Using "Real World" Data From Three Stooges Films in Introductory Statistics and Research Methods

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Using "Real World" Data From Three Stooges Films
in Introductory Statistics and Research Methods
American Society of Criminology Philadelphia, PA
November 5, 2009
Bob Gardner and Robert Davidson Department of
Mathematics and Statistics East
Tennessee State University
Online at http//www.etsu.edu/math/gardner/stooge
s/ACS-November-2009.ppt
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History of the Three Stooges
Some of the films have a criminology theme!
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The Six Three Stooges
Curly Howard
Moe Howard
Larry Fine
Shemp Howard
Joe Besser
Joe DeRita
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and since we are in Philadelphia
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Larry Fine
(October 5, 1902 January 24, 1975)

• Born in Philadelphia (606 South 3rd Street).
• Considered being a professional violinist.
• The Stooge in the middle.
• Starred in the first Stooge short Woman Haters.

Image from http//www.guidespot.com/guides/three_
stooges_carey_penn
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Jons Bar Grille 606 South 3rd Street,
Philadelphia
Website http//www.jonsbarandgrille.com/
Image from http//www.larryfine.com/
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Larry Fine Mural
Corner of 3rd and South
Streets, Philadelphia 20 feet high, dedicated
October 26, 1999
Image from http//www.flickr.com/photos/extrawack
/150532213/
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The Stoogeum 904 Sheble Lane, Ambler, PA
http//www.stoogeum.com/
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Are the Three Stooges Still Relevant?
In 1965 and 1966, The New Three Stooges cartoon
series of 156 shows aired.
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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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Source http//www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.
dbm?ID13498
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A 1998 survey by the National Constitution Center
asked the same questions of American teenagers.
Those able to name the Three Stooges 59 Those
able to name the three branches of government
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Source http//www.constitutioncenter.org/CitizenA
ction/CivicResearchResults/NCCTeens'Poll.shtml
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Sony Pictures releases the seventh volume of
Three Stooges shorts on November 10, 2009.
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Stooge Topics in Introduction to Probability and
Statistics at ETSU
From the short Violent is the Word for Curly.
Source http//www.threestooges.net/episode.php?id
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Stooge Topics in Introduction to Probability and
Statistics

• Data Visualization Pie charts and pie fights,
  histograms and slaps/film, stem plots and
  slaps/film.
• Normal Distribution slaps/film assuming a normal
  distribution, percentiles versus number of slaps.
• Correlation Scatterplots of length of film
  versus year correlation vs. causation.
• Regression Length of film vs. year, residuals,
  lurking variables.

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Minitab Output of Average Length of a Short
versus Year
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Stooge Topics in Introduction to Probability and
Statistics (cont.)

• Designing Experiments Do women hate the Stooges
  (individuals, factors, treatments, response
  variables)?
• Tests of Significance Stating null and
  alternative hypotheses for favorite third Stooge
  (and computations based on hypothetical data),
  p-values and z-scores for slaps/film data.
• Inference Test which third Stooge was hit most
  (per film), proportion test of victim of Moes
  violence.

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An Example of a Hypothesis Test and a Data
Gathering Experience
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Online Folklore Concerning Joe Besser
From Everything2.com Unfortunately, Joe had it
written into his contract that he couldnt be
hit, which forced Larry to take the brunt of
Moe's aggression and totally threw off the team's
comedic timing. Joe's man-child routine also
didn't gel with the styles of Moe and Larry and
it quickly became annoying. As a result, the 16
Stooge shorts that starred Joe are considered to
be some of the worst in the lot and are generally
hated by Stooge fans everywhere.
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Online Folklore Concerning Joe Besser
(continued)
From IMDB (Trivia) He is said to have ruined
The Three Stooges' comic timing by refusing to
allow Moe Howard, the Stooge-in-Chief as it were,
to slap him The trouble was that he didn't like
to be hit, so Larry told him that he would take
the hits for him.
From WikiPedia Fans who had grown up enjoying
the physical antics of Curly and Shemp will often
have no use for delicate Joe. Stooge-a-polooza
TV host Rich Koz known in Chicago as the horror
movie host Svengoolie has even apologized on
the air before showing a Besser short
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An Example of a Research Project Based on Stooges
Films
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• 1. Identify a Problem
• What is the research question?
• What is the hypothesis?

Lets use Question Was Joe treated differently
with respect to the amount of Stooge violence he
received versus the other Stooges? Hypothesis
Joe was treated more gently than the other
Stooges.
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2. Review Existing Literature
There are a number of reputable Stooges
references in print. Several of them are written
by family and friends of the Stooge members.
Heres what they say about our hypothesis
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Chapter Seventeen Okay, but Only If
You Promise Not to Hit Me
But Joe made a couple of provisions before
joining the team. He insisted that his contract
include a clause preventing Moe or Larry from
slapping, hitting, or in any way hurting him Moe
and Larry had no objection whatsoever to that
request. In fact, Larry even told Joe that he
was used to getting beaten up for a living, and
would gladly take twice as much punishment to
make up for Besser. (page 103)
The Stooges Lost Episodes by Tom and Jeff
Forrester (Contemporary Books, 1988).
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If anyone should dare strike him back - however
lightly - he would wave his hands in the air and
squeal, Ow! That huuuuuuuuuuuuurts! This, in
many ways, reflected the man's true nature, as
Besser hated being hit Fearing potential
injury, he insisted that his contract stipulate
that he not be struck or harmed in any way during
the making of the shorts. (page 25)
Stooges Among Us edited by Lon and Debra Davis
(BearManor Media, 2008).
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And now in his own voice
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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But did Columbia Pictures honor the clause?
Harry Cohn promises the skittish newcomer that
he will never be hit or injured during the making
of a Stooge comedy - but it's a promise that Cohn
quickly reneges on, ordering Jules White to
treat Joe Besser no different than you would
any other comic. (page 155)
The Three Stooges The Triumph and Tragedies of
The Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time by Jeff
and Tom Forrester (Donaldson Books, 2004).
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3. Develop a Research Design
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We will gather data from the Three Stooges films.
In order to simplify the data gathering, we will
concentrate on the behavior of Moe as the
instigator of violence. Since Curly is widely
held as the most popular Stooge, we will compare
how Moe treats him versus how Moe treats Joe.
This leads us to the explicit hypothesis
The average number of violent acts by Moe
against Curly per film is greater than the
average number of violent acts by Moe against
Joe.
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4. Data Collection Process
There are 97 films with Curly as the third
Stooge. This is too many films to watch in a
reasonable amount of time. So we will take a
random sample of 10 of the 97 films and watch
these 10. Since there are only 16 films with Joe
as the third Stooge, we simply watch all 16 of
these. While watching the films, we will count
each time Moe hits, pokes, slaps, bumps, etc. the
third Stooge. These counts will form the data
for a statistical test.
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A Bird in the Head
The 89th Columbia Pictures Three Stooges film
this was released in 1946. This short is classic
Stooges and has the boys wall-papering a room. We
watch from the beginning to 108 and 236 to 551
(423 total).
Count the number of times Moe hits, pokes, slaps,
or is otherwise violent to Curly.
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(No Transcript)
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How many acts of violence by Moe aimed at Curly
did you count?
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Space Ship Sappy
The 178th Columbia Pictures Three Stooges film,
this was released in 1957. The Stooges board a
spaceship thinking it is a sailing ship. Notice
the special effects! We watch from 400 to 617
(217 total).
Count the number of times Moe hits, pokes, slaps,
or is otherwise violent to Joe.
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(No Transcript)
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How many acts of violence by Moe aimed at Joe did
you count?
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5. Data Analysis
From http//www.collider.com/dvd/reviews/article.
asp/aid/5899/tcid/3
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We find that the average number of times Moe is
violent towards Joe is 2.9 times per film. In
the sample we used, the average number of times
which Moe is violent towards Curly is 14.3 times
per film.
Nice!
A statistical test (a t-test) implies that this
data gives us a level of confidence of 99.6 in
the hypothesis
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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6. Reporting of the Results
The results of this study appear in the
education-oriented publication Hypothesis
Testing Using the Films of the Three Stooges
which is to appear in Teaching Statistics. It
can be found online at http//www.etsu.edu/math/g
ardner/stooges/Hypothesis Testing with the Three
Stooges-9-21-2008.doc
A less technical version is Adding it Up The
Three Stooges in the College Classroom, The Three
Stooges Journal, Volume 127, Fall 2008, pages
6-7. A version is online http//www.etsu.edu/mat
h/gardner/stooges/Three Stooges in the College
Classroom.doc
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7. Conclusion and Limitation of Findings
We were interested in the overall violence that
Joe endures, but we only counted the acts of
violence by Moe (and ignored Larry and all of the
non-Stooge characters). We compared Joe to Curly,
and perhaps should have compared the numbers for
Joe to the numbers for Shemp (or maybe Curly and
Shemp combined). We counted number of acts of
violence per film. Are all of the films the same
length? (No!) Are the films independent? (No!) We
have not clearly defined what an act of
violence is. As you saw, this makes the data
collection a bit imprecise.
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Questions?
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Thank You!
From http//www.lunkhead.net/