Fall Madness..., The Ultimate Futurama Best Episode Competition

[on:]

Now that all 72 episodes have shown in the US, I was thinking that we could have a tournamet to find out which episode is the best.  The idea have head to head voting between episodes.  Like the NCAA Basketball tournamet, this would be done with a bracket system (First the bottomw 16 teams, then 1 vs. 64, 2 vs. 63 etc.), rankings would be determined by placement at CGEF as of Monday night Sept. 1, 2003.

Why?  Because while there have been plenty Best of votes, there are so many episodes that the vote gets diffused.  This would force you to look at two episodes and really think between the two. I think that some of the ratings at CGEF are questionable, and this would make you really think if you like one episode to another.  The early rounds would be pretty easy, but when you get down to the final 16, the choices will be pretty hard.  And the fun, here, is that you have to choose.

The downside?  Well, at first, 8 threads of head to heads going for four or five days before the next round.  After the first two weeks, this would go down, until the finals, when we would get to decide between two episodes which one is the best.

I think it would be fun, and in the doldrums of early fall, with no new episodes, it should keep things flowing.  I'm happy enough to run it (I'm nerdy enough to have everything all set up).  But I would like to hear feedback (especially from the mods and powers that be), before doing this.  If everyone is cool with it, We would start on Tuesday, the 2nd of September.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Reply #1 on:]

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Kind of extensive though.

[Reply #2 on:]

Sounds good. Sorta complicated, but good.

[Reply #3 on:]

how do you pick which two episodes get paired up?

[Reply #4 on:]

GREAT IDEA!!!

FORGET MARCH MADNESS! FALL MADNESS IS RIGHT HERE!!!

Have the #1 Seed against the #16 Seed from each of the four seasons, just like the NCAA have. 

[Reply #5 on:]

I'm glad people are interested.  It's not that hard to run, I have an excel template that runs it, And I had long ago put together a template with all the episodes sorted by CGEF ratings (I'm a geek, I know it), broken up by there percentage.  I have them broken up in to grades:  90% and up, an A, 80-89% a B, and so on.  I started doing the ordinals when Otis P Jivefunk started his "Order Up" thread, and from there, it is nothing.

I've always questioned some of the rankings at CGEF.  Leela's Homeworld, which I don't think is a great episode, but is still very solid, was last night #59, which seems very low.  The fun of doing this is that it makes you really think about an episode.  What about it do you like or dislike compared to another.  And there is a consequence to your choice.  You do have to think about it, at least a little.

The drawback?  The rankings are pretty arbitrary, and since I will power protect, the number ones (as of this time Devil's Hands, Parasites Lost The Luck of the Fryish and Xmas Story would have a pretty easy time of it.  But there is a randomness that should make for some interesting match ups.  And arguements, and, who knows, bets.

Like I said, I'm more than happy to run it.  I figure at this point, it is about an hour of my night, twice a week.

Thanks for the feedback.  Other thoughts?  Please post.

[Reply #6 on:]

Easy.  Use the CGEF ratings as rankings.  That would give us:

1. Devil's Hands are Idol Playthings: 93%
2. Luck of the Fryrish: 93%
3. Parasites Lost: 93%
4. Deep South: 93%
5. X-mas Story: 93%
6. The Why of Fry: 92%
7. Roswell that Ends Well: 92%
8. Amazon Women in the Mood: 92%
9. Anthology of Interest 1: 92%
10. War is the H-word: 92%
11. Problem With Popplers: 92%
12. Farnsworth Parabox: 91%
13. Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles: 90%
14. I, Roommate: 90%
15. The Sting: 89%
16. Clone of My Own: 89%
17. Godfellas: 88%
18. Anthology of Interest 2: 88%
19. Fry and the Slurm Factory: 88%
20. Flight to Remember: 88%
21. Brannigan, Begin Again: 88%
22. Where No Fan Has Gone Before: 87%
23. Love's Labors Lost in Space: 87%
24. Why Must I be a Crustacean in Love?: 87%
25. The Day the Earth Stood Stupid: 87%
26. When Aliens Attack: 87%
27. How Hermes Recquisitioned His Groove Back: 87%
28. Bird-bot of Ice-catraz: 87%
29. Big Ball of Garbage: 87%
30. Insane in the Mainframe: 86%
31. Hell is Other Robots: 86%
32. Jurassic Bark: 85%
33. Love and Rocket: 85%
34. Space Pilot 3000: 85%
35. The Series Has Landed: 84%
36. Time Keeps on Slippin': 83%
37. 30% Iron Chef: 83%
38. A Taste of Freedom: 83%
39. Bicyclops Built for Two: 83%
40. Bender Gets Made: 83%
41. Futurestock: 82%
42. Fear of a Bot Planet: 82%
43. Cyberhouse Rules: 82%
44. Crimes of the Hot: 81%
45. Raging Bender: 81%
46. Lesser of Two Evils: 81%
47. Obsoletely Fabulous: 80%
48. A Head in the Polls: 80%
49. Put Your Head on My Shoulder: 80%
50. Fishful of Dollars: 80%
51. Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV: 79%
52. I Second that Emotion: 79%
53. My Three Suns: 79%
54. A Tale of Two Santas: 78%
55. The Honking: 78%
56. Less Than Hero: 76%
57. Mars University: 76%
58. 300 Big Boys: 75%
59. Leela's Homeworld: 74%
60. Mother's Day: 73%
61. Spanish Fry: 72%
62. The Route of All Evil: 72%
63. Where the Buggalo Roam: 72%
64. Bend Her: 70%
65. I Dated a Robot: 69%
66. Kif Gets Knocked up a Notch: 68%
67. Bendless Love: 68%
68. Bendin' in the Wind: 67%
69. Cryonic Woman: 62%
70. A Pharaoh to Remember: 59%
71. That's Lobstertainment: 58%
72. A Leela of Her Own: 55%
(When ratings are the same, I based seeding loosely on number of votes received)


Now, if we’re going to use 4 division, we’d have 18 episodes in each division, which presents a problem, because in the second round there’s be 9 teams.  So either the highest-ranked episode remaining gets a bye until the divisional final, or we have a three-way match.  Or, we could have 6 divisions of 12 each, which would present a bit less of a problem  In the second round there’s be 6 episodes, but then the top 2 seeds could have a bye and face the winners of the other two games, much like in the NFL.  In fact, I like that idea the best.

First Round:

Earth Division:
1 vs. 67
7 vs. 61
13 vs. 55
19 vs. 49
25 vs. 43
31 vs. 37
Mars Division:
2 vs. 68
8 vs. 62
14 vs. 56
20 vs. 50
26 vs. 44
32 vs. 38
Omicron Persei 8 Division:
3 vs. 39
9 vs. 63
15 vs. 57
21 vs. 51
27 vs. 45
33 vs. 39
Chapek 9 Division:
4 vs. 70
10 vs. 64
16 vs. 58
22 vs. 52
28 vs. 46
34 vs. 40
Omega 3 Division:
5 vs. 71
11 vs. 65
17 vs. 59
23 vs. 53
29 vs. 47
35 vs. 41
Trisol Division:
6 vs. 72
12 vs. 66
18 vs. 60
24 vs. 54
30 vs. 48.
36 vs. 42


So I'm more than willing to organize this, obviously, but I'll need someone to do the grunt work with setting up a page or something.

::Reads Lionel's latest post::
Or a joint corraboration, whatever.

I've actually wanted to do a seeded tournament for something, ANYTHING, for a while now.  Besides, maybe this will distract everyone from our frightening lack of progress on the PEELies...

[Reply #7 on:]

It sounds like Nixorbo's got the voting system all worked out, so there's no need to worry about that anymore. I've just got one question though - how will this poll be accessed? Seperate page accessable from PEEL, on CGEF, on the main menu of PEEL (after all, the "Upcoming Episode" thing isn't really that necessary anymore) or something?

[Reply #8 on:]

So it's like that Character Battle thing-y they've got at GameFaqs.com?

Cool.

[Reply #9 on:]

Well, I'm ready.

Gimme!

[Reply #10 on:]

This sounds like an awesome idea, and clearly a lot of thought has gone into it. It'll be really interesting, and also really fun! 

[Reply #11 on:]

I'm with Nix on this idea... sounds good!

[Reply #12 on:]

Great Idea.  'Nuff said.  Oh wait..there's still a lot more to be said.  Like, do it!

[Reply #13 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nixorbo:
Now, if we’re going to use 4 division, we’d have 18 episodes in each division, which presents a problem, because in the second round there’s be 9 teams.  So either the highest-ranked episode remaining gets a bye until the divisional final, or we have a three-way match.  Or, we could have 6 divisions of 12 each, which would present a bit less of a problem  In the second round there’s be 6 episodes, but then the top 2 seeds could have a bye and face the winners of the other two games, much like in the NFL.  In fact, I like that idea the best.

Alternately, have 8 divisions of nine episodes, then take the top two from each divsion, which gives you 16 episodes in the next round.  After that it's straight knockout right down to the Futur-Bowl.

[Reply #14 on:]

I think its a great idea. BUt.. would all the battles be right here in general disscussion or elsewhere? because the first week or 2 would take up a bit of space on the page, even though good topics have been few and far apart lately.

[Reply #15 on:]

Nix, this looks suspiciously like the GameFaqs.com Character battle set up.  Did I mention very suspiciously?

In any event, I'm game.

[Reply #16 on:]

 

Originally posted by PCC Fred:
 Alternately, have 8 divisions of nine episodes, then take the top two from each divsion, which gives you 16 episodes in the next round.  After that it's straight knockout right down to the Futur-Bowl.

Wouldn't work - divisions need to have an even number of episodes for the first round, or else there will be one episode competing against itself.

[Reply #17 on:]

I'm glad everyone is interested.

The Brackets would work best if first the bottom 16 (57-72) go against each other for the bottom 8 slots.  (In other words, 64 v. 65 for 64 seed, 57 v. 72 for the 57 seed).  Winner of 64 v. 65 plays in the 64 slot against 1, winner of 57 v. 72 plays the plays in the 57 slot.

My thought was to run it here, in batches of 8  (qualifier, 1st bracket, 2nd bracket, third bracket, 4th bracket, then winners 1, winners 2, then quarter finals (last round of 8), semis, and final.  That makes for 10 rounds, 8 rounds of 8, then 4 and 2.

We could let them go for a week, or do something like 3-4 days for the first five rounds, then a week for the rest.  I would suggest running the qualifier from next tuesday to Sunday, see what response is, and adjust from there.

The nice thing about running it here is that voting is limited, and the discussions could be interesting.  The bad thing, is that for a month and a half, a lot of threads.  That is why I wanted to talk this over before doing anything.

If someone has the web experience and wants to do something more than that, feel free.  But I think that the idea of just running it through here would work well.  Also, we are in between shows and DVDs, so it might help to keep things moving when nothing else is.

As it is, I'm ready to run it as described starting Monday.  Other thoughts are welcomed.  Also, Nix, how did you extract the rankings from CGEF?  [marc] also gives an ordinal if you go into the reviews themself.  There are some ties (as of Monday), and I think breaking the tie by highest vote getter is great.  Other than that, I'm ready to roll.

Oh, I should add. This thread can then continue for general discussion of the competition.  If someone can think of something better, though.  Let me know.

[Reply #18 on:]

 

Originally posted by Pitt Clemens:
Nix, this looks suspiciously like the GameFaqs.com Character battle set up.  Did I mention very suspiciously?

In any event, I'm game.

Hope no one considers this a double post:

Mr. CLemens, I've never been to GameFaqs, sorry, but I'm not saying that the idea is original.  The idea came as descibed as above.  Blame the NCAA and having played in way too many tournaments in sports.  It is a fun way to force competion.

[Reply #19 on:]

 

Originally posted by Lionel Hutz Esq:
Nix, how did you extract the rankings from CGEF?

Manually.  It was fun, and by fun I mean tedious.

[Reply #20 on:]

Instead of giving episodes a bye round, we could have wild cards.

[Reply #21 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nixorbo:
 Wouldn't work - divisions need to have an even number of episodes for the first round, or else there will be one episode competing against itself.

Okay, then how about this:

The 16 worst rated eps on CGEF enter a preliminary round.  Add the 8 winners to the other 56, which gives you 64 episodes.  Then you have a straight knockout contest.

[EDIT]Wow!  That was Loinel Hutz Esq.'s original idea!  Talk about great minds!  [/EDIT]

[Reply #22 on:]

@Fred: Ooh, I like it.

@Canned:  What?  How would that help in any way, shape, or form?

[Reply #23 on:]

Never mind.  It worked with one of the old bracketing ideas, I wasn't paying attention to the other ones. 

We should probably wait to start this thing until Kryten's tournament is over.

[Reply #24 on:]

Has Kryten read this thread?  If he would like us to delay, I would be more than happy to do so.  Otherwise, I'll start things as planned on Midnight of the 2nd PDT (I believe -7 GMT).  I'll post the preliminary rounds (subject to change based on CGEF's ratings) tomorrow. 

Nix:  Glad to know you did it manually too.  I was afraid there was an easy way and I just did it the hard way.

[Reply #25 on:]

I was actually hoping we could get mArc behind this, and use it to replace the "Rate the episode" thing on the front page.

[Reply #26 on:]

The main page can only have a poll on 2 episodes at a time, which would make it take something like a season. Frankly, I'm not up to editing it daily for that. Also frankly, I usually would just program something, but I'm busy as usually lately, so I can't.

[Reply #27 on:]

Well, because of the down time, I'm going to hold off on starting this until next week (Sunday, midnight, PDT).  I want to make sure that nobody has any objections.  Since Marc has checked in I assume he has no objections, but I would like to know if Kryten would like me to hold off.
However, I will use the CGEF rankings as of the end of today, Sept 1.  I'll post the rankings tonight, and the qualifying bracket soon after.  I should be able to post the full first bracket soon.
If anyone has any other thoughts, let me know.  And thanks for all the feedback.

[Reply #28 on:]

How have you decided to do this?

[Reply #29 on:]

 

Originally posted by Lionel Hutz Esq:
The Brackets would work best if first the bottom 16 (57-72) go against each other for the bottom 8 slots.  (In other words, 64 v. 65 for 64 seed, 57 v. 72 for the 57 seed).  Winner of 64 v. 65 plays in the 64 slot against 1, winner of 57 v. 72 plays the plays in the 57 slot.

My thought was to run it here, in batches of 8  (qualifier, 1st bracket, 2nd bracket, third bracket, 4th bracket, then winners 1, winners 2, then quarter finals (last round of 8), semis, and final.  That makes for 10 rounds, 8 rounds of 8, then 4 and 2.

We could let them go for a week, or do something like 3-4 days for the first five rounds, then a week for the rest.  I would suggest running the qualifier from next tuesday to Sunday, see what response is, and adjust from there.

The nice thing about running it here is that voting is limited, and the discussions could be interesting.  The bad thing, is that for a month and a half, a lot of threads.  That is why I wanted to talk this over before doing anything.

That is how it is formulated in my mind, at least as of now.

[Reply #30 on:]

Will this thing ever start?

[Reply #31 on:]

It will, at midnight, PDT (-7 GMT), Sept. 8, unless a major objection is heard before then.  Please see previous two posts.

[Reply #32 on:]

This will be a debacle Glorious

[Reply #33 on:]

I'm looking forward to this very much!

[Reply #34 on:]

Here are the Brackets for the qualifier round (56-72).

Bend Her (64) vs. Kiff Gets Knocked Up A Notch (65).  Winner is the 64th seed and will take on Parasites Lost (1).

Spanish Fry (63) vs. Bendless Love (66).  Winner takes on The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings (2).

Where the Buggalo Roam (62) vs. I Dated a Robot (67).  Winner to face Xmas Story (3).

The Route of All Evil (61) vs. Bending in the Wind (68).  Winner to face The Luck of the Fryish (4).

Leela’s Home World (60) vs. The Cryonic Woman (69).  Winner to take on The Deep South (5).

Mother’s Day (59) vs. A Pharoh to Remember (70).  Winner to take on Amazon Women in the Mood (6).
 
Three Hundred Big Boys (58) vs. That’s Lobstertainment! (71) Winner plays The Problem with Popplers (7).

Less Than Hero (57) vs. A Leela of her Own (72).  Winner to play Roswell That Ends Well (8).

Unless objection is raised, the qualifier round will start at midnight PDT (-7 GMT), September 8, 2003.  The qualifier tournament will run until midnight, September 13, 2003.

I’ll post the full order sometime tomorrow. 

I’ll post the full seeding sometime Wednesday.


Start Placing your bets.

[Reply #35 on:]

I'm looking forward to this very much...even more!

[Reply #36 on:]

"No" gambling.

[Reply #37 on:]

Here are the final ranks, as of midnight September 2, 2003, broken up by seeding.  I have provided production code and CGEF rating.  Tied episodes, according to CGEF, are indicated by a *.

First Seeds:
1   Parasites Lost     3ACV02   94%
2   The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings   4ACV18   94%
3   Xmas Story   2ACV04   93%
4*       The Luck of the Fryrish   3ACV04   93%  (204)

Second Seeds
5*   The Deep South   2ACV12   93%  (68)
6   Amazon Women in the Mood   3ACV01   93%
7   The Problem with Popplers   2ACV15   93%
8   Roswell that Ends Well   3ACV19   92%

Third Seeds
9   The Why Of Fry   4ACV10   92%
10   War Is The H-Word   2ACV17   92%
11   The Farnsworth Parabox   4ACV15   91%
12   Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles   4ACV09   90%

Fourth Seeds
13   Anthology of Interest I   2ACV16   90%
14   I, Roommate   1ACV03   90%
15   The Sting   4ACV12   89%
16   A Clone of My Own   2ACV10   89%

Fifth Seeds
17   Fry & the Slurm Factory   1ACV13   89%
18   Godfellas   3ACV20   88%
19   A Flight To Remember   1ACV10   88%
20   Brannigan Begin Again   2ACV02   88%

Sixth Seeds
21   Love's Labour's Lost In Space   1ACV04   88%
22   Anthology of Interest II   3ACV18   88%
23   How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back   2ACV11   87%
24   When Aliens Attack   1ACV12   87%

Seventh Seeds
25   The Day the Earth Stood Stupid   3ACV07   87%
26*   Why Must I Be A Crustacean in Love?   2ACV05   87%  (64)
27*   A Big Piece of Garbage   1ACV08   87%  (54)
28   Where No Fan Has Gone Before   4ACV11   87%

Eighth Seeds
29   The Bird-bot of Ice-catraz   3ACV05   87%
30   Hell Is Other Robots   1ACV09   86%
31   Insane in the Mainframe   3ACV11   86%
32   Jurassic Bark   4ACV07   85%

Ninth Seeds
33   Space Pilot 3000   1ACV01   85%
34   Love & Rocket   4ACV03   85%
35   The Series Has Landed   1ACV02   85%
36   30 % Iron Chef   3ACV22   83%

Tenth Seeds
37   Bender Gets Made   2ACV13   83%
38   Time keeps on slippin'   3ACV14   83%
39   A Taste Of Freedom   4ACV05   83%
40   A Bicyclops Built for Two   2ACV09   82%

Eleventh Seeds
41   The Cyber House Rules   3ACV09   82%
42   Fear of a Bot Planet   1ACV05   82%
43   Futurestock   3ACV21   82%
44   Crimes of the Hot   4ACV08   82%

Twelfth Seeds
45   Raging Bender   2ACV08   81%
46   Lesser of Two Evils   2ACV06   81%
47   A Head in the Polls   2ACV03   80%
48   Obsoletely Fabulous   4ACV14   80%

Thirteenth Seeds
49   Put your head on my shoulder   2ACV07   80%
50   A Fishful of Dollars   1ACV06   80%
51   Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV   4ACV06   79%
52   A Tale of Two Santas   3ACV03   79%

Fourteenth Seeds
53*   My Three Suns   1ACV07   78% (51)(HH)
54*    I Second That Emotion   2ACV01   78%  (51)(TH)
55   The Honking   2ACV18   77%
56   Mars University   1ACV11   75%

Qualifiers  (Winners fill 15th and 16th seeds, as posted above).
57   Less Than Hero   4ACV04   75%
58   Three Hundred Big Boys   4ACV16   75%
59   Mother's Day   2ACV14   73%
60   Leela's Homeworld   4ACV02   73%
61   The Route Of All Evil   3ACV12   72%
62   Where the Buggalo Roam   3ACV10   72%
63   Spanish Fry   4ACV17   72%
64   Bend Her   4ACV13   69%
65   Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch   4ACV01   69%
66   Bendless Love   3ACV06   68%
67   I Dated A Robot   3ACV15   68%
68   Bendin' In The Wind   3ACV13   67%
69   The Cryonic Woman   2ACV19   62%
70   A Pharaoh To Remember   3ACV17   59%
71   That's Lobstertainment!   3ACV08   58%
72   A Leela of Her Own   3ACV16   54%


*   = tied according to CGEF rankings, Midnight, September 2, 2003.  Ties broken by which episode got the most votes (given in parentheses).  In case of tied votes, broken by flip of a coin (given in parentheses, call then actual coin).

I’ll post the full brackets tomorrow.  I’m thinking of calling them:  Earthican, Martian, Neptunian and Omicronian. 

[Reply #38 on:]

Let's play ball!!!

[Reply #39 on:]

Since there has been nothing negative about this, and people want it to start, I've been thinking of starting the qualifier on Friday.  Once the brakets are done tonight, It isn't really that hard to run everything.  Let any mod, admin or lowly poppler reply now or forever hold their peace.