How Emperor's New Groove Beat The Field
Mouse Madness is an interesting case study of Quality by Popular Vote, and also a key subversion of it. Much of the results had to do with the placement of the films. Would you really say the film was your favorite? Or was it just preferred to the one it was up against? The story involved many twists and turns, not unlike the real Mouse Madness, as it hit the final.
Seeds for the tournament were determined by a combination of a film's score on IMDB and Metacritic. Since Beauty and the Beast had the highest combined average, i.e. the most balance between critical and popular consensus, it was deemed the #1 overall seed. However, it was also the only #1 seed not to win a game. The Emperor's New Groove upset Beauty and the Beast as a #9 seed by a score of 20-10. The film may have appealed to a more niche audience, but they were the ones who showed up and voted for it. It is possible this film may have just been attractive to people trying to look for an ironic victory. This underdog win led to a cycle for which Groove could ride the wave to the end. The victory allowed more people to revisit the film, leading it to gain more voters. Said voters would continue to support Groove and keep the film going, which would in turn attract more voters, and so forth. Despite its seed, this was the perfect film to lead to an upset victory. It was recent, but popular with enough people to give it support to go far.
In the end, it was The Emperor's New Groove which took home the title, in part because of sincerity, and in part because of its meme potential. The victory was celebrated in earnest with a great dose of surprise and admiration of the irony. But in the end, many of the hosts voted for it. This made the victory so satisfying and fun to watch. Not only did the votes speak for themselves, they did so in the most unorthodox fashion possible.
Statistical Analysis
As outlined by this video.
Voter Stats
- Average Per Round — 19 votes (15.36 excluding the Finals)
- Champion The Emperor's New Groove received both the most total votes (157; 26.17 excluding Final) and Average votes per round (77; 16.4 excluding Final)
- The six films to receive ZERO votes — #8A The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, #12A Fun and Fancy Free, #14A Saludos Amigos, #14C Dinosaur, #12D The Black Cauldron, and #6D Frozen II. All of which were naturally eliminated in the first round.
- Most Voted Film Eliminated in Round 1 — Lady and the Tramp (6 votes)
- Naturally, the #1 seeds performed the best, with them making the fourth round on average. Curiously, the 4 seeds did second best, with each of them making at least the third round.
- Six seeds were the lowest seeds where every film advanced at least one round. As a result, the 11's were the highest seed where each film lost.
Performance Stats
- The metric used factored in who beat whom and when, to justify performance esp. for films knocked out early.
- Worst Performer in Mouse Madness: Winnie the Pooh (2011). Lost to The Fox and the Hound in Round 1, which lost to Dumbo in Round 2, and so on.
