An Application of Statistics to the Three Stooges Films

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An Application of Statistics to the Three Stooges
Films
Robert Davidson and Bob Gardner Department of
Mathematics
College of Arts and Sciences Jewell Friend
Lecture August 21, 2008
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A New Low in Higher Education!
Available online at http//www.etsu.edu/math/gard
ner/stooges/stooges-statistics.htm
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The Six Three Stooges
Curly Howard
Larry Fine
Moe Howard
Shemp Howard
Joe Besser
Joe DeRita
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How We Started Stooges Statistics1
1. As recalled by Davidson
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One evening at Bucks Pizza
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Beer 1 Old Bob said Why dont we use Newtons
Thermodynamic Theory based on the position of
Polaris on Christmas day 1948?
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Beer 2 Old Bob said Why dont we use Newtons
Law of Gravitational Pull based on the perimeters
of several polar coordinates?
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Beer 3 Old Bob said Why dont we use elementary
differential equations based on a non logarithmic
case?
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Beer 4 Davidson said Why dont we count the
number of slaps and eye pokes that are in the
shorts? Old Bob said Thats a damn good idea!
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A Brief History of the Three Stooges
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Opening slide for the early Three Stooges films
Larry, Moe and Curly 97 shorts between 1934 and
1947.
THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE POPULATIONS FROM WHICH WE
SAMPLE!!!
From http//www.idivimage.com/files/jwfzehyj2mmum
mdwn4mr.jpg
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Opening slide for the Three Stooges films from
the Shemp era
Shemp, Larry, and Moe 77 shorts between 1947 and
1956.
THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE POPULATIONS FROM WHICH WE
SAMPLE!!!
From http//www.a-1video.com/talking.htm
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Larry, Joe, and Moe in Fifi Blows Her Top (1958)
Larry, Moe, and Joe 16 shorts between 1957 and
1959.
THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE POPULATIONS WITH WHICH WE
DEAL!!!
From The Three Stooges Scrapbook.
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An advertisement from the 1947 Johnson City
Press-Chronicle (Tennessee) for a personal
appearance by the Three Stooges on October 25,
1947.
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Are the Three Stooges Still Relevant?
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Zogby International conducted a poll of 1,213
American adults by telephone in July 2006. One
question asked for the names of the Three Stooges
and another asked for the names of the three
branches of government.
Those able to name the Three Stooges 73 Those
able to name the three branches of government
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(http//www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID
13498)
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Sony Pictures released the first volume of Three
Stooges shorts in October 2007.
The second volume was released in May 2008.
The third volume will be released in August 26,
2008.
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Statistical Tests
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The Nature of Statistics

• In a nutshell, the nature of a statistical test
  is
• to hypothesize a certain relationship within a
  population or between two or more populations,
• to take a random sample from the population(s),
  and
• to calculate the probability of the random
  sample(s) being drawn when the hypothesis is
  assumed to be true.

The desired outcome is to get a probability from
(3) which is small. In this event, the
hypothesis is rejected in favor of its
alternative.
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The Hypothesis
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From http//www.threestooges.net/
To Joe Bessers eternal shame, he had it
written into his contract that he would not be
subject to slapping or bodily harm.
Pure Slap Shtick by Richard von Busack, Metro
Santa Cruz, January 16-22, 1997. Available
online at http//www.ratical.org/ratville/3stooge
s75yrs.html
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Moe and Larry they were the best. I enjoyed
every minute of it with them. In fact, to show
you how wonderful they were, I never liked to be
hit with anything. And Larry used to say to me
dont worry Joe, Ill take it. Now thats the
kind of guys they were.
From Stooges The Men Behind the Mayhem, (DVD)
Mackinac Media, 2004.
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The null hypothesis is H0 "The average number
of violent acts by Moe against Curly per episode
is the same as the average number of violent acts
by Moe against Joe." The alternative hypothesis
is Ha "The average number of violent acts by
Moe against Curly per episode is greater than the
average number of violent acts by Moe against
Joe."
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Now, You Gather the Data
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Ten RANDOMLY selected Curly episodes were chosen.
The number of acts of violence by Moe to Curly
is as follows
Curly
Episode (episode ) of acts
We have watched 15 out of 16 of the Joe episodes
and counted 43 relevant acts of violence. For the
remaining episode, we have
Joe
Episode (episode ) of acts
The plus signs () indicate that the data for
these episodes are incomplete. You will complete
these data sets soon.
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We now watch 3 to 5 minute segments of some of
the randomly chosen shorts to fill in the missing
data. We want to count every act of violence of
Moe towards Curly, and Moe towards Joe.
Joe
Moe
Curly
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A Bird in the Head
Columbia short number 89, costarring Curly. This
short is classic Stooges and has the boys
wallpapering a room.
Space Ship Sappy
Columbia short number 178, costarring Joe. The
Stooges act as sailors on a spaceship to Venus.
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We now compute a t value based on the collected
data. The formula is
Based on 9 degrees of freedom, we have the
following p values for given t values
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Our data yields a p-value of 0.00xx Therefore,
we reject the null hypothesis H0 "The average
number of violent acts by Moe against Curly per
episode is the same as the average number of
violent acts by Moe against Joe" And accept the
alternative hypothesis Ha "The average number
of violent acts by Moe against Curly per episode
is greater than the average number of violent
acts by Moe against Joe." With confidence
(1-p) x 100 99.xx
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Nice!
Why, Soitenly!
Fromhttp//www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid513
09234epmid3partnerGoogle
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Student Reaction
The following results are from Introduction to
Probability and Statistics (MATH 1530), Summer
2008. The questionnaire is modeled after the
ETSU SAI.
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• I knew about the Three Stooges before todays
  presentation.
• The Three Stooges are silly and do not belong in
  this classroom.
• I would prefer that todays class time had been
  spent on a traditional lecture.

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4. Todays presentation included real world
data. 5. Todays presentation helped me
understand the concept of a random sample. 6.
Todays presentation helped me understand the
concept of a confidence interval.
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7. Todays presentation helped me understand the
concept of a hypothesis test. 8. Todays
presentation helped me understand the concept of
a p-value. 9. I can take the ideas presented
today and extend them to other statistical
applications.
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References

• Fleming, Michael. The Three Stooges-An
  Illustrated History. New York Broadway Books,
  1999.
• Forrester, Jeff and Forrester, Tom. The Three
  Stooges The Triumphs and Tragedies of The Most
  Popular Comedy Team of All Time. Los Angeles
  Donaldson Books, 2005.
• Howard, Moe. Moe Howard The 3 Stooges.
  Secaucus, NJ Citadel Press, 1977.
• Lenburg, J., Maurer, J.H., and Lenburg, G. The
  Three Stooges Scrapbook. Citadel Press, 1983.
• Morian, Don. The Three Stooges in Academe A
  Summary/Review of Resent Research. Presented at
  the Annual Joint Meetings of the Popular Culture
  Association/American Culture Association,
  Philadelphia, PA, April 12-15, 1995. Available
  online at http//www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/er
  icdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/ef/e6
  .pdf

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Fromhttp//www.lunkhead.net/
Thank You!
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