Using the Three Stooges as a Data-Source for Motivation of Statistics Students �

Robert Davidson and Bob Gardner

Department of Mathematics

Online at: http://www.etsu.edu/math/gardner/stooges/stooges-statistics.htm

ETSU Department of Physics and Astronomy Seminar, September 29, 2008

Pending Telescope Anniversaries:

Hans Lippershey announces his invention of the telescope:

October 2, 1608

(http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/400thAnniversary/TelescopeAnniv400.html)

Galileo makes his telescopes and turns them to the night sky: 1609

400 Years

100 Years

First light for the Mount Wilson 60 inch telescope : December 8, 1908.

60 Years

Dedication of the Palomar 200 inch Hale telescope:

June 3, 1948.

This is a month after the release of the Stooge short Fiddlers Three and a month before the release of The Hot Scots.

Is there a Stooge astronomy connection?

In the 1939 We Want Our Mummy, Moe uses a telescope to look off in the distance…

…and then hits Larry in the head with it.

The Six Three Stooges

Moe Howard

Larry Fine

Curly Howard

Shemp Howard

Joe Besser

Joe DeRita

The Three Stooges

1. As a group, they were in show business for almost 50 years.
2. They made 190 “shorts” with Columbia Pictures.
3. They had their third short, Men in Black (1934), nominated for an Academy Award.
4. They had 4 different people in the role of “the third Stooge.”
5. They were the first to lampoon Adolph Hitler, in You Nazty Spy (1940).

A Brief History of the Three Stooges

Opening slide for the early Three Stooges films

From: http://www.idivimage.com/files/jwfzehyj2mmummdwn4mr.jpg

Larry, Moe and Curly: 97 shorts between 1934 and 1947.

THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE POPULATIONS FROM WHICH WE SAMPLE!!!

From: http://www.a-1video.com/talking.htm

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!!!

Opening slide used complements of Sony Pictures.

Larry, Moe, and Joe: 16 shorts between 1957 and 1959.

THIS WILL BE ONE OF THE POPULATIONS WITH WHICH WE DEAL!!

Opening slide for the Three Stooges films from the Joe Besser era

From: http://www.threestooges.net/

Moe Howard

(June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975)

1. The Alpha Stooge.
2. Was the dominant and aggressive Stooge in the shorts.
3. He was an excellent businessman and tried hard to treat everyone fairly.
4. He called Curly “Babe” and tried to help him keep his financial and health issues in order.

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From: http://www.threestooges.net/

Larry Fine

(October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975)

1. The most underrated Stooge.
2. Starred in the first Stooge short Woman Haters.
3. “The Stooge in the middle.”
4. He played a Marlon Brando caricature in Cuckoo on a Choo Choo.
5. One side of his face was calloused because of the constant barrage of slaps.

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Curly Howard

(October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952)

1. The most popular Stooge.
2. Onstage persona was completely different from his offstage persona.
3. His life was a mess because of his marriages (four of them), drinking, and over eating.
4. Curly’s last short was “Hold that Lion.” It was a cameo with Shemp, Larry, and Moe.

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Curly from: http://www.stoogeworld.com/_Biographies/Curly.htm

Hold That Lion from: http://www.threestooges.com/news/article.asp?intNewsID=85

From: http://www.threestooges.net/

Shemp Howard

(March 17, 1895 – November 23, 1955)

1. Some Stooge experts claim that he was the first and best stooge.
2. He appeared in numerous motion pictures before his Stooge days.
3. He died of a heart attack in the back of a car in 1955. He was coming back from a boxing match.

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From: Wikipedia.

Joe Besser

(August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988)

1. He was the second choice to replace Shemp.
2. Contrary to popular belief, Joe did get along with Moe and Larry.
3. He was invited to stay on as a Stooge, but decided to take care of his wife instead.

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An advertisement from the 1947 Johnson City Press-Times (Tennessee) for a personal appearance by the Three Stooges on October 25, 1947.

Popular Culture as a Pedagogical Aid

“Educators are extremely interested in using popular culture to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics. Large audiences attending related talks at national mathematics meetings and colleges across the nation, including some that are standing room-only, provide evidence of that claim.

…Capitalizing on student enjoyment of popular culture can alleviate math anxiety, energize shy and quiet students, and provide a creative introduction to an in-depth study of the related mathematics.”

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Sarah Greenwald and Andrew Nestler, “Using Popular Culture in the Mathematics and Mathematics Education Classroom,” PRIMUS, 14(1), 1-4, 2004.

PRIMUS:

Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies

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Dr. Sarah Greenwald, Appalachian State University, uses the Simpsons and Futurama to motivate math students.

Images from Wikipedia, Sarah Greenwald’s webpages, and Andrew Nestler’s webpages.

Dr. Greenwald, has recently received some notoriety for her work!

The “Greenwaldian Theorem” from Bender’s Big Score.

Images from Wikipedia, Sarah Greenwald’s webpages, and Andrew Nestler’s webpages.

From: http://lunkhead.net/stoogepics/stoogepics1.html

The Three Stooges: Who, by comparison, could suffer from any intellectual anxiety?

Are the Three Stooges Still Relevant?

“…the Three Stooges, whose popularity has continued relatively unabated since the early days of television. …This popularity has undoubtedly been greatest among the Baby Boomer generation, the first children raised with television.”

Quote from the preface of Stoogeology: Essays on the Three Stooges, edited by Peter Seely and Gail Pieper. McFarland & Company, 2007.

(http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=13498)

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.

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Those able to name the Three Stooges: 73%

Those able to name the three branches of government: 42%

(http://www.constitutioncenter.org/CitizenAction/CivicResearchResults/NCCTeens'Poll.shtml)

A 1998 survey by the National Constitution Center asked the same questions of American teenagers.

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Those able to name the Three Stooges: 59%

Those able to name the three branches of government: 41%

Sony Pictures released the first volume of Three Stooges shorts in October 2007.

The second volume was released in May 2008.

The third volume was released in August 2008.

Volume four will be released next week on October 7, 2008.

The first four volumes include all but the last few Curly episodes.

Are the Three Stooges worthy of consideration in an academic setting?

A flurry of academic research aimed at the Three Stooges occurred between 1990 and 1995 through the Popular Culture Association. Seventeen papers were presented at PCA conferences in this time interval. The papers were mostly cultural and addressed the art of comedy, World War II propaganda films, the use (and misuse) of language, and the roles of African Americans and women in Stooges’ films.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers: 2007.

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“…this volume provides an in-depth look at their comedy and its impact on twentieth century art, culture and thought. The essays reveal new insights into the language, literary structure, politics, race, gender, ethnicity and even psychology of the classic shorts. …the elements of surrealism… The portrayal of women and minorities…”

Quote from the back cover of Stoogeology.

Statistical Tests

In a nutshell, the nature of a statistical test is:

1. to hypothesize a certain relationship within a population or between two or more populations,
2. to take a random sample from the population(s), and
3. to calculate the probability of the random sample(s) being drawn when the hypothesis is assumed to be true.

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The desired outcome is to get the probability from (3) which is small. In this event, the hypothesis is rejected in favor of its alternative.

The Nature of Statistics

First, an Example of a Statistical Test

For the sake of illustration, we now perform a test comparing the level of violence by Moe towards Curly to the level of violence by Moe against Shemp. We have no (stated) reason to suspect that there is a difference between these quantities.

From:http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews33/3_stooges_collection_vol._1.htm

From:http://lunkhead.net/stoogepics/mls/stoogepics2.html

Suspecting no difference we perform a two-tailed test. This gives the following null and alternative hypotheses:

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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 Shemp."

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H_a: "The average number of violent acts by Moe against Curly per episode is different than the average number of violent acts by Moe against Shemp."

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A two-tailed test leads to a relationship between the p-value and t-statistic as follows.

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Ten RANDOMLY selected Shemp episodes and Ten RANDOMLY selected Curly episodes were chosen. The number of acts of violence by Moe to these Stooges is as follows:

Shemp

Curly

Average: x₁ = 10.3

Average: x₂ = 14.3

Episode (episode #) # of acts

Episode (episode #) # of acts

The sample standard deviation, s, of a sample of size n is:

This yields the following sample standard deviations and variances from our data:

Shemp

s₁ = 6.2191 s₁² = 38.7

Curly

s₂ = 10.4568 s₂² = 109.3

The t statistic for this data is calculated as:

From the above data, we have:

t = -1.0397

The two sample t-test assumes that samples are taken from a normal distribution. Given the means and standard deviations of our samples, this is a reasonable assumption.

Since we have no reason to suspect a difference between the amount of violence from Moe to Curly or from Moe to Shemp, we test for a difference and perform a two-tailed test with t = -1.0397.

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Excel gives a p-value for this data of:

p = 0.3150.

This means that we could reject the null hypothesis, but only with confidence

(1- p) x 100% = 68.50%.

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A level of confidence of 69% is generally considered insufficient (with the “industry standard” level of confidence set at a minimum of 95%). This means that we should fail to reject the null hypothesis that the means are the same. This does not mean that we accept the null hypothesis, but that we find the data insufficient to give a conclusive decision.

Conclusion?

From: http://www.nndb.com/people/972/000047831/

Motivating a Hypothesis and Student Data Gathering

“To [Joe] Besser’s 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/3stooges75yrs.html

From: http://www.threestooges.net/

“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 ‘don’t worry Joe, I’ll take it.’ Now that’s the kind of guys they were.”

From Stooges: The Men Behind the Mayhem, (DVD) Mackinac Media, 2004.

The null hypothesis is:

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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."

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The alternative hypothesis is:

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H_a: "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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Since we suspect that the average for Curly is greater than the average for Joe, we perform a one-tailed test.

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Now, You Gather the Data

Ten RANDOMLY selected Curly episodes were chosen. The number of acts of violence by Moe to Curly is as follows:

Curly

Joe

The plus signs (+) indicate that the data for these episodes are incomplete. You will complete these data sets soon.

Episode (episode #) # of acts

Episode (episode #) # of acts

We have watched 15 out of 16 of the Joe episodes and counted 39 relevant acts of violence. For the remaining episode, we have:

We now watch brief 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.

Moe

Curly

Joe

Three Missing Links (2:56)

Columbia short number 34, costarring Curly.

The Stooges clean the office of a movie executive and Curly is hired as an animal impersonator. This includes some classic Stooge activity!

Uncivil Warriors (2:28)

Columbia short number 8, costarring Curly.

The boys are union soldiers acting as spies on the Confederate Army. This is one of their many historical pieces.

Flying Saucer Daffy (4:58)

Columbia short number 187, costarring Joe.

An homage to both Cinderella and Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers. Larry and Moe steal a photo from Joe of a flying saucer.

We now compute a t value based on the collected data. The formula is:

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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

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Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis:

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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"

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And accept the alternative hypothesis

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H_a: "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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With confidence (1-p) x 100% = 99.xx%

From:http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=51309234&epmid=3&partner=Google

Why, Soitenly!

Nice!

Other Stooge Applications

• Comparison of level of violence between different directors/writers.
• Amount of violence aimed at Larry – did he get more in the Joe episodes?
• A regression analysis of the level of violence as a function of time.
• Use of the Finite Population Correction factor.

Possible Problems

• Technical difficulties (having the DVDs play properly).
• The availability of the episodes in a random sample (especially the Joe Bessers).
• Copyright issues.
• Occasional political incorrectness.

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Possible Problems (cont.)

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This is contradicted by the “Women Who Run With The Stooges” website at: http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/stoogelovers/

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• The idea that “women hate the Stooges.”

Student Impressions of this Project

A questionnaire was given in a variety of classes after the presentation of this problem. The questionnaire is designed to be similar to the ETSU Student Assessment of Instruction (SAI) survey.

The classes involved are:

• Introduction to Probability and Statistics (MATH 1530) April 24, 2008
• Introduction to Probability and Statistics (MATH 1530) August 1, 2008
• Quantitative Methods II (ECON 2080) March 19, 2008
• Quantitative Methods II (ECON 2080) March 24, 2008
• Statistics for Criminal Justice and Criminology (CJCR 3000) June 23, 2008

This yields a population of 86 students.

1. I knew about the Three Stooges before today’s presentation.
2. The Three Stooges are silly and do not belong in this classroom.
3. I would prefer that today’s class time had been spent on a traditional lecture.

4. Today’s presentation included real world data.

5. Today’s presentation helped me understand the concept of a random sample.

6. Today’s presentation helped me understand the concept of a confidence interval.

7. Today’s presentation helped me understand the concept of a hypothesis test.

8. Today’s 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.

But can you really generate an interest in this stuff?

We have the following two works in press:

1. Adding it Up: The Three Stooges in the College Classroom, The Three Stooges Journal, Volume 127, Fall 2008, pages 6-7. (Not refereed.)
2. Hypothesis Testing Using the Films of the Three Stooges, Teaching Statistics, to appear. (Refereed.)

Questions?

References

1. Cox, Steve and Terry, Jim. One Fine Stooge – Larry Fine’s Frizzy Life in Pictures. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2006.
2. Fleming, Michael. The Three Stooges-An Illustrated History. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.
3. 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.
4. Howard, Moe. Moe Howard & The 3 Stooges. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1977.
5. Lenburg, J., Maurer, J.H., and Lenburg, G. The Three Stooges Scrapbook. Citadel Press, 1983.
6. 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/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/ef/e6.pdf
7. Seely, Peter and Pieper, Gail, editors. Stoogeology: Essays on the Three Stooges. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2007.

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From: http://www.lunkhead.net/

Special thanks to Rafie Baghozian, Robert Beeler, and Steve Brown for letting us infiltrate their classes!