bagpipe Who Didn't Say No", which details a turtle falling in love with a bagpipe, oblivious to its lack of sapience. Convinced he's offended "her", he creeps off, heartbroken.
- The entirety of his posthumously published book, Every Thing On It. A large portion of the poems — including the very first one in the book, "Years from Now" — are surprisingly melancholy and sorrowful.
- His last poem in Every Thing on It is the aptly named "When I Am Gone":
  When I am gone what will you do?
  Who will write and draw for you?
  Someone smarter—someone new?
  Someone better—maybe YOU!
- The brief poem "Masks":
  She had blue skin,
  And so did he.
  He kept it hid
  And so did she.
  They searched for blue
  Their whole life through,
  Then passed right by-
  And never knew.
Unintentional Period Piece: Many of his poems could be in any time period, but in a poem about a boy who watched so much television he turned into one, two knobs labeled "vert" (vertical) and "horiz" (horizontal) grow out of him - those picture control knobs haven't been standard on sets for many, many years.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?:
- When Shel wasn't writing children's stories or articles for Playboy^note, he was writing songs. Unfortunately, songs tend to be remembered as being by their performers, not their writers, but he's the man who wrote "A Boy Named Sue" (bad language, violence), "The Mermaid" (*ahem* inappropriate subject for children), and "You're Always Welcome at Our House" (depicting the murders of various visitors to the house by the children), which The Muppet Show actually used in a sketch in the Marisa Berenson episode, cheerfully playing up the Roald Dahl-like comedy.
- Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book, which constructs perfectly logical-sounding reasons why children should do things like ask for a gigolo (that's a musical instrument, right?) or put sugar in Dad's gas tank (for the pony generating all that 'horsepower').
- Children sometimes find themselves blindly wandering into his more mature work, like "The Smoke-off".
- The Devil and Billy Markham is most definitely NOT kid-friendly.

YMMV / Shel Silverstein

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