Emotional and Linguistic Analysis of Dialogue from Animated Comedies: Homer, Hank, Peter and Kenny Speak.
by
Rose Ann Ko2inski
Thesis presented as a partial requirement in the Master of Arts (M.A.) in Human Development
School of Graduate Studies Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario
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ABSTRACT
A sample of 2.8 million words from four adult animated comedies, (The
Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, South Park) and contrasting sample from
The Waltons and a variety of children's animated programs were collected electronically and entered for analysis of linguistic and emotional characteristics using the Whissell Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL). Results indicate that while between and within program differences were found on some DAL measures, a common profile of deviation from everyday English in certain word categories was also apparent. All six television program types showed normal values for Very Low Activation words and values from 50% to 100% higher than normal for Soft words. This suggests a style of English usage that may be characteristic of scripted dialogue. Mildly to strongly objectionable words were counted and several categories emerged based on frequency and word characteristics. Results suggest that 'fart' may be a marker for comedy.
'Ass' showed the greatest variety in usage. IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Cynthia Whissell for years of encouragement, wisdom, patience, and practical support, and for sharing the
Dictionary of Affect in Language with me.
I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Persinger for giving academic shelter to an orphan of the storm many years ago, then teaching me to believe that new things were within my reach.
Finally, I sincerely thank my mother. She read me stories when I was very young, and when I got older she let me 'stay up late and watch TV.' V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Television and Animation History 2 1.1.1 Television 3 1.1.2 Animation 6 1.2 Language Corpora 8 1.3 Analysis of Emotion in Language 12
2. CURRENT STUDY 16 2.1 Objectives 16 2.2 Sample 16 2.3 Data Collection 20 2.4 Data Preparation 21 2.5 Measures 22 2.5.1 Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) 22 2.5.2 Frequencies of Special Words 28 2.6 Analysis 30 2.7 Research Questions 32
3. RESULTS 33 3.1 Comparisons Within One Genre 34 3.2 Comparison to a Related Genre 44 3.3 Comparing Different Genres 46 3.4 Changes over Time 53 3.5 Objectionable Words Across Programs 57 3.6 Objectionable Words Within Programs 61 VI
4. DISCUSSION 63 4.1 Computeri2ed collection of language data from visual media 63 4.2 Establishing Procedures for Analysis 65 4.2.1 Text Preparation 65 4.2.2 Transfer of Data from Preliminary (word level) Analysis 67 4.3 Large Scale DAL Analysis Based on Episode Means 68 4.3.1 Similarities and Differences Relative to Norms 68 4.3.2 Genre versus Age Group 72 4.3.3 Surprising Similarity 75 4.3.4 Objectionable Words 76 4.3.5 Subtle Patterns 79
5. FUTURE DIRECTIONS 81
6. CONCLUSION 85
7. REFERENCES 86
APPENDICES I Table of Programs/Episodes included in the analysis 90 II Objectionable words: List, procedures and comments 114 Vll
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Adoption of television in the United Stated of America 3
2. Felix the Cat as broadcast and under studio lights 5
3. Broadcast periods for adult animated comedies analysed. 17
4. Dictionary of Affect in Language scatterplot of Activation versus Pleasantness, with normative axes indicated 23
5. Diagram of circumplex of derived emotional measures of Dictionary of Affect in Language. 25
6. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for The Simpsons. 33
7. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for King of the Hill, with The Simpsons background. 34
8. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for Family Guy, with The Simpsons background. 34
9. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for South Park, with The Simpsons background. 35
10. Mean percent above or below normative values for the
four programs on the eight derived emotional variables 35
11. Imagery means for the four programs, with standard error bars. 38
12. Mean percent above or below normative mean for Very Low
and Very High imagery words for the four programs. 39
13. Mean Word Length for the four programs with standard error. 39
14. Mean Word Count for the four programs with standard error. 40 15. Mean percent words matched to the DAL for the four
programs, with standard error 41
16. Mean Activation for all episodes of 2007-2008 season. 42
17. Adult animated comedies and KidToons compared on eight derived emotional measures. 45 18. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for The Waltons, with The Simpsons background 46
19. The Simpsons and The Waltons compared on eight derived emotional variables. 48
20. Mean percent above or below normative mean for Very Low and Very High Imagery words in The Simpsons and The Waltons 49
21. Changes in derived emotional variables over time for The Simpsons 53
22. Changes in derived emotional variables over time for Yang of the Hill 54
23. Changes in derived emotional variables over time for Family Guy 55
24. Changes in derived emotional variables over time for South Park 56
25. Changes in derived emotional variables over time for The Waltons 57
26. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 1 61
27. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 3 62
28. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 7 62
29. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 10 62
30. Mean percent above/below normative mean for the eight derived emotional variables for all six programs in circumplex form. 71 ix
31. Scatterplot of children's cartoons (KidToons) with all adult animated programs in background. 73
32. Scatterplot of all 922 episodes of the four programs with area of high density indicated. 80 X
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Highlights of television development and adoption by public. 4
2. Canadian Television Ratings with US counterparts 17
3. Pleasantness, Activation and Imagery scores for six words. 24
4. Example words from the ten derived variables. 26
5. Means for Pleasantness and Activation for the four programs. 32
6. Means for derived emotional variables for the four programs 37 7. F ratios for between program variance comparisons on the 42 three scored DAL variables.
8. Comparison of adult animated comedies and KidToons 44 on DAL measures
9. Means for derived emotional variables for The Simpsons and The Waltons 49
10. Zero order and Partial Correlations among Match rate,
Very Common words and Zero Frequency words. 51
11. Total frequencies for mildly objectionable words. 58
12. Total frequencies for the B insults 59
13. Total frequencies for Body Part/Function words. 59
14. Total frequencies for unspecified censored words 59
15. Frequency of strongly objectionable words for the only program in which they appeared - South Park. 59 16. Frequency of fart as spoken word, sound described as fart, or euphemism used either in speech or description. 60 1
1. INTRODUCTION
The western tradition of dramatic storytelling dates from Ancient Greece. Plays such as Lysistrata and Oedipus could be classified as comedies or tragedies and were attended by rich and poor alike. Since some texts have survived, these stories are still enjoyed by diverse audiences. In the current era, television is, arguably, the most ubiquitous and accessible source of dramatic storytelling.
Television programs also may be classified as comedies or tragedies, are accessible to both rich and poor and, through re-runs and/or 'remakes', the stories continue to be enjoyed by a variety of audiences over many years. (I Love
Lucy and The Honeymooners can still be seen weekly, fifty years after the programs were first broadcast in the early years of commercial television.)
Along with their entertainment value, the preserved texts of the ancient Greek comedies and tragedies stand as a record of the words that formed the language of that time as well as their use in scripted dialogue. As such they are valuable to historians and linguists. If similarly preserved, the texts of television programs may serve the same purpose for the language of the current era in the future. Not only have television programs reported technological and social changes such as space travel, globalization, and the Information Age, but such changes are reflected in the language of the comedic and dramatic stories the 2 medium has presented. The research discussed in this paper represents a first step in the large scale documentation and analysis of the language of television by selecting one long-running program (The Simpsons) and contrasting it to others in its genre (animated adult comedies - King of the Hill, Family Guy, South
Park) and to other genres (children's animated prograrnming, family drama).
The analysis encompasses both emotional and structural characteristics quantified using the Whissell Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL)
(Whissell, 2009), as well as a special language category (offensive words).
A new method of data acquisition enlarged the scope of the study several orders of magnitude beyond previous analysis of television texts (Whissell,
1998a) to the point that no truly comparable literature is available. The sections that follow provide relevant information regarding the history of television and animation, language corpora, and the Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL).
1.1 Television and Animation History
A brief overview of the history of television broadcasting is provided below, along with some historical background on animation and the union of these two technology-driven forms of entertainment that provided the source material for this thesis. 1.1.1 Television
Television technology was developed very shortly after radio, but its widespread adoption in North America was delayed for several decades.
Initially this was due to the greater complexity and higher cost of technology for transmission and household reception, later domestic life was interrupted during World War II (Settel & Laas, 1969). Once the post-war recovery was firmly established, however, the adoption of television was remarkably rapid.
The 40.5 million children born in this 'baby boom' era were outnumbered by the 70 million television sets sold (Ott, 2007). Figure 1 graphically presents the technology adoption rate and Table 1 outlines some milestones.
100 i H> 90 1 80 r
Mi l 70 E Q. 60 IE 50 40 er s i 30 • 20 >o • ^ t- 10 - A ~"i™ U Hl^ i i i 1 1 1 1 i 1 I^I i i i i i i i i i i 1^ O) —, CO m i^ O) T- co in i^ O) CO CO "* •
Figure 1. Adoption of television in United States of America. An exponential curve fits the data best. 4
Table 1. Highlights of television development and adoption by public. (Sources: Grun, 1991; Settel & Laas, 1969) Year Event 1862 'Photo-telegrams' of handwriting transmitted 1884 Paul Nipkow designs first television mechanism based on scanning lines 1925 J.L. Baird: First transmission of recognizable human features by television 1928 First demonstration of colour TV 1928 First scheduled television broadcasts by WGY, Schenectady, NY 1933 Philo Farnsworth develops electronic television 1938 20,000 TV sets in service in New York City 1939 Opening of New York World's Fair telecast 1948 TV's first big hit: The Texaco Star Theatre, with Milton Berle 1950 1.5 million TV sets in USA 1951 15 million TV sets in USA, Colour television first introduced 1954 29 million TV sets in USA 1957 Bing Crosby Enterprises, Ampex, and RCA develop video tape so that entertainers need not perform two telecasts for primetime in different time zones. 1960 85 million TV sets in USA (US population 179.3 million) 1961 FCC chairman Newton Minow, calls television a 'vast wasteland' 1965 First spacewalk by an American is broadcast 1966 Colour TV becomes popular 1970 TV sets in use throughout the world estimated at 231 million 1980 The question of'who shot JR?' is a worldwide phenomenon. And Dallas has the highest ratings ever for a regular television series (88.6 million viewers) 1987 First sketch featuring The Simpsons airs on The Tracy XJllman Show 1989 First satellite TV station begins transmission 2009 Analog broadcasting replaced by digital in USA 5
The histories of television and animation intersect early in television history.
Felix the Cat, an animated character from silent films, was the subject of some of the first television transmission experiments in the United States in the late
1920s via a paper mache model placed on a phonograph turntable (Figure 2).
Later, NBC's first full evening of programming in 1939 included the Disney cartoon Donald's Cousin Gus (Butler, 2007; Settel & Laas, 1969).
Figure 2. Felix the Cat as broadcast (left) and under studio lights (right) (Photos from Felix the Cat website: http://www.felixthecat.com/history) 6
1.1.2 Animation
The first animated motion pictures were produced before the era of sound. The early appearance of animation in the medium is not surprising because motion pictures are a succession of still photographs and animated films are a succession of drawings. An advantage of drawing is that the limitations of reality can be exceeded and, indeed, the silent-movie era's first animated film,
Gertie the Dinosaur, was set in prehistory. The expense involved in producing 16-
20 unique drawings for every second of film limited the development of animated films, but by the early 1930's patent issues which had delayed the widespread use of a technology that reduced the number of drawings required had been settled. Around the same time sound had been added to motion pictures and cartoons took full advantage of the fact that they could be synchronized precisely to a musical soundtrack more easily than live action. So closely was the structure of early cartoons tied to music that the early series were entitled Silly Symphonies, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. These early cartoon shorts starring now-famous characters such as Bugs Bunny, Popeye, and Woody Woodpecker were produced by motion picture studios to run between features in their theatre chains as part of the continuous-program format popular at the time (movie features and cartoon shorts were shown repeatedly without break throughout the day). The transfer of these cartoons to television took place because motion picture studios were forced to sell their chains of theatres in the years just before the wide adoption of television in the 1950s. Without guaranteed audiences, the studios shut down their relatively expensive animation production departments and sold their cartoon libraries to television networks that now needed material to fill broadcast time. Some animators set up new companies to produce material specifically for television.
The nature of television had some impact on narrative and visual aspects of animation. A heavily outlined style of drawing was established in the early years of television animation because it helped compensate for what might often be poor quality broadcast signal. Story structure had to change too, because now, rather than unfolding continuously in about eight minutes, stories had to be told in segments to allow for commercial interruption while holding the viewer's interest throughout such breaks during a half-hour time slot. The
Hanna-Barbera studios were particularly successful during this era, and produced the first prime-time animated series, The Flintstones.
When The Flintstones ended its 1960 to 1966 run, animation disappeared from primetime, but flourished in the Saturday morning children's programming timeslot. Ironically animation's return to primetime began with an echo of its 8 past - the need for filler material between segments of a main feature. In this case the main feature was The Tracy Ullman show, and the filler material was short sketches featuring a comically dysfunctional family called The Simpsons.
In the years since The Simpsons initiated the renaissance of adult animation, television has changed drastically. Currently there several other animated programs broadcast in primetime (notably King of the Hill, Family Guy, and
American Dad) on 'over the air' networks. In addition there are cable networks that include animated programs in their schedule, or carry nothing but animated programs. Both Canada and the United States have networks with cartoons exclusively for young children, a comedy network that broadcasts the adult animated program South Park, and other sources of animated programs for a range of ages and tastes.
1.2 Language Corpora
The large collections of words used in the study of language are known as corpora. A brief discussion of corpus building and its relevance to this thesis follows. 9
Studies of language often examine frequency and patterning of words and word combinations. A particular word existing as a unique entity is called a 'type', and each instance of a word in natural language is referred to as a 'token'. The phrase 'handsome is as handsome does' contains four types but five tokens because the word 'handsome' appears twice.
Utilizing a corpus of words in research allows for less reliance on subjective impressions, better standardization and objective quantification of the subject of interest. A relatively small corpus may suffice if circumscribed linguistic phenomena such as specialized terms used in car racing are the subject of study, however a much larger corpus would be needed in order to have sufficient data to study social or historical differences in linguistic patterns or infrequent phenomena. Advances in technology have made it possible in recent decades to amass natural language corpora containing millions of words (Carter
& McCarthy, 2004; de la Cruz, 2003; McEnery & Xiao, 2004).
The applications of corpora include: documentation of a national language
(Douglas, 2003; Kucera, 2002); the study or teaching of conversational style
(Brown & Lewis, 2003; Carter & McCarthy, 2004); detection of language patterns related to specific social contexts (Cotterill, 2004); enhanced efficiency 10 of voice recognition technology (Nishimura & Itoh, 2003); and provision of norms for neurological testing of language perception (Wendt, et al., 2003).
A corpus built from spoken language rather than written texts involves two additional processes. Not only must the stimulus be translated from patterned pressure wave to visual pattern for storage and future access, but interpretive judgments must often be made as well. Transcribing from audio to graphic form may be likened to producing a printed text from one that was handwritten - often with poor penmanship. A familiar example is the misinterpretation of song lyrics. Copy typing the phrase 'Rock the Casbah' from a lyric sheet is unlikely to involve error. Although this is an unusual combination of words, they appear on the page in black and white, requiring no interpretation. Someone listening to the song, however, may sing along using the words 'stock the cash bar' or 'lock the cat box'. Accents, rapid speech, unfamiliar words, idioms, background noise, and inferior sound quality may add a substantial degree of difficulty, judgment and error to a process that, even under favourable circumstances requires processing for correct spelling and choice of correct word in the case of homonyms.
Spoken language corpora are of great interest, however, as speech may be the more common form of language exposure. Literacy is not a requirement for the 11 consumption of audio-visual texts and there is great potential for passive exposure in a social environment. One must exert some effort to read over the shoulder of another, but family members can hear one another's television programs even if they are not watching. Indeed, one may sometimes wish for
'earlids' in order to avoid such passive exposure.
In the past five or six decades hundreds of thousands of hours of spoken language have been broadcast as part of television programming. A corpus of such language might have interesting uses, but transcripts have been available for only a very small percentage of television programs and often these are programs intended to informative rather than entertain. A transcript-based sample would be biased and of limited utility. In order to obtain a broad, representative sample of language from broadcast or cable television, the spoken words from many different program types would have to be transcribed into written form. As discussed above, this is an arduous and time-consuming process. It is, however, the process involved in providing closed captioning, which is now legally required for almost all television provided through cable service or over the public airways in North America. If this real-time stream of text could be harnessed, a large corpus could be built in a relatively short time.
Such an undertaking was begun by the author in the fall of 2006, using specialized hardware and a household computer. Within two years the Kozinski 12
Corpus has grown to approximately 50 million words captured from visual media (television and motion pictures) from 'over the air' and cable broadcasters as well as commercially available recordings. A subsample from the corpus was analysed for this thesis.
1.3 Analysis of Emotion in Language
This section outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the main analytical tool used in the study. Specific details of the measures are discussed further in section 2.5.1.
One of the first works of literary analysis is Aristode's Poetics in which he divided literary works into the two emotional categories illustrated by the iconic theatre masks: tragedies (unhappy ending) and comedies (happy ending). Both type of stories could be 'simple' with direct uncomplicated trajectories (e.g. initially neutral situation goes from bad to worse) or 'complex' with trajectories that include a reversal of direction - the classic 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again' (Whissell, 2006).
In achieving their dramatic objectives, writers use carefully chosen language to stir the emotions. In studying facial expressions in humans, Osgood found that two dimensions, Pleasantness and Activation, could explain much of the 13 variance in ratings (Plutchick, 1980). Osgood's work also addressed meaning in language with respect to denotation versus connotation; that is, words with similar definitional meanings (denotation) may convey different emotional meaning (connotation). The words collide and crash are examples: the connotation of collide is fairly neutral, whereas crash has a more violent connotation. With respect to the two dimensions, crash is more active and unpleasant. In studying emotionally descriptive words, Russell proposed a circumplex model that was an analogue to a colour wheel with polar opposite pairs facing each other across a circle, flanked by their similar neighbours, and gradually mixing and forming blends at halfway marks (in Plutchick, 1980).
There is neuroimaging support for a two dimensional model of affect (Gerber, et al., 2008), as opposed to the basic emotions model which holds that humans have a basic set of emotions, each arising from separate neural structures. The mesolimbic dopaminergic system may be the neural basis for the pleasantness dimension, with differential activation in the right and left frontal lobes also associated with unpleasant and pleasant evaluations respectively. The arousal system is more diffuse, involving the sensory cortices, thalamus, reticular formation, frontal cortex and amygdala (Posner, Russell, & Peterson, 2005). 14
Applying these ideas, Cynthia Whissell created the Dictionary of Affect in
Language (DAL) (Sweeney & Whissell, 1984, Whissell, 2009). This quantitative tool provides scores for pleasantness and activation for almost 9,000 common
English words. The DAL also includes scores on a cognitive dimension based on the work of Pavio (Pavio & Begg, 1981). This third dimension, Imagery, reflects how easily the thing denotated by a word may be pictured mentally
(example: fiscal is very difficult to picture, but fish is very easy). The Whissell
DAL has been used to analyse such diverse texts as die comedies and tragedies of William Shakespeare (Whissell, 2007), the lyrics of Bob Dylan (Whissell,
2008b), and translations of early Christian writings (Whissel, 2008a).
Of course, many forms of text and narrative analysis exist and have been applied to television (Adorno, 1954; Buder, 2007; Ott, 2007) but it is objective, quantitative analysis of words on emotional, cognitive, and structural measures made possible by the DAL software that is the main focus of this thesis.
An additional aspect of linguistic analysis is word frequency, such as the number of times a key word appears in a politician's speech. Television programs are categorized as appropriate for certain age groups based, in part, on the frequency of very specific words or word categories that some viewers may find objectionable. This topic has received some attention in the literature 15
(Kaye & Sapolsky, 2001; 2004; Leverette, 2008; Sapolsky & Kaye, 2005, discussed in section 2.5.2). Given that these words not only serve to express strong emotion within a text, but exposure to them may provoke a strong emotional response from members of the listening audience, frequencies of potentially objectionable words are a suitable subject for analysis. 16
2. CURRENT STUDY
This section describes the objectives of this thesis and the sample of language studied, with specific descriptions of the sample's collection and preparation.
Details of the measures used are provided and the main research questions are set out.
2.1 Objectives
The purpose of this study was to use the DAL to analyze a sample from the
Kozinski Corpus with a view to: 1) exploring the research potential of the new method of data acquisition from audio-visual media; 2) establishing the procedures required to prepare the data for analysis; 3) quantitatively describing differences and similarities among the programs chosen using the emotional, cognitive and structural language measures from the DAL with entire episodes, rather than individual words, as the unit of analysis, 4) quantifying the use of objectionable words within the programs.
2.2 Sample
The Simpsons is now the longest running scripted series in the history of television. It therefore provides a challenge with regard to scale of analysis and 17 is an excellent subject for longitudinal analysis. Other animated comedies are appropriate choices for cross-program comparisons as differences would not be attributable to genre. Two other animated comedies, King of the Hi/land
Family Guy, are broadcast on the same network (Fox) and, currently, on the same night (Sunday), so extraneous differences due to network or day of broadcast should be minimal.
The three animated adult comedies chosen also form a natural continuum of style from the more realistic and modest King of the Hill, through The Simpsons which does not hesitate to stretch reality or challenge norms of political correctness for the sake of a joke, to multiple violations of reality and intentional offensiveness in Family Guy. The addition of South Park extends this continuum farther in the direction of fantastic situations and provocative vulgarity with characters such as Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo. South Park originated on cable, where standards permit more adult language and situations
(Leverette, 2008). A similar continuum is reflected in the broadcasters' ratings of the four programs. Some variability exists in ratings depending on broadcaster and content of episode, but both King of the Hill and The Simpsons are broadcast with either a PG or 14 rating, Family Guy carries a 14 rating, and
South Park is rated 14 or 18 (see Table 2). With The Simpsons in the central 18 position, these four programs comprise the main sample of interest. Their broadcast histories are depicted in Figure 3.
Table 2. Canadian Television Ratings with US counterparts. Description covers age and language restrictions only. Canadian Rating Description (US counterpart) C (Y) Children. No offensive language
C8 (Y7) Children 8 years and older. No profanity.
G (G) All age groups including children. Some inoffensive slang.
PG (PG) Supervised viewing. Infrequent mild profanity.
14+ (14) Age 14 and over. Could be frequent profanity.
18+ (MA) Age 18 and over. May contain graphic language.
Family Guy
South Park
King of the Hill
The Simpsons
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2(
Figure 3. Broadcast periods for adult animated comedies analysed. (Note that Family Guy was cancelled between 2002 and 2005.) 19
A sample from a different but related genre, animated programs for children, was also obtained. It consisted of 22 hours of episodes from 33 different animated programs [referred to as 'KidToons' in this document] rated for children or a general audience that includes children (ratings from C to G, see
Table 2). Choice of program for a highly contrasting sample was partly inspired by George H.W. Bush's 1992 campaign statement that 'we need a nation closer to the Waltons than the Simpsons' (quoted in Turner, 2004). The Waltons is a one hour, live-actor, uplifting family drama, set in the Great Depression, produced in the 1970's and aimed at a general audience. As such, it could be expected to show clear differences from the contemporary, adult, animated comedies that are the main focus of the analysis.
Every episode of The Simpsons was obtained on DVD (Seasons 1-11) or from broadcast (Seasons 12-19) for a total of 420 episodes. For King of the Hill, 225 out of 235 episodes from Seasons 1-12 were obtained. Seasons 1-6 were available on DVD, and seasons 7-12 were obtained from broadcasts. Between
87 and 100% of the episodes in most seasons could be obtained, but season 10 the figure was 67% as it had not fully entered the rebroadcast cycle. The double episode "Returning Japanese, Parts 1 <& 2" was split into its parts to keep episode length uniform. All episodes of Family Guy were obtained: Seasons 1-3 on
DVD; Seasons 4-6 from broadcast. The double length episode "Blue Harvest' 20 was split in half, resulting in a total of 112 episodes entered into the analysis.
South Park episodes were also a mixture of DVD (Seasons 1-5,10,11) and broadcast sources (Seasons 6-9) with 93% to 100% of the latter seasons obtained for a total of 165 out of 167 episodes. The Waltons was available on
DVD and Seasons 1 and 4 were chosen as these would represent periods during the program's early development and its maturity. Animated programs for children were selected based on broadcast source, broadcast time and target audience. They were obtained from both 'over the air' and cable network sources on Saturday and weekday mornings as well as during weekday after- school time slots. No programs carried an 'educational' label and none were judged to be produced for preschool children. A complete program and episode list is included as Appendix I.
2.3 Data Collection
A TextGrabber PC Based Closed Caption Decoder (Model GP500, Ravens
Ridge Design Industries, Hillsboro, OR) was used to decode the captions from the broadcast or DVD source and transfer them via Hyperterminal software to a text file in a personal computer running Windows 98. Broadcast signal was obtained through the local cable service provider (Persona Communications,
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada). Original broadcasts were on Fox affiliates in the 21
United States and Can West Global in Canada. Repeat broadcasts were on a mixture of public, private, or cable networks in Canada and the United States.
Purchased DVDs were played on household DVD players.
2.4 Data Preparation
The nature of closed captioning and the initial structure of the text files demanded some preparation prior to DAL analysis in order to ensure that dialogue only would be analysed. Extra spaces, some blank lines, and captioning credits were removed. The chevrons (>>) used in captioning to denote a new speaker were removed as were names inserted in the captioned text to identify a speaker (e.g Homer mmm...salty, was changed to: mmm... salty).
Style of closed captioning is somewhat variable but usually descriptions of sounds, music, or vocal quality are enclosed in square brackets. In some captioning styles speaker identifications are also placed within square brackets.
All spaces and non-alphabetic symbols within these brackets were removed
(e.g. [man #2, whispering/ was changed to [manwhisperingj'. This procedure ensured that the DAL program would not count any words within square brackets as part of the text to be analysed while preserving the text itself for non-DAL analysis (see section 3.5) 22
Imperfections in the signal may cause letters to drop out of the captions or signal interruption may cause brief sections of corrupted text. These were corrected by manually transcribing missing text while referring to the recording.
The words 'tv' and 'fbi' and 'ufo' are part of the DAL so when these appeared as 't.v.', 'f.b.i.' or 'u.f.o.' the notation style was altered to match the DAL spelling. The symbol'~' occasionally appears in Spanish words and it was changed to the letter n (i.e. se~or becomes senor). In one passage the letter 'i' was removed from the beginning of exclamations in Spanish where it had apparently been used to represent the inverted exclamation point.
Texts were compiled into seven files (The Simpsons, seasons 1-11; The Simpsons, seasons 12-19; King of the Hill; Family Guy; South Park; The Waltons, KidToons) for preliminary analysis.
2.5 Measures
2.5.1 Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL)
The original DAL word list was built from high frequency words from an existing corpus (The Brown University Corpus - Kucera and Francis, 1967) and later revised and enhanced by high frequency words from large samples of scripted and unscripted everyday English. Ecological validity of the sample was 23 ensured by continuing to add words from different samples until the DAL achieved an average 90% match rate to a variety of new samples of everyday
English. This point represented an asymptote and the DAL list stood at 8,742 words. Approximately 250,000 individual word ratings on the two emotional and one cognitive dimension were obtained from a large number of volunteers.
Anchors for ratings were 1 (unpleasant, passive, difficult to picture) and 3
(pleasant, active, easy to picture), for Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery respectively. The mean values obtained for each word on each of the three dimensions are embedded in the DAL software (Whissell, 2009).
Once quantitative measures for individual words was available it became possible to quantify the emotional and imagery characteristics of texts of any length. A broadly sampled corpus of 348,000 words provided norms against which new texts of interest could be compared (Pleasantness: 1.85;
Activation: 1.67 ; Imagery: 1.52) (Whissell, 1998b). Figure 4 shows a scatterplot of the emotional values for the 8,742 words in the dictionary with the normative means for natural English superimposed. (These normative values serve as the axes for figures in the results and discussion below.) Upon inspection it is evident that words rated as less active and less pleasant predominate both in the DAL list as types (shown by greater density of points in DAL space) and in everyday English where they appear repeatedly as tokens 24
(the normative means for both Pleasantness and Activation are lower than the median of the rating scale). Many of these are functional words such as prepositions.
Figure 4. Dictionary of Affect in Language scatterplot of Activation versus Pleasantness, with normative axes indicated.
The cardinal emotional measures, Pleasantness and Activation, are orthogonal and the paired values may be used to summarize the emotional characteristics of a text. The cognitive measure, Imagery, reflects style or structure, rather than emotion. Higher scores reflect more pleasantness, more activation, or a greater ease of creating a mental picture from the word. Table 3 provides scores on all three measures for a sample of words from the text currently analysed. 25
Table 3. Pleasantness, Activation and Imagery scores for six words Pleasantness Activation Imagery Word Score Score Score wilderness 2.9 2.2 2.8 be 2.3 1.3 1.2 uncle 2 1.8 3 Wednesday 2 1.8 1 running 1.7 3 2.8 nowhere 1.2 1.3 1.2
Ten additional measures in DAL analysis are available based on membership in categories determined by extreme cut-off values within the main scored variables: Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery. Words falling within the highest or lowest 10% of any of these three measures are categorized as Very
High or Very Low respectively. These are counted and reported as proportions
(converted to percentages for the analysis below) providing six derived variables. Four more derived variables are possible due to the orthogonal nature of the two emotional measures. A word that is highly pleasant may be active, neutral, or passive (see Table 3). Words that lie in the upper and/or lower 25% of two categories are categorized as Cheery (High Activation/High
Pleasantness), Nasty (High Activation /Low Pleasantness), Sad (Low
Activation/Low Pleasantness), or Soft (Low Activation/High Pleasantness).
Figure 5 depicts the eight derived emotional variables as they would be 26 arranged in the circumplex model (from die upper right corner of Figure 5):
Cheery, Very High Activation, Nasty, Very Low Pleasantness, Sad, Very Low
Activation, Soft, Very High Pleasantness. Table 4 gives examples of words from the text analysed for this thesis for all ten derived variables.
VHP
So C
V V L H A A
Sa N
VLP
Figure 5. Diagram of circumplex of derived emotional measures of Dictionary of Affect in Language. Solid lines indicate Very High and Very Low extremes of Pleasantness and Activation. (VHP: Very High Pleasantness; VHA: Very High Activation; VHP: Very Low Pleasantness; VLA Very Low Activation.) Dashed lines indicate intersections of High and/or Low Pleasantness and Activation (C: Cheery, N: Nasty, Sa: Sad, So: Soft). Not drawn to scale. 27
Table 4. Example words from the ten derived variables Derived Variable Example Very High Pleasantness sunrise Cheery lover Very High Activation energy Nasty nightmare Very Low Pleasantness prejudice Sad empty Very Low Activation evening Soft flower Very High Imagery jungle Very Low Imagery spoken
The DAL software also provides five measures that are purely structural or stylistic. Word length is measured in a semi-ratio fashion. For this analysis letters were counted up to a maximum of 12. Since word length is measured, regardless of whether other DAL values are available, the count for this measure serves as Word Count for the text. Match Rate is calculated as the percent of all words counted for Word Length that were also counted for emotional/cognitive DAL measures. The broadly-sampled corpus that provided everyday English norms for the cardinal and derived variables was also used to produce a list of 206 'very common' words and a list of 6,505 words that appear in a wide variety of everyday English samples (Whissell,
1998b). The proportion of words in a text that match the list of very common words and the proportion of words that do not match the list of widely used words (and may not match any word in the DAL) provide two measures of style: Very Common words (VCom) and Zero Frequency (ZeroF). Match rate,
Very Common, and Zero Frequency measures are intercorrelated, but Match rate may be more strongly influenced by one or the other.
2.5.2 Frequencies of Special Words
Natural language includes taboo words or words that may be objectionable to some. This may be especially true in emotional contexts. Previous research in the area of objectionable language on television (Kaye & Sapolsky, 2001; 2004;
Sapolsky & Kaye, 2005) is subject to criticism on two important issues: categorization and inclusion criteria. In all three studies a major category was defined by the 'seven dirty words' (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits) made famous in the comedian George Carlin's stand-up comedy routines and the US Supreme Court trial that followed a radio broadcast of the routine (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978)). The (American) researchers support their category definition with the statement: 'the FCC has singled out these words as being too indecent to utter on broadcast television'
(Kaye & Sapolsky, 2004, p. 439). This statement is inconsistent with the First
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which protects freedom of speech, and the FCC maintains no list of words by which any programming can be pre-censored. Not only is there no external validation for defining a 29 category based on these seven words, but the originator of the list, Mr. Carlin himself, pointed out that there is an inequality of severity among the seven words that most people intuitively appreciate. Weighting these words equally in a single category undermines the validity of research conclusions.
Inclusion criteria in two of the studies (Kaye & Sapolsky, 2001; 2004) meant that not only actual verbalizations were counted, but instances where offensive language was implied, mouthed, bleeped, covered by sound, gestural, or presented visually on signs or graffiti were counted as well. This was done despite the fact that one study's first research question referred only to words
'spoken.' The category definition and inclusion criteria used would each contribute to inflated frequencies. Accurate frequencies would require a greater number of more narrowly defined categories, and more objective inclusion criteria. Tallies for individual words would be optimal.
The DAL list does include several words that might be categorized as objectionable by some individuals (bitches, bitching, bitchy, damn, damned, fuck, fucked, fucking, hell, shit, shits, shitty) and frequencies would be obtainable for these, but, although representative, this list is not exhaustive.
The DAL software may be modified to provide proportional frequencies for specific words, alone or grouped into a limited list. An example would be words derived from the word love: lover, loving, lovable, etc. The spelling must, however, match exacdy and wordplay is common in this area.
In order to begin building a list accurately reflecting the many variants of objectionable words noted informally during data collection, a shortlist of commonly encountered words subjectively judged as mildly to strongly objectionable was created. The entire sample was then searched using the 'find' feature provided with text editing in Windows XP. Words were counted and variants noted. Appendix II provides the word list together with details on search procedure, captioning issues, and inclusion decisions. Frequencies for objectionable words were recorded in a spreadsheet and analysed separately from the other measures.
2.6 Analysis
Preleminary analysis was completed using the DAL program on a Vax 400 computer. This analysis matched the words in the text to the DAL, provided a score for each matched word, and counted words tiiat fit categories. Resulting values were means and standard deviations for Pleasantness, Activation,
Imagery, Word Length and Word Count along with proportions (percentages) for the ten derived variables, plus Very Common words, Zero Frequency words and Match Rate. 31
If the word is the unit of analysis there are thousands of cases within each episode and tens or hundreds of thousands of cases within a season. Not only does the large n exert an extreme influence on statistical significance, but the combination of a very large n with limited range of potential scores for individual words (1 to 3) tends to obscure variability on emotional measures.
The desired unit of analysis for this study was, therefore, the episode, rather than the word. To accomplish this the texts were divided into episodes for preliminary analysis and the mean values obtained for each episode were transferred into a new data file with grouping codes for program, season, and episode within season (see appendix I). Secondary analysis was performed using both raw values and values converted into percent of DAL norm.
Oneway analysis of variance followed by Tukey post-hoc (alpha=.05) was the most common statistical test. 32
2.7 Research Questions
In order to test the power of the automated data acquisition method together with the sensitivity of the DAL measures to detect subde differences in texts the following questions were framed:
1) What differences in DAL measures exist between programs within a
single genre (adult animated comedies: The Simpsons, King of the Hill,
Family Guy, South Park)?
2) What differences in these measures will be seen when a genre is
compared to a sample from a related genre (adult animated comedies
versus animated programs for children [KidToons])?
3) What differences will be seen when a genre is compared with a highly
contrasting genre (adult animated comedies versus The Waltons)}
4) What differences can be detected within a single program over its
broadcast lifetime?
5) How do the programs differ from one another with respect to
potentially offensive word frequency?
6) How do the programs differ internally with respect to potentially
offensive word frequency? 33
3. RESULTS
Presentation of results follows the same order as the research questions. Note that in some tables and figures the program names have been condensed to facilitate presentation.
3.1 Comparisons Within One Genre
Statistically significant differences were found between programs on the cardinal emotional variables, but effect si2es were small (Pleasantness:
2 F9183=20.1, p<.001, omega =.062; Activation: F9183=22.8, p<.001, omega2=.069; see Table 4 for means.) Family Guy had a higher mean for
Pleasantness than the three other programs, and The Simpsons had a higher mean than King of the Hilloi South Park which did not differ. For Activation,
South Park had a higher mean than all other programs and King of the H///had a lower mean than all others. Family Guy and The Simpsons did not differ.
Table 5. Means for Pleasantness and Activation for the four programs.
Program Mean Pleasantness Mean Activation Simpsons 1.8911 1.6767 King of Hill 1.8861 1.6729 Family Guy 1.8994 1.6764 South Park 1.8856 1.6826 34
Plotting the paired values of the two cardinal emotional variables provides a rapid summary of the emotional tone of a text. Scatterplots of the Pleasantness and Activation means for each program's episodes are provided below (Figures
6-9) using DAL normative values for the axes. After being presented on its own, The Simpsons (420 episodes) remains in the background of the other three plots as a reference. Values for the Pearson correlation between Pleasantness and Activation are provided in the figure captions (The Simpsons is not included in r when plotted as background only). It is interesting to note that although
these variables are orthogonal for random words, when used in the texts the variables may be correlated.
o 5 1.94 1.92 z 1.90 Simpsons 3 1.88 UJ a. 1.86 1.84 ® 1.82 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVE More
Figure 6. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for The Simpsons (r=.16) 35
o 5 1.94 & •J* 1 ---• 1.92 z 1.90 < Simpsons 0) 1.88 < King Hill LU a 1.86 I • fit ^-M—E— 1.84 v> a> 1.82 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVE More
Figure 7. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for King of the Hill, with The Simpsons background. (r=.26)
Simpsons FamGuy
1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVE More
Figure 8. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for Family Guy, with The Simpsons background. (r=.08, not significant) 36
Simpsons A SouthPk I
1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVE More
Figure 9. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for South Park, with The Simpsons background. (r=.30)
Cheery VHiAct Nasty VLoPleas Sad VLoAct Soft VHiPleas
•Simpsons —• -KingHill - O -FamGuy •SouthPk
Figure 10. Mean percent above or below normative values for the four programs on the eight derived emotional variables. 37
For the derived emotional measures it is instructive to compare the programs to the norms as well as to one another. Figure 10 shows clearly that while the four programs follow a similar pattern for most variables, they all depart substantially from the norm for certain variables. The variables charted follow the same order around the circumplex as presented in Figure 5, beginning with
Cheery. It is immediately obvious that the percentage of Soft category words is remarkably higher than the norm for all programs. Very High Pleasantness words also occur at substantially higher than normal rates. For Soft words there are also significant differences between all four programs. The Simpsons has the highest mean of all for Very Low Pleasantness, and Family Guy has a lower proportion of Sad words than the other programs. King of the Hill'has a lower mean than all other programs in the group for the measures Very High
Pleasantness and Very High Activation. Means for all four programs converged at the norm for Very Low Activation. Effect sizes ranged from 1% (Nasty) to
10% (Soft). Details are provided in Table 8. 38
Table 6. Means for derived emotional variables for the four programs. Note that values are percent of norm. Significant values of p ranged from .013 to <.001
Measure Simpsons KingHill FamGuy SouthPk Result
Cheery 106.6a 95.5b 100.6b 106.9a a> b
VHi Act 100.3b 94.8a 103.3 106.4C a lower than all b > c Nasty 113.6a 109.1b 113.2 115.6a a> b
VLoPl 120.5a 112.4 112.5 114.1 a higher than all
Sad 91.6 89.2 82.0a 89.7 a lower than all
VLo Act 102.2 100.9 102.1 101.0 no sig. difference
Soft 173.2C 179.5b 188.7a 165.0d a> b > c> d
VHi PI 129.3 116.7 124.8 122.4 a lower than all b >c
Mean imagery scores differed amongst programs (F3918= 81.0, p<.001,
omega2=.21)(Figure 11). The raw mean for The Simpsons (1.53) was higher than
all others and the Family Guy mean (1.49) was lower than all others while the
means for South Park and King of the Hill (1.52 and 1.51 respectively) did not
differ from one another. Normative value is 1.52, so all four values are close to
normal. 39
1.54 - 1.53 4- u0 1.52 (0 4 aC> 1.51 O) | 1.5 S 1-49 o S 1.48 1.47 Simpsons KingHill FamilyGuy SouthPark
Figure 11. Imagery means for the four programs, with standard error bars. Normative value is 1.52. High scores indicate greater ease of forming a mental picture of a word (more concrete.)
For the derived cognitive measures, the average percentage of very abstract words (Very Low Imagery) was higher for Family Guy than the other programs,
2 which do not differ amongst themselves (F3918=12.5, p<.001, omega =.04) but the effect size was small, and the values were below but close to the norm. For
Very High Imagery (concrete) words however, all four programs differed
2 (F3918=48.6, p<.001, omega =.14). Percent means were 94.1, 94.3, 96.3, and
93.6 for Very Low Imagery and 116.8,106.9, 94.2, and 100.7 for Very High
Imagery for The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy and South Park respectively.
Figure 12 presents the values as percents above or below the normative percentage of each category of words rather than raw percent. 40
20
o 15 c 5 •o2 10 Q) "a> * o> n n 0 * C
Figure 12. Mean percent above or below normative mean for Very Low and Very High imagery words for the four adult animated comedies.
Average word length was longest for The Simpsons, followed by South Park, then
2 King of the Hill, then Family Guy (F9183=93.6, p<.001, omega =.23). Means were
4.08, 4.04, 4.00, and 3.96 respectively and each was significandy different from the other three (Figure 13).
4.1
4.05 cO ) 0) 4
| 3.95 c A | 3.9
3.85 Simpsons KingHill FamilyGuy SouthPark
Figure 13. Mean Word Length for the four programs with standard error. 41
All programs differed on Word Count as well (F3918=566.3, p<.0001, omega2=.65). Mean count per episode in descending order was: South Park:
3303; Family Guy: 3056; King of the Hill: 2614; The Simpsons: 2390 (Figure 14).
3500 3000 2500 2000 r d Coun t i 1500 c n 1000 S 500 0 Simpsons KingHill Family Guy SouthPark
Figure 14. Mean Word Count for the four programs with standard error.
The mean of 87.3% of words matched to the DAL list for King of the H?//was
2 the highest of all four programs (F3918= 49.8, p<.001, omega =.14). The mean for Family Guy (86.5%) was higher than both South Park (85.9%) and The
Simpsons (85.6%) which did not differ (Figure 15). All four means are slightly lower than the usual DAL match rate of about 90%. To place these small differences in means in perspective, consider that raising the Match rate for The
Simpsons just 1.7% to the same level as King of the Hill would add 16,630 words to the DAL analysis. Based on an average of 2,390 words per episode for The
Simpsons, this would add the equivalent of 7 episodes to the analysis. 42
88.0 87.5 ! S 87.0 I % CO 86.5 ! S c u 86.0 u # 0> 85.5 Q. c n 85.0 a> 84.5 84.0 Simpsons KingHill FamilyGuy SouthPark
Figure 15. Mean percent words matched to the DAL for the four programs with standard error.
Inspection of the Pleasantness/Activation scatterplots indicates that Family Guy displays the least scatter for Pleasantness and Activation. The Activation means for the 2007-2008 season of all four programs are presented in Figure 16 below and the relative uniformity is once again apparent. Variance was highest for
South Park, followed by King of the Hill, The Simpsons and Family Guy on the three main emotional and cognitive variables. Programs were compared on variability through a series of F tests. Each program was compared to the one with the next lower variance, thus a higher variance than a certain program implies higher variance than all programs below that one. Table 9 presents the F ratio for each successive pair of higher/lower variances. 43
1.74 1.72 .1 1-70 1 1-68 < 1.66 S 1.64 5 1.62 1.60 Simpsons King of the Hill Family Guy South Park
Figure 16. Mean Activation for all episodes of 2007-2008 season.
Table 7. F ratios for between program variance comparisons on the three scored DAL variables. Variance decreased in the same order for all three variables: South Park, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Family Guy. Values shown are ratio of each program's variance to that of the program with the next lowest variance (F). Asterisks indicate F values greater than the critical value (alpha=.05, two tailed, from Zar, 1999).
Variances Pleasantness Activation Imagery critical F Compared (F) (F) (F) (dfl,d£2) South Park 1.29 1.161 1.047 1.185 King Hill (140,200) King Hill 1.23 1.266* 1.422* 1.248* Simpsons (200, 300) Simpsons 1.34 1.469* 1.856* 1.097 Family Guy (200,100)
Family Guy is seen to be lower in variability than the three other programs with
respect to Pleasantness and Activation. The Simpsons shows less variability than
King of the Hill across all three measures. 44
3.2 Comparison to a Related Genre
For this analysis all 922 episodes of the adult animated comedies were combined into a single group for comparison against the 42 mixed episodes of children's cartoon programs.
Raw means for all DAL measures and results of oneway analysis of variance testing are shown in Table 8. To facilitate interpretation, the group with the highest mean has been identified by name. Effect sizes were less than 2% for the emotional and cognitive variables with the exception of Very High Imagery
(2.5%). Figure 17 shows the percent above/below normal for the eight derived emotional variables. The pattern of differences between means is the same for raw value analysis or percent of norm. The KidToons sample had more words that were Nasty, Very Low in Imagery, or not found in the frequently used word list. There was no evidence of statistical difference on the measures
Activation, Very High Activation, Very Low Activation, Very Low
Pleasantness, Sad, or Word Length. Adult animated comedies were higher in all other measures. 45
Table 8. Comparison of adult animated comedies and KidToons on DAL measures (raw means). Significant p values ranged from <.015 to .001. Measure Adult KidToons Statistically Animation Higher Pleasantness 1.8899 1.8800 Adult Activation 1.6768 1.6789 p>.05 Cheery 5.06 4.46 Adult V High Activation 4.22 4.24 p>.05 Nasty 3.61 3.96 KidToons V Low Pleasantness 4.42 4.63 p>.05 Sad 4.65 4.57 p>.05 V Low Activation 19.82 19.88 p>.05 Soft 7.71 7.33 Adult V High Pleasantness 7.47 7.01 Adult Imagery 1.5178 1.5007 Adult V High Imagery 4.89 4.31 Adult V Low Imagery 37.65 38.86 KidToons Word Length 4.0392 4.0592 p>.05 Word Count 2689 2310 Adult DAL Match Count 2320 1887 Adult Match % 86.2 81.5 Adult Very Common % 66.0 62.1 Adult Zero Frequency % 11.6 16.0 KidToons 46
100 90 80 70 E 60 o z 50 * 40 el o 30 e/ B > o 20 < 10 $5 0 -10 -20 -30 Cheery VHiAct Nasty VLoPleas Sad VLoAct Soft VHiPleas
—O—Adult - • - KidToons
Figure 17 Adult animated comedies and KidToons compared on eight derived emotional measures.
3.3 Comparing Different Genres
For parts of this analysis some comparisons have been made between The
Waltons and The Simpsons only, as this allowed greater clarity.
Inspection of a Pleasantness/Activation scatterplot of the two programs shows immediately that while The Waltons covers a limited range within DAL emotional space, there is considerable overlap between the two (Figure 18). As the scatterplot indicates, dialogue words in The Waltons were more pleasant than
2 in The Simpsons (1.900 vs. 1.891; F1466=15.9, p=.0001, omega =.032), and 47
language in The Waltons tends to be more passive (1.663 vs 1.677; F ]466 =72.9, p<.001, omega2;::.135). Effect sizes for the two measures differed substantially.
o 1.94 T^ 1.92 **••%: 1-90 —*-& < • A^V* CO Simpsons j < 1.88 : UJ m • Waltons 1.86
1.84 to o 1.82 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVE More
Figure 18. Scatterplot: Activation versus Pleasantness for The Waltons, with The Simpsons background (r=.28).
Discriminant Analysis was employed as an alternate investigative tool. As the objective was not future prediction but current classification, all episodes of both programs were entered into the analysis. The analysis produced the discriminant function: D= Pleasantness (-34.527) + Activation (87.221) -
80.789. Mathematically this function increases the differences between the groups by increasing/decreasing scores for variables on which they tend to score in opposite directions. After applying this function, scores for episodes of 48
The Waltons would tend to be negative and those for The Simpsons would tend to be positive. (Cannonical correlation .4257, Wilks' Lambda: .8188, Chisq
(2)=93.0, p<.001; Standardized coefficients: Pleasantness: -.549, Activation
.933). The equation correctly classified 89.6% of episodes of The Waltons, but was less successful with The Simpsons at 77.4% (78.6% correct overall.) The addition of Imagery scores improved the classification slightly with respect to
The Simpsons only (The Simpsons: 80.2%, The Waltons: 87.5%; 81.0% overall). The
Waltons, therefore, has distinctive characteristics, but some episodes of The
Simpsons have a similar emotional tone.
The pattern within derived emotional variables in the two programs (Figure 19) display both similarities and differences from those already considered (Figures
10 and 17). The now familiar spike at Soft is present, with The Waltons showing double the norm for this variable and the only mean that is higher than The
Simpsons. There was no evidence of difference in Very Low Activation or Very
High Pleasantness, but on all other measures, The Simpsons had a higher mean than The Waltons. Effect sizes ranged from 10 to 23% which was somewhat larger than those seen in other comparisons. Means are provided in Table 9. 100 - •Simpsons - $> -Waltons Figure 19. The Simpsons and The Waltons compared on eight derived emotional variables. Table 9. Means for derived emotional variables for The Simpsons and The Waltons. Note that values are percent of norm. Significant values of p ranged from .004 to <.0Q1 Measure Simpsons Waltons Higher Mean Cheery 106.6 86.3 Simpsons VHi Act 100.3 78.8 Simpsons Nasty 113.6 93.1 Simpsons VLoPl 120.5 88.3 Simpsons Sad 91.6 86.6 Simpsons VLo Act 102.2 101.2 p>.05 Soft 173.2 198.7 Waltons VHi PI 129.3 130.4 p>.05 50 Language in The Simpsons is more concrete than in The Waltons (F1466=97.4, p<.001, omega2=17.3%, means 1.53 and 1.50 respectively.) Using percentages above and below norms, Figure 20 indicates that The Simpsons uses more Very 2 High Imagery words (F1466=55.6, p<.001, omega =.107, means 5.25% and 4.30% respectively.) There was no evidence of difference in the percentage of Very Low Imagery words used. Words used in The Simpsons were slighdy longer (4.08 vs. 3.98) (F1466=65.1, p<.001, omega2=.123). Word count was not compared because The Waltons is an hour long program and The Simpsons runs in a 30 minute timeslot. 20 E o 16 c liUI 5 10 o .aQ> "3 5 iiil > o mm SI n 0 mmm c m -h J- a> 1 V I 1 1 S -10 Simpsons Waltons Simpsons Waltons Very Low Imagery (abstract) Very High Imagery (concrete) Figure 20. Mean percent above or below normative mean for Very Low and Very High Imagery words in The Simpsons and The Waltons. 51 The analysis of Match Rate, Very Common and Zero Frequency words was expanded in order to fully explore the relationships between these variables for all programs. Match Rate shows a positive relationship with Very Common Words (which is sensible as all of these words are in the DAL) but a negative relationship with Zero Frequency words. This is also sensible as most, though not all, words categorized as Zero Frequency are not part of the DAL. Symmetrical zero order and partial correlations were performed for all programs and the results are summarized in Table 10. Table 10. Zero order and Partial Correlations among Match rate, Very Common words and Zero Frequency words. Zero order correlations are shown in plain type. Partial correlations controlling for the third variable indicated are shown within parentheses in boldface below the zero order values. All zero order correlations and partial correlations are significant at <.05 with the majority at <.001. The one exception is found in KidToons (partial r=.25, p=.053) Program Match-Vcom Match-ZeroF Vcom-ZeroF (control for ZeroF) (control for Vcom) (control for Match) .73 -.87 -.73 Simpsons (.28) (-.72) (-.30) King of the .73 -.83 -.78 Hill (.25) (-.60) (-.46) .75 -.70 -.75 Family Guy (.48) (-.32) (-.47) .76 -.80 -.76 South Park (.39) (-.54) (-.38) .76 -.71 -.78 Waltons (.46) (-.29) (-.53) .86 -.95 -.86 KidToons (.25) (-.81) (-29) 52 It is evident from the results that for The Simpsons, King of the Hill, South Park and the KidToons, the strongest true influence on Match rate is the proportion of Zero Frequency words rather than Very Common words. In these programs fluctuations in Match rate are attributable to fluctuations in the proportion of words that cannot be matched to the DAL list. (Causation can be inferred here because the script always precedes the DAL analysis.) For Family Guy and The Waltons'w. is fluctuations in proportion of Very Common words instead that has a true influence on Match rate. Interestingly, for the latter two programs a second order inverse relationship also exists between Very Common Words and Zero Frequency Words. Causation cannot be inferred here since both classes of words are chosen at the same time by the writers, but the relationship suggests that a trade-off occurs as these programs are written such that choosing a greater number of Very Common words automatically results in choosing fewer Zero Frequency words (or vice versa). The same pattern is seen to a lesser degree in King of the Hill and South Park, but not in The Simpsons or the KidToons. 53 3.4 Changes Over Time In order to investigate changes in emotional or structural characteristics within a long-running series over time, each program was divided into four-season blocks of seasons for comparison. The first block for The Simpsons included five years but had a comparable number of episodes since the early seasons were shorter. Blocks for Family Guy included only three seasons but created a natural pre/post cancellation distinction. Oneway analyses were performed and selected, significant results are reported. Within The Simpsons, slight differences over time were seen for most variables. Figure 21 displays the changes in five of the derived variables. 130 E L- o 120 •Cheery ^— zO • Nasty "c 110 80 1to5 6 to 9 10 to 15 16 to 19 Figure 21 Changes in derived emotional variables over time for The Simpsons. 54 Mean Cheery words were lower in block 2 compared to block 1 only. Nasty words were lower in block 4 than blocks 1 or 2. Very Low Pleasantness words were lower in block 4 than block 2. Mean Sad words were lower in blocks 3 and 4 compared to block 1, and Very Low Activation words dropped sharply in block 4 showing a lower mean than all other episode blocks. Effect sizes were 2 or 3 percent, except for Very Low Activation (8.7%). The overall pattern would appear to be a program that has developed a more pleasant tone over it run. King of the Hill showed a decrease in mean Sad words that was significandy different between blocks 1 and 3. Very Low Activation words dipped in block 2 so that this mean was different from block 1. Mean Soft words declined also, with a significant difference between blocks 1 and the last two. Effect sizes were 2.7, 4.1 and 10.5% respectively (Figure 22). 200 -| E o 180 - z "5 160 - *->c oCD 140 - 1_ Figure 22 Changes in derived emotional variables over time for King of the Hill. Note change in scale of vertical axis. 55 140 -. E O 130 - z - Cheery "5 120 •*-» -Sad c o 110 - - HiPle L- V Q. 100 —X- Hi Imag CcO - -X - Lo Imag CD 90 - 2 80 - 1 to 3 4 to 6 Figure 23 Changes in derived emotional variables over time for Family Guy. Note change in scale of vertical axis. The pre and post cancellation means for Family Guy were relatively dramatic for certain variables (Figure 23). Means were lower in the recent block for Cheery, Sad, Very High Pleasantness and Very Highly Imagery words. The only increase was for the opposite cognitive extreme — Very Low Imagery. This suggests a change in language structure as well as emotional tone. Effect sizes were substantial (14.8, 4.4,16.3, 8.3, and 19.1%, respectively). The program appears to have become less pleasant and more abstract after its revival. South Park also showed changes in both derived emotional and derived cognitive measures (Figure 24). Lower means were found for Sad words (blocks 1 higher than block 2), Soft words and Very Highly Pleasant Words (block 1 higher than either 2 and 3 for both measures). The mean for Very 56 Highly Imaged words dropped between blocks 2 and 3. Effect sizes were 4.4, 6.6,10.9, and 5.2% respectively. Like Family Guy, the program seems to have developed a less pleasant, more abstract tone over time. Figure 24 Changes in derived emotional variables over time for South Park. Note change in scale of vertical axis. The Waltons was also analysed for change over time, but in this case the comparison was between two seasons (24 episodes each) separated by a gap of two years, rather than the means of large blocks of episodes spanning many continuous years. Most measures show little change, yet an alteration in emotional tone is evident. Episodes in season 4 had fewer Cheery words and more Very Low Activation words (Figure 25). Effect sizes were 15.0 and 11.1% respectively. The KidToons sample represented many different programs and several time periods, thus was not analysed with the series. 57 110 - E o z 2 100 - —•— Cheery 0) o -O- LoAct 0 CL 90 - r c (0 CD 80 - Season 1 Season 4 Figure 25 Changes in derived emotional variables over time for The Waltons. Note change in scale of vertical axis. 3.5 Objectionable Words Across Programs Word groups were not formed prior to counting. Upon completion of counting, overall frequency, frequency within different programs and the nature of the words themselves suggested the following objectionable word groups: Mild words: ass, hell, damn/ dammit, crap The B insults: bitch, bastard Body Part/Function words: piss, dick, penis, vagina, douche, tits Unspecified censored words: [bleep] appearing in the text indicates a censored word - unidentifiable or not identifiable as shit or fuck or derivatives by letters preceding [bleep]. 58 Shit, Fuck and derivatives: shit, s[bleep], sh[bleep], s~, sh-, fuck,/[bleep], f—, motherf[bleep] er, and any other words in which captioned letters preceding brackets identified the partly censored word as shit, fuck or a derivative. (Note: [bleep] denotes censoring by an audible tone, dashes denote censoring by silence.) Fart: A special case that could be counted when appearing in the text as a spoken word or within brackets as a described sound, or as a sound described euphemistically using other words. Tables 11-16 report the total frequency of the words for each program. Programs are omitted from the table if the frequency of all words was zero. Table 11. Total frequencies for mildly objectionable words. damn or Program ass hell crap Total dammit Simpsons 186 510 294 174 1164 King Hill 192 281 250 65 788 Family Guy 194 519 201 183 1097 South Park 982 798 639 346 2765 Waltons 5 13 7 0 0 KidToons 0 0 0 3 0 59 Table 12. Total frequencies for the B insults Program Bitch Bastard Total Simpsons 26 29 55 King of the Hill 22 39 61 Family Guy 101 70 171 South Park 272 146 146 Table 13. Total frequencies for Body Part/Function words. Program piss dick penis vagina douche tit Total Simpsons 13 0 13 0 0 0 26 King Hill 6 0 14 1 0 0 21 Family Guy 24 0 49 14 15 1 103 South Park 103 71 94 55 98 40 461 Table 14. Total frequencies for unspecified censored words Program [bleep] Simpsons 4 King of the Hill 1 Family Guy 43 South Park 231 Table 15. Frequency of strongly objectionable words for the only program in which they appeared - South Park. Program shit et al. fuck et al. Total South Park 223 66 289 60 Table 16. Frequency of fart as spoken word, sound described as fart, or euphemism used either in speech or description. Program Fart Fart Fart Total (spoken word) (sound) (other) Simpsons 35 21 12 68 King Hill 8 11 3 22 Family Guy 41 53 14 108 South Park 103 117 43 263 KidToons 0 9 5 14 The four animated comedies contained 2.5 million words according to the following: The Simpsons 40.5%; King of the Hill'23.7%; Family Guy 13.8%; South Park 22%. Goodness of Fit Chi Square testing to determine whether frequencies of objectionable words followed the same proportions for the word groups, Mild, B Insult, Body Part/Function, and Fart produced values of Chi Square that ranged from 751 to 2674 (p<.05) indicating that the distribution of objectionable words was different from the distribution of words. In each case, observed values were higher than expected for both Family Guy and South Park, and lower than expected for The Simpsons and King of the Hill. The KidToons sample and The Waltons were included in the counting procedure, but frequencies were not statistically analysed. 61 3.5 Objectionable Words Within Programs It was noted during the counting procedure that distributions of objectionable may be quite uneven throughout the episodes of a program, pardy because repeating objectionable words many times in succession is a comedic strategy. One episode of South Park (It Hits the Fan, which featured a counter in the corner of the screen) used the uncensored word shit enough times to increase the average frequency for the 165 episodes by 1. Another episode of South Park, entitled More Crap, uses the word crap 59 times. In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart says crap 10 times in succession. More than half the seasons of The Simpsons have a lower total frequency than 10 for the entire season. Figures 26 — 29 illustrate the episodic nature of objectionable word frequency in South Park. The vertical axis is unchanged throughout the series, and it is apparent by inspection that the overall frequency of this word group changed over time. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 South Park Season 1 Episodes Figure 26. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 1 62 35 30 7^ >, 25 •ass § 20 i A^ 7=t -hell ="damn: r=JL -bitch ! Sgp^» 0 4-^n r^ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 South Park Season 3 Episodes Figure 27. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 3 35 30 •ass -hell -'damn1 -bitch ! 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 South Park Season 7 Episodes Figure 28. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 7 35 30 £25 —ass | § 20 - hell | o- 15 damn bitch ! 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 South Park Season 10 Episodes Figure 29. Mildly objectionable word frequency in South Park, Season 10 63 4. DISCUSSION This discussion is structured according to the three objectives of the study: collection, preparation, analysis. Research questions are discussed in the analysis section. 4.1 Computerized collection of language data from visual media There is no doubt that the Textgrabber makes it possible to accumulate large volumes of spoken text from broadcast and recorded visual media. Building a corpus of this magnitude would be prohibitively time-consuming and financially cosdy if transcription from audio was required. The programs analysed contained a total of 2.8 million words. Typing at 60 words per minute and continuing 24 hours a day, it would require 32.4 days simply to type 2.8 million words. Given eight hour workdays this becomes about three months. The time required for listening and careful transcription multiplies the time required by five to ten times. Even transcribing from subtitles requires transcription time that is several times the runtime of a program. This means that a manual transcription of the words used in this thesis would require anywhere from 1.5 to 3 years of full time work. 64 The method is not without problems, however. Technical problems may interfere with broadcasts or broadcast quality. One relatively recent episode of King of the Hillcould not be included in this analysis because during the original broadcast an unknown technical issue involving the signal, rather than the hardware, produced a garbled mix of characters rather than words. Only the first six seasons of this program are available on DVD, so the researcher must watch and wait for reruns to fill the gap. Most commercial DVDs provide excellent quality captions, but some programs are not captioned. Other television programs on DVD (House, CSI) provide subtitles rather than closed captioning, but the hardware does not decode subtitles This limits the potential data pool. Even when provided, captioning does not always transcribe every word spoken in a program. English captioning of all broadcasts covered by the legislation has only been required in the United States since January 2006, so the field is relatively new. Standards for captioning are still being established. (Canadian standards were made public in December of 2008.) In spite of these issues, the method seems to hold promise as a research tool. 65 4.2 Establish Procedures for Analysis 4.2.1 Text Preparation Valid analysis requires that the prepared text contains no extraneous material and includes all available appropriate material. For this study, priority was given to exclusion of extraneous material as it constituted the greatest threat to validity. There are two major sources of extraneous material: descriptions of background sounds, music, or vocal quality, which appear in the captioned text enclosed in brackets; and speaker identification (names) outside of brackets. All of these words must be removed from the text or rendered unrecognizable as text by the DAL software. This process is time-consuming, and involves concentration on a highly repetitive task, together with eyestrain. Experience gained during this study has, however, suggested a few ways in which the process might be at least partially computer-automated in the future. A small source of error is found in the use and spelling of acronyms. This was addressed for the three acronyms found in the DAL: fbi, tv and ufo. TV was often captioned as a two letter word (no periods between letters) but u.f.o. was variable and FBI is more often captioned f.b.i. If unaltered, this is counted as three one letter words, only one of which is matched in the DAL (no match for u.f.o.), rather than one three letter word that is matched and scored differently. (Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery scores: I - 2.4,1.8,1.4; FBI = 1.5, 1.9, 66 2.0). Influence on emotional measures is likely to be inconsequential, but texts high in acronyms could be expected to show some effect in Word length, Word count and Match rate. A letter by letter search for acronyms and removal of periods would alleviate the effect on these variables but this is remarkably time consuming. An acronym list could be developed with a view to automation. Standardizing spelling, and spelling out numerals and symbols would also improve the quality of texts. Spellings must be exact for matching to the DAL list and, as seen in the variety of spellings for some objectionable words, words that sound the same may be captioned somewhat differently. Spelling of full words versus short forms is an issue for Mr./Mister and Mrs./Missus. Certain characters, or sometimes many characters from certain geographic regions show a distinctive speech pattern of dropped 'g's ('darlin', livin', lovin') or dropped initials ('cause, 'bout) or modified words (oF may be seen as a gentler version of 'old'). Prevalence of such words reduces the Match rate. It is tempting simply to alter the spelling to match the DAL but this seems presumptuous without evidence of equivalent emotional connotation. The final decision for this study was to leave all such words as spelled and accept a reduced Match rate. 67 Numerals present another challenge. The spoken words 'thirty dollars' will most likely be captioned as '$30', which will not be matched in die DAL despite the fact that both words would be matched and scored if spelled out. The words 'ten percent' will also be converted to non words. Marge Simpsons' spoken line in Thank God It's Doomsday - "You couldn't predict six o'clock at five thirty." is captioned as "You couldn't predict 6:00 at 5:30!" Someone reading the captions will probably appreciate the joke, but the DAL will not find a match for four words on its list: six, o'clock, five,an d thirty. A special case is the term 'nine-eleven' which can be captioned in several ways (examples: '9/11' or '9-11') which do not involve words that can be matched to the DAL. Both 'nine' and 'eleven' are present in the list DAL list, but the compound term has emotional connotations that are unlikely to be equivalent to the sum of the separate words. The intricacies involved in automating the process of condensing acronyms and translating numerals to words may require its effect to be relegated to the error term for die present, but a small pilot study indicated that there is some influence on means from numerals and acronyms, so further study is appropriate. 4.2.2 Transfer of Data from Preliminary (word level) Analysis Converting die scores for the 2.4 million words that were matched to the DAL into a more limited number of data points for 1012 episodes represents 68 significant data condensation. Accurately transferring these values into a new file is also a task that must be handled with care and with respect for the limitations of automating software. At present this is a six-step process. Careful selection of variables should reduce the technical challenge of data transfer. Alternate methods of transferring and/or combining files should be explored. 4.3 Large Scale DAL Analysis Based on Episode Means 4.3.1 Similarities and Differences Relative to Norms When comparing the four adult animated comedies, it was seen that at least two of the program differed on every variable except Very Low Activation Words. Means for Cheery words tended to be higher than normal for all programs except King of the Hill. In fact, there was a three variable trend for King of the Hill to depart slightly from the other comedies, showing means lower than the DAL norm for some variables. The Simpsons had a higher mean for Very Low Pleasantness words than all the other programs, but the four programs clearly followed the same general pattern when the percentages of Sad words dropped to below normal for all four together. For this variable, Family Guy had the lowest mean of all. Despite the differences, effect sizes were modest for the emotional variables, however, so the overall pattern is one of similarity between programs. 69 A predominant feature of the results for the within genre comparison is the spike at Soft words to values that are 60 to 90% higher than the norm. Family Guy reaches the highest level and all programs differ, but the distinct pattern and extreme departure from the norm suggests that this may be a characteristic either of comedies as a genre or of dialogue in general. The question of whether this pattern is typical of comedies or of scripted dialogue can be answered by examining the results for the related genre and different genre comparisons. Similarities of profile would indicate that the large deviation from the norm is an attribute of dialogue. Upon inspection of Figures 10,17, and 19 it is immediately clear that a relative spike at Soft words is common to all programs, and that the neighbouring variables, Very Low Activation and Very High Pleasantness are part of the pattern. The same convergence at Very Low Activation words is seen both within and between genres. The large increase at Soft words shows a greater difference in magnitude within the adult animated comedy genre than between programs of different genres (Family Guy and The Waltons). The drop at Very High Pleasantness words still involves differences between programs, but similarities in slope are evident. Family Guy and King of the Hill have similar slopes, as do South Park, The Simpsons, and the KidToons. 70 The reason for the similarities may be rooted in television as a commercial medium or in the nature of scripted dialogue. It may be that the predominance of Soft and Very Highly Pleasant Words increases the palatability of programming and produces a viewer who is more receptive to advertisers' messages. Alternately, the means may be influenced by words that naturally occur frequently in dialogue and carry very high ratings for Pleasantness with very low rating for Activation. An examination of the words on the DAL list fitting the Soft category criteria reveals four promising candidates: I'm, I'I/,jou, and be are Soft words that would likely appear very frequently in dialogue. Prior to this study, only one analysis of scripted television programs (sitcoms) using the DAL had been published (Whissell, 1998a). This and a few small studies completed before this thesis (Bell, 2007; Farragher, 2008; Richards, 2007; Rutledge, 2008), together with pilot studies associated with this thesis had suggested that most texts from television programs fell above the norm for Pleasantness. A reexamination of the scatterplots presented in this study (Figures 6-9 & 18) shows the same pattern of above average Pleasantness for nearly every episode. This may be an artifact of dialogue, related to the high proportion of Soft words used rather than the comedic nature of the genre. 71 Simultaneous comparison of all programs on a completed circumplex may be useful for futher discussion. Figure 20 presents the eight derived emotional variables in the same orientation as they were introduced in Figure 5. Mean percent above/below norm -Simpsons .... KingHill FamGuy • =™™—SouthPk '•Waltons — — KidToons Norm Figure 30. Mean percent above/below normative mean for the eight derived emotional variables for all six programs in circumplex form. 72 Two features are apparent from the six-program circumplex. 1) all television programs, regardless of genre, demonstrate: - a lower than normal proportion of Sad words - an average proportion of Very Low Activation Words - a striking elevation in proportion of Soft words relative to the norm - a substantially higher than normal proportion of Very High Pleasantness words 2) genre or between-program differences are more evident in the variables Cheery, Very High Activation, Nasty, and Very Low Pleasantness words. Throughout the analysis it was noted that effect sizes were often largest for structural or cognitive measures. Effect sizes seen for differences within a program might rival those seen between programs. Further research on more diverse samples may reveal reliable patterns that enhance narrative text analysis. 4.3.2 Genre versus Age Group Contrasting the adult animated comedies with a variety of children's cartoons was chosen to provide a sample from a similar genre (animated programs) that might show some linguistic differences due to the target age group. Results, however, indicated no expected difference in Word Length, and many 73 differences between the samples. Notable was the finding that the KidToons contained proportionately fewer Cheery words and more Nasty words than the adult animated comedies. This might suggest that, rather than representing animated comedies written for children, the KidToons were not comedic in nature. Support for this idea is found in an examination of the scatterplot which reveals that the emotionality of language in the children's programming was exceptionally diverse (Figure 18). I 1.98 1.96 — • 1.94 __ • • • • • (0 1.92 (0 UJ • ! Adult 1.90 z • i • Child < •••< «•• OT 1.88 < • 111 1.86 1.84 W 1.82 o 1.80 1.62 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 1.76 ACTIVATION More Figure 31. Scatterplot of children's cartoons (KidToons) with all adult animated programs in background, (r = .48) Note that both axes have been extended for this scatterplot. 74 The title list in Appendix I shows that children's programming is a mixture of genres including comedy (My Gym Partner's a Monkey), fantasy (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Fair/yOdd Parents), science fiction (Dinosaur King, Johnny Test), mystery (Scooby Doo), and Action/Adventure (Storm Hawks, DiGata Defenders). Given that the plots of these stories range from magical wish-granting to saving the world from destruction by evil forces, it is not surprising that the scatter on this graph ranges from extraordinarily pleasant and active to the most unpleasant and passive episodes included in this study. The KidToon, therefore, did not constitute a related genre, but a mix of genres aimed at a different age group. A further factor that may have contributed to scatter is the fact that shorter texts are often found to have more extreme emotional means due, in part, to relative lack of emotionally neutral words. This effect can be seen at the level of the statement where the short expression "Beautiful flowers!" has a Pleasantness average of 2.7, while the longer expression What beautiful flowers you have there.' has a Pleasantness average of 2.15. Half hour programs in this sample commonly contained two separate short stories, and some of the representative sample included very short 'filler' items that are part of cartoon programming blocks. 75 4.3.3 Surprising Similarity The Simpsons, as the core comedy, was chosen for comparison to The Waltons but the evidence suggests that a more interesting comparison is between The Waltons and Family Guy. This is not because the programs are so different, but because they are so linguistically similar. The Waltons had the highest mean for Soft words, and Family Guy had the next highest. Figure 30 indicates that they had nearly identical slopes between Soft and Very Highly Pleasant words. Both stood out among other programs because their match rate was mainly influenced by Very Common Words. Further noting that I'm, I'll,you, and be are not only Soft Words, but also Very Common words and short words, suggests that word length comparison should be made. Further support for similarity of word style between these programs is gained upon observing that Family Guy has the shortest word length of all the animated comedies (3.95) and a test for different between this and the mean for The Waltons (3.98) finds no statistical support for difference (p>.05). The evidence, therefore suggests that, in terms of some dialogue measures, The Waltons are not much like The Simpsons, but they are quite like the dysfunctional Griffins of Family Guy. 76 4.3.4 Objectionable Words The patterns evident between and within word categories made this an enlightening aspect of the study. Within the mild words M/predominates (even on The Waltons), but ass is used in more creative combinations (see the many For The Simpsons, hellwas the most frequently used word, with damn being used about half as often. Hell was also the 'cuss of choice' for King of the Hill, but in this program damn/'dammitand ass were closer in frequency. (Hank frequently threatens to 'kick [someone's] ass'.) In Family Guy 'hell'is clearly the most frequently used mild word with the frequencies of the other three words combined barely surpassing it. During the counting procedure it was observed that the word 'hell'Very often appeared in the same spot on the computer screen. This was because of its appearance in similar phrases: 'what the hell'; 'who the hell'; 'why the hell'; 'how the hell'; 'where the hell?' In contrast with other programs, ass, hell and crap appear in the Family Guy text with similar frequency. On South Park, ass is the most used word, although helland damn/dammit are not far behind. Frequency of bitch and bastard increased with 'adult' rating of program, roughly doubling or tripling for Family Guy and South Park versus The Simpsons and King 77 of the Hill. It is interesting to note that on The Simpsons the two words are used with equal frequency, but on King of the Hill, bastard is used about twice as often as bitch, while on Family Guy and South Park this trend reverses and bitch predominates. Bitch is used about 50% more often than bastard on Family Guy and almost twice as often on South Park. The body part/function words showed a decided broadcast timeslot effect between The Simpsons and King of the Hill (both currendy broadcast before 9 pm (the 'watershed' hour after which children are presumed to be in bed and unlikely to be exposed to adult programming). Half of these words are not found at all in the over 600 episodes of The Simpsons and King of the Hill (both rated PG or 14+). Most of the words are at least three times more frequent in South Park (dick only appears in South Park, rated 14 or 18+). Penis is decidedly the most frequent in Family Guy (rated 14+) but not South Park. On average, unidentified censored words seem to show a difference in frequency based on rating and/or broadcast source. Bleeped words appear in about one third of Family Guy episodes (always rated 14+ and broadcast on Sunday after the 'watershed' hour, though available beginning in the early evening in re-runs). Unidentified or identified strong swear words (shit, fuck) appeared three or four times an episode in South Park (rated 18+ and broadcast 78 in Canada on a cable station which is not subject to the same restrictions as 'over the air' broadcasters, but US broadcaster edits and rates it for age 14). Fart is a special case among special words as it may be spoken, or, unlike other objectionable words, it may appear in the captioned text as a description of a sound. Analysis is further complicated by the variety of alternate terms that may be employed within the scripted dialogue (flatulence, break wind, pass gas) or by the captioner to describe the sound. The very fact that there is such a variety of alternate descriptive terms indicates that there is some emotional tension related to this topic. George Carlin, who seems to be a popularly accepted authority on objectionable language, included it in one of his 'Dirty Words' comedy routines. Its presence in the KidToons text and absence from The Waltons (despite the presence of several other mildly offensive words) suggests that it may hold utility as a marker of comedy. In stark contrast to the adult comedies, in fifty hours of The Waltons (roughly the same viewing time as for Family Guy) only a few of the mild words appeared, and about half of these were spoken in religious context {hell, damned). In the KidToons sample the only offensive word present other than fart was crap which appeared three times (twice in one episode). This suggests that objectionable language can be used as a marker for genre even among 79 programs with ratings lower than 14+. Family dramas may contain a few, mildly objectionable words that do not fall in a scatological classification. Children's programming (likely comedic) is more likely to contain infrequent mildly objectionable words that do fall in the scatological category, rather than mild oaths such as damn. In the absence of rating information, the presence and frequency of objectionable words probably can provide a strong indicator of target audience. 4.3.5 Subtle Patterns Careful examination of the scatterplots for the animated comedies (Figures 6-9) suggested that there might be a central area of high density where all four programs showed numerous data points and from which each program displayed a distinctive pattern of dispersion. Figure 32 provides a combined scatterplot with a possible area that might be considered the generic reference point for animated comedies. From this focal area The Simpsons (the longest running program) spreads in every direction. The general scatter towards increased Activation, is especially noticeable for South Park, and is combined with a drift toward less pleasantness. Family Guy clusters toward the passive and pleasant area occupied by The Waltons, and King of the Hill spreads in the passive and unpleasant direction more than any other program. This interesting prospect requires more data from other genres and further statistical analysis. 80 1.94 I 1.92 * (0 1.90 <-v V W s. .* UJ / J Simpsons '•O "^ KingHill z 1.88 FamilyGuy < < <> South Park UJ Q! 1.86 • v —1 T 1 « 1-84 (0 1.82 1.64 1.66 1.68 1.70 1.72 1.74 Less ACTIVATION More Figure 32. Scatterplot of all 922 episodes of the four programs with area of high density indicated. Examining variability at the episode level demonstrated an advantage of episode-level analysis over word-level analysis. In a small scale study of television programs (Faragher, 2008) it was noted incidentally that means for Family Guy appeared to be more consistent than for other programs. Episode level analysis of variability confirmed the observation. This increases the characteristics by which linguistic style can be quantified by adding 'consistency' and opens research questions into the advantages or disadvantages of consistently hitting an emotional target zone. 81 5. FUTURE DIRECTIONS The new method of collecting words from television sources and conducting DAL analysis appears to hold potential. Differences between and within genres can be detected, and patterns that are likely indicative of dialogue have been noted. Further work should be done with programs from other dialogue-based scripted genres (science fiction, crime drama), scripted non-dialogue programs (science, food, and home decorating), and non-scripted dialogue based programs (talk shows, court shows). Motion pictures, which are not subject to the same language restrictions as television, would likely be another useful source of data. Within programs, analysis of the emotional-linguistic features of the narrative arc could be studied. It would be interesting to investigate the whether placement of commercial breaks interacts with the emotional arc of the story in a quantifiable and predictable way. Much has been written in the field of media studies regarding gender roles which might be enhanced by quantifying emotional-linguistic variables based on sex of speaker. Ott (2007) has proposed that television programs may be categorized as open, conscious, interactive and 82 writerly or closed, comforting, passive, and readerly. He offers The Simpsons and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as examples of die types respectively. If The Waltons is viewed as belonging to the same category as Dr. Quinn, it may be that the DAL is sensitive to these differences. DAL analysis may even be able to describe a continuum. Evidence from the derived emotional measures indicated that King of the Hill, the most readerly of the animated comedies, demonstrated DAL values that drifted toward those of The Waltons. On a very practical note, the Corpus is remarkably useful as a quotation locator. In the preparation of this paper a question arose concerning the accuracy of a quote from The Simpsons repeated as 'Lousy big shit, thinks he's so big.' (Kay & Sapolsky, 2001) which conflicted with this paper's report that 'shit' does not appear in The Simpsons at all. A search of the text file for The Simpsons using the search term 'lousy big' was able to locate this single line out of over a million words in less than a minute. The episode (not reported by Kay & Sapolsky) is 'The Cartridge Family' (season 9, episode 5) and the captioned line is: 'Lousy big shot. Thinks he's so big...'. Rapid quote location might prove useful in a number of contexts. The same process described above was used to verify the episode text quoted by a complainant to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Association - this quote was 83 inaccurate as well. Although the captioned text is not always identical to die spoken words, text search capability would streamline the process for locating a quotation so that it might be verified by rapidly locating and viewing the correct episode. A similar process would be used if the question of interest was the pattern of usage of a particular very infrequent word or phrase. Instances of the words could be located with a few minutes from hundreds of hours of different contexts in the media. Effort should be made to further automate the preparation process and counting of individual words of interest. This would facilitate analysis of even larger samples from the Kozinski Corpus. Once prepared for analysis, the Corpus itself should be examined to further understanding of language complexity. Audio-visual media continue to grow in popularity and the print- based media upon which the oft-referenced Kucera and Francis/Brown University Corpus was based are no longer the preeminent source of information they were in the 1960s. The Zipf-Mandelbrot law, which holds true for large and medium-sized corpora has been found to exhibit different behaviour in corpora with more than 5,000 types (Montemurro, 2001). This behaviour could be examined using the Kozinski Corpus. 84 The average match rate for this set of texts (86.1) was somewhat lower than the 90% usually obtained with the current DAL. Only 36 of the 997 episodes reached a match rate of 90.0% or higher. This may be an artifact of dialogue- based text in which a large number of names appear, or issues associated with standard spelling and non-standard pronunciation already discussed, but if a word-level frequency analysis indicates that it is due to the presence of new words that have greatly increased in frequency in the last decade (internet, terrorist) then the Kozinski Corpus may be a convenient and fruitful source of new words to enhance the DAL. (boqyah!) 85 6. CONCLUSION This thesis has demonstrated mat automated text capture from closed captioning is a viable method of obtaining language data from television programs for analysis using DAL software or simple word frequency counts. Subjecting a subsample of the Kozinski Corpus to DAL analysis has provided quantitative evidence not only of general differences between scripted dialogue and a representative sample of everyday English, but also differences between genres of scripted television programs and even changes within a single program over time. Further work should be done using more genres with scripted dialogue, such as crime dramas or science fiction, as well as unscripted or non-dialogue programs such as talk-shows, 'how-to' programs, newscasts, sportscasts, and narrated documentaries. Computerized searching for individual words in a large electronic corpus provides not only objectivity but a greatly enhanced level of detail and scope compared to previous methods that required real-time exposure to recordings and subjective judgment. Continued analysis of the Kozinski Corpus should provide further description of the development and current state of media English. 86 REFERENCES Adorno, T.W. (1954). 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NJ: Prentice Hall. 90 APPENDIX I Programs and Episodes Included in Analysis #: episode counter (# will change as episodes ate added, other variables do not change) P: Program; \-The Simpsons, 2=King of the Hill, 3=Family Guy, 4=South Park, S=The Waltons, 6=KidToon mixture Ep: Episode within series; l=first episode of series, count increases through life of series S: Season; increases with each TV season (seasons usually span more than one calendar year) Sep: Episode within season; count begins anew with each successive season of the series (S and Sep are not available for most KidToons and are not provided below (marked by V) # P Ep S Sep Title 1 1 1 Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire 2 2 2 Bart the Genius 3 3 3 Homer's Odyssey 4 4 4 There's No Disgrace Like Home 5 5 5 Bart the General 6 6 6 Moaning Lisa 7 7 7 The Call of the Simpsons 8 8 8 The Telltale Head 9 9 9 Life on the Fast Lane 10 10 10 Homer's Night Out 11 11 11 The Crepes of Wrath 12 12 12 Krusty Gets Busted 13 13 13 Some Enchanted Evening 14 14 2 1 Barts Gets an F 15 15 2 2 Simpson and Delilah 16 16 2 3 Treehouse of Horror 17 17 2 4 Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish 18 18 2 5 Dancin' Homer 19 19 2 6 Dead Putting Society 20 20 2 7 Bart vs. Thanksgiving 21 21 2 8 Bart the Daredevil 91 # P Ep S Sep Title 22 22 2 9 Itchy & Scratchy & Marge 23 23 2 10 Bart Gets Hit by a Car 24 24 2 11 One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish 25 25 2 12 The Way We Was 26 26 2 13 Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment 27 27 2 14 Principal Charming 28 28 2 15 Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? 29 29 2 16 Bart's Dog Gets an F 30 30 2 17 Old Money 31 31 2 18 Brush widi Greatness 32 32 2 19 Lisa's Substitute 33 33 2 20 The War of the Simpsons 34 34 2 21 Three Men and a Comic Book 35 35 2 22 Blood Feud 36 36 3 1 Stark Raving Dad 37 37 3 2 Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington 38 38 3 3 When Flanders Failed 39 39 3 4 Bart the Murderer 40 40 3 5 Homer Defined 41 41 3 6 Like Father, Like Clown 42 42 3 7 Treehouse of Horror II 43 43 3 8 Lisa's Pony 44 44 3 9 Saturdays of Thunder 45 45 3 10 Flaming Moe's 46 46 3 11 Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk 47 47 3 12 I Married Marge 48 48 3 13 Radio Bart 49 49 3 14 Lisa the Greek 50 50 3 15 Home Alone 51 51 3 16 Bart the Lover 52 52 3 17 Homer at the Bat 53 53 3 18 Separate Vacations 54 54 3 19 Dog of Death 55 55 3 20 Colonel Homer 56 56 3 21 Black Widower 57 57 3 22 The Otto Show 58 58 3 23 Bart's Friend Falls in Love 59 59 3 24 Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes 60 60 4 1 Kamp Krusty 61 61 4 2 A Streetcar Named Marge 62 62 4 3 Homer the Heretic 63 63 4 4 Lisa the Beauty Queen 64 64 4 5 Treehouse of Horror III 65 65 4 6 Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie 92 # P Ep S Sep Title 66 66 4 7 Marge Gets a Job 67 67 4 8 New Kid on the Block 68 68 4 9 Mr. Plow 69 69 4 10 Lisa's First Word 70 70 4 11 Homer's Triple Bypass 71 71 4 12 Marge vs. the Monorail 72 72 4 13 Selma's Choice 73 73 4 14 Brother From the Same Planet 74 74 4 15 I Love Lisa 75 75 4 16 Duffless 76 76 4 17 Last Exit to Sprinfield 77 77 4 18 So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show 78 78 4 19 The Front 79 79 4 20 Whacking Day 80 80 4 21 Marge in Chains 81 81 4 22 Krusty Gets Kancelled 82 82 5 1 Homer's Barbershop Quartet 83 83 5 2 Cape Feare 84 84 5 3 Homer Goes to College 85 85 5 4 Rosebud 86 86 5 5 Treehouse of Horror IV 87 87 5 6 Marge on the Lam 88 88 5 7 Bart's Inner Child 89 89 5 8 Boy-Scoutz 'N the Hood 90 90 5 9 The Last Temptation of Homer 91 91 5 10 Springfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and ... 92 92 5 11 Homer the Vigilante 93 93 5 12 Bart Gets Famous 94 94 5 13 Homer and Apu 95 95 5 14 Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy 96 96 5 15 Deep Space Homer 97 97 5 16 Homer Loves Flanders 98 98 5 17 Bart Gets an Elephant 99 99 5 18 Burns' Heir 100 100 5 19 Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song 101 101 5 20 The Boy Who Knew Too Much 102 102 5 21 Lady Bouvier's Lover 103 103 5 22 Secrets of a Successful Marriage 104 104 6 1 Bart of Darkness 105 105 6 2 Lisa's Rival 106 106 6 3 Another Simpsons Clip Show 107 107 6 4 Itchy & Scratchy Land 108 108 6 5 Sideshow Bob Roberts 109 109 6 6 Treehouse of Horror V 93 # P Ep S Sep Tide 110 110 6 7 Bart's Girlfriend 111 111 6 8 Lisa on Ice 112 112 6 9 Homer Badman 113 113 6 10 Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy 114 114 6 11 Fear of Flying 115 115 6 12 Homer die Great 116 116 6 13 And Maggie Makes Three 117 117 6 14 Bart's Comet 118 118 6 15 Homie the Clown 119 119 6 16 Bart vs. Australia 120 120 6 17 Homer vs. Patty and Selma 121 121 6 18 A Star is Burns 122 122 6 19 Lisa's Wedding 123 123 6 20 Two Dozen and One Greyhounds 124 124 6 21 The PTA Disbands 125 125 6 22 Round Springfield 126 126 6 23 The Springfield Connection 127 127 6 24 Lemon of Troy 128 128 6 25 Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One) 129 129 7 1 Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two) 130 130 7 2 Radioactive Man 131 131 7 3 Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily 132 132 7 4 Bart Sells His Soul 133 133 7 5 Lisa the Vegetarian 134 134 7 6 Treehouse of Horror VI 135 135 7 7 King-Size Homer 136 136 7 8 Mother Simpson 137 137 7 9 Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming 138 138 7 10 The Simpson's 138th Episode Spectacular 139 139 7 11 Marge Be Not Proud 140 140 7 12 Team Homer 141 141 7 13 Two Bad Neighbors 142 142 7 14 Scenes From the Class Struggle in Springfield 143 143 7 15 Bart the Fink 144 144 7 16 Lisa the Iconoclast 145 145 7 17 Homer the Smithers 146 146 7 18 The Day the Violence Died 147 147 7 19 A Fish Called Selma 148 148 7 20 Bart on the Road 149 149 7 21 22 Short Films About Springfield 150 150 7 22 Raging Abe Simpson and his Grumbling Grandson in ... 151 151 7 23 Much Apu About Nothing 152 152 7 24 Homerpalooza 153 153 7 25 Summer of 4 Ft. 2 94 # P Ep S Sep Title 154 154 8 1 Treehouse of Horror VII 155 155 8 2 You Only Move Twice 156 156 8 3 The Homer They Fall 157 157 8 4 Burns, Baby Burns 158 158 8 5 Bart After Dark 159 159 8 6 A Milhouse Divided 160 160 8 7 Lisa's Date with Density 161 161 8 8 Hurricane Neddy 162 162 8 9 The Mysterious Voyage of Homer (El Viaje Misterioso...) 163 163 8 10 The Springfield Files 164 164 8 11 The Twisted World of Marge Simpson 165 165 8 12 Mountain of Madness 166 166 8 13 Simsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt) cious 167 167 8 14 The Itchy & Scratchy and Poochie Show 168 168 8 15 Homer's Phobia 169 169 8 16 Brother From Another Series 170 170 8 17 My Sister, My Sitter 171 171 8 18 Homer vs. the 18th Amendment 172 172 8 19 Grade School Confidential 173 173 8 20 The Canine Mutiny 174 174 8 21 The Old Man and the Lisa 175 175 8 22 In Marge We Trust 176 176 8 23 Homer's Enemy 177 177 8 24 The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase 178 178 8 25 The Secret War of Lisa Simpson 179 179 9 1 The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson 180 180 9 2 The Prince and The Pauper 181 181 9 3 Lisa's Sax 182 182 9 4 Treehouse of Horror VIII 183 183 9 5 The Cartridge Family 184 184 9 6 Bart Star 185 185 9 7 The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilions 186 186 9 8 Lisa the Skeptic 187 187 9 9 Realty Bites 188 188 9 10 Miracle on Evergreen Terrace 189 189 9 11 All Singing, All Dancing 190 190 9 12 Bart Carny 191 191 9 13 The Joy of Sect 192 192 9 14 Das Bus 193 193 9 15 The Last Temptation of Krust 194 194 9 16 Dumbell Indemnity 195 195 9 17 Lisa the Simpson 196 196 9 18 This Litde Wiggy 197 197 9 19 Simpson Tide 95 # P Ep S Sep Title 198 198 9 20 The Trouble with Trillions 199 199 9 21 Girly Edition 200 200 9 22 Trash of the Titans 201 201 9 23 KinS of the Hill 202 202 9 24 Lost Our Lisa 203 203 9 25 Natural Born Kissers 204 204 10 1 Lard of the Dance 205 205 10 2 The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace 206 206 10 3 Bart the Mother 207 207 10 4 Treehouse of Horror IX 208 208 10 5 When You Dish Upon a Star 209 209 10 6 D'oh-in' in the Wind 210 210 10 7 Lisa Gets an "A" 211 211 10 8 Homer Simpson In: "Kidney Trouble" 212 212 10 9 Mayored to to the Mob 213 213 10 10 Viva Ned Flanders 214 214 10 11 Wild Barts Can't Be Broken 215 215 10 12 Sunday, Cruddy Sunday 216 216 10 13 Homer to the Max 217 217 10 14 I'm With Cupid 218 218 10 15 Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers" 219 219 10 16 Make Room for Lisa 220 220 10 17 Maximum Homerdrive 221 221 10 18 Simpsons Bible Stories 222 222 10 19 Mom and Pop Art 223 223 10 20 The Old Man and The "C" Student 224 224 10 21 Monty Can't Buy Me Love 225 225 10 22 They Saved Lisa's Brain 226 226 10 23 Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo 227 227 11 1 Beyond Blunderdome 228 228 11 2 Brother's Little Helper 229 229 11 3 Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner 230 230 11 4 Treehouse of Horror X 231 231 11 5 E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) 232 232 11 6 Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder 233 233 11 7 Eight Misbehavin' 234 234 11 8 Take My Wife, Sleaze 235 235 11 9 Grift of the Magi 236 236 11 10 Little Big Mom 237 237 11 11 Faith Off 238 238 11 12 The Mansion Family 239 239 11 13 Saddlesore Galactica 240 240 11 14 Alone Again, Natura-Diddly 241 241 11 15 Missionary: Impossible 96 # P Ep S Sep Tide 242 242 11 16 Pygmoelian 243 243 11 17 Bart to the Future 244 244 11 18 Days of Wine and D'oh'ses 245 245 11 19 Kill the Alligator and Run 246 246 11 20 Last Tap Dance in Springfield 247 247 11 21 It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge 248 248 11 22 Behind the Laughter 249 249 12 1 Treehouse of Horror XI 250 250 12 2 A Tale of Two Springfields 251 251 12 3 Insane Clown Poppy 252 252 12 4 Lisa the Tree Hugger 253 253 12 5 Homer vs. Dignity 254 254 12 6 The Computer Wore Menace Shoes 255 255 12 7 The Great Money Caper 256 256 12 8 Skinner's Sense of Snow 257 257 12 9 HOMR 258 258 12 10 Pokey Mom 259 259 12 11 Worst Episode Ever 260 260 12 12 Tennis the Menace 261 261 12 13 Day of the Jackanapes 262 262 12 14 New Kids on the Blecch 263 263 12 15 Hungry, Hungry Homer 264 264 12 16 Bye, Bye, Nerdie 265 265 12 17 Simpson Safari 266 266 12 18 Trilogy of Error 267 267 12 19 I'm Goin' to Praiseland 268 268 12 20 Children of a Lesser Clod 269 269 12 21 Simpsons Tall Tales 270 270 13 1 Treehouse of Horror XII 271 271 13 2 The Parent Rap 272 272 13 3 Homer the Moe 273 273 13 4 A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love 274 274 13 5 The Blunder Years 275 275 13 6 She of Little Faidi 276 276 13 7 Brawl in the Family 277 277 13 8 Sweets and Sour Marge 278 278 13 9 Jaws Wired Shut 279 279 13 10 Half-Decent Proposal 280 280 13 11 The Bart wants What It Wants 281 281 13 12 The Lastest Gun in the West 282 282 13 13 The Old Man and the Key 283 283 13 14 Tales From the Public Domain 284 284 13 15 Blame it on Lisa 285 285 13 16 Weekend at Burnsie's 97 # P Ep S Sep Title 286 286 13 17 Gump Roast 287 287 13 18 I Am Furious (Yellow) 288 288 13 19 The Sweetest Apu 289 289 13 20 Little Girl in the Big Ten 290 290 13 21 The Frying Game 291 291 13 22 Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge 292 292 14 1 Treehouse of Horror XIII 293 293 14 2 How I Spent My Summer Vacation 294 294 14 3 Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade 295 295 14 4 Large Marge 296 296 14 5 Helter Shelter 297 297 14 6 The Great Louse Detective 298 298 14 7 Special Edna 299 299 14 8 The Dad Who Knew Too Little 300 300 14 9 The Strong Arms of the Ma 301 301 14 10 Pray Anything 302 302 14 11 Barting Over 303 303 14 12 I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can 304 304 14 13 A Star Is Born Again 305 305 14 14 Mr. Sprite Goes to Washington 306 306 14 15 C.E.D'oh 307 307 14 16 Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky 308 308 14 17 Three Gays of the Condo 309 309 14 18 Dude, Where's My Ranch? 310 310 14 19 Old Yeller BeUy 311 311 14 20 Brake My Wife, Please 312 312 14 21 The Bart of War 313 313 14 22 Moe Baby Blues 314 314 15 1 Treehouse of Horror XIV 315 315 15 2 My Mother the Carj acker 316 316 15 3 The President Wore Pearls 317 317 15 4 The Regina Monologues 318 318 15 5 The Fat and the Furriest 319 319 15 6 Today I am a Clown 320 320 15 7 Tis the Fifteenth Season 321 321 15 8 Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and ... 322 322 15 9 I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot 323 323 15 10 Diatribe of a Mad Housewife 324 324 15 11 Margical History Tour 325 325 15 12 Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore 326 326 15 13 Smart and Smarter 327 327 15 14 The Ziff Who Came to Dinner 328 328 15 15 Co-Dependent's Day 329 329 15 16 The Wandering Juvie 98 # P Ep S Sep Title 330 330 15 17 My Big Fat Geek Wedding 331 331 15 18 Catch 'em If You Can 332 332 15 19 Simple Simpson 333 333 15 20 The Way We Weren't 334 334 15 21 Bart-Mangled Banner 335 335 15 22 Fraudcast News 336 336 16 1 Treehouse of Horror XV 337 337 16 2 All's Fair in Oven War 338 338 16 3 Sleeping With the Enemy 339 339 16 4 She Used to Be My Girl 340 340 16 5 Fat Man and Little Boy 341 341 16 6 Midnight Rx 342 342 16 7 Mommie Beerest 343 343 16 8 Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass 344 344 16 9 Pranksta Rap 345 345 16 10 There's Something About Marrying 346 346 16 11 On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister 347 347 16 12 Goo Goo Gai Pan 348 348 16 13 Mobile Homer 349 349 16 14 The Seven-Beer Snitch 350 350 16 15 Future-Drama 351 351 16 16 Don't Fear the Roofer 352 352 16 17 The Heartbroke Kid 353 353 16 18 A Star is Torn 354 354 16 19 Thank God, It's Doomsday 355 355 16 20 Home Away From Homer 356 356 16 21 The Father, The Son, and The Holy Guest Star 357 357 17 1 The Bonfire of the Manatees 358 358 17 2 The Girl Who Slept too Litde 359 359 17 3 Milhouse of Sand and Fog 360 360 17 4 Treehouse of Horror XVI 361 361 17 5 Marge's Son Poisoning 362 362 17 6 See Homer Run 363 363 17 7 The Last of the Red Hat Mamas 364 364 17 8 The Italian Bob 365 365 17 9 Simpsons Christmas Stories 366 366 17 10 Homer's Paternity Coot 367 367 17 11 We're on the Road to D'ohwhere 368 368 17 12 My Fair Laddy 369 369 17 13 The Seemingly Never-Ending Story 370 370 17 14 Bart Has Two Mommies 371 371 17 15 Homer Simpson, This is Your Wife 372 372 17 16 Million Dollar Abie 373 373 17 17 Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore 99 # P Ep S Sep Title 374 374 17 18 The Wettest Stories Ever Told 375 375 17 19 Girls Just Want to Have Sums 376 376 17 20 Regarding Margie 377 377 17 21 The Monkey Suit 378 378 17 22 Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play 379 379 18 1 The Mook, the Chef, the Wife, and Her Homer 380 380 18 2 Jazzy and the Pussycats 381 381 18 3 Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em 382 382 18 4 Treehouse of Horror XVII 383 383 18 5 G.I. (Annoyed Grunt) 384 384 18 6 Moe 'N' Lisa 385 385 18 7 Ice Cream of Margie (With the Light Blue Hair) 386 386 18 8 The Haw-Hawed Couple 387 387 18 9 Kill Gil: Vols. 1 & 2 388 388 18 10 The Wife Aquatic 389 389 18 11 Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times 390 390 18 12 Little Big Girl 391 391 18 13 Springfield Up 392 392 18 14 Yokel Chords 393 393 18 15 Rome-Old and Juli-Eh 394 394 18 16 Homerazzi 395 395 18 17 Marge Gamer 396 396 18 18 The Boys of Bummer 397 397 18 19 Crook and Ladder 398 398 18 20 Stop Or My Dog Will Shoot 399 399 18 21 24 Minutes 400 400 18 22 You Kent Always Say What You Want 401 401 19 1 He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs 402 402 19 2 The Homer of Seville 403 403 19 3 Midnight Towboy 404 404 19 4 I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 405 405 19 5 Treehouse of Horror XVIII 406 406 19 6 Little Orphan Millie 407 407 19 7 Husbands and Knives 408 408 19 8 Funeral for a Fiend 409 1 409 19 9 Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind 410 1 410 19 10 E. Pluribus Wiggum 411 1 411 19 11 That '90s Show 412 1 412 19 12 Love Springfieldian Style 413 1 413 19 13 The Debarted 414 1 414 19 14 Dial N for Nerder 415 1 415 19 15 Smoke on the Daughter 416 1 416 19 16 Papa Don't Leech 417 1 417 19 17 Apocalypse Cow 100 # P Ep S Sep Tide 418 1 418 19 18 Any Given Sundance 419 1 419 19 19 Mona Leaves-a 420 1 420 19 20 All About Lisa 421 2 1 1 Pilot 422 2 2 2 Square Peg 423 2 3 3 The Order of the Straight Arrow 424 2 4 4 Luanne's Saga 425 2 5 5 Hank's Got the Willies 426 2 6 6 Westie Side Story 427 2 7 7 Hank's Unmentionable Problem 428 2 8 8 Shins of the Father 429 2 9 9 Peggy the Boggle Champ 430 2 10 10 Keeping Up With Our Joneses 431 2 11 11 Plastic White Female 432 2 12 2 9 The Company Man 433 2 13 1 12 King of the Ant Hill 434 2 14 2 1 How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying 435 2 15 2 2 Texas City Twister 436 2 16 2 3 The Arrowhead 437 2 17 2 4 Hilloween 438 2 18 2 5 Jumpin' Crack Bass 439 2 19 2 6 Husky Bobby 440 2 20 2 7 The Man Who Shot Cane Skretteburg 441 2 21 2 8 The Son that Got Away 442 2 22 2 10 Bobby Slam 443 2 23 2 11 The Unbearable Blindness of Laying 444 2 24 2 12 Meet the Manger Babies 445 2 25 2 13 Snow Job 446 2 26 2 14 I Remember Mono 447 2 27 2 15 Three Days of the Kahndo 448 2 28 2 16 Traffic Jam 449 2 29 2 17 Hank's Dirty Laundry 450 2 30 2 18 The Final Shinsult 451 2 31 2 19 Leanne's Saga 452 2 32 2 20 Junkie Business 453 2 33 2 21 Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby's Saga 454 2 34 2 22 Peggy's Turde Song 455 2 35 2 23 Propane Boon (1) 456 2 36 3 1 Death of a Propane Salesman (2) 457 2 37 3 2 And They Call It Bobby Love 458 2 38 3 3 Peggy's Headache 459 2 39 3 4 Pregnant Paws 460 2 40 3 5 Next of Shin 461 2 41 3 6 Peggy's Pageant Fever 101 # P Ep S Sep Title 462 2 42 3 7 Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men 463 2 43 3 8 Good Hill Hunting 464 2 44 3 9 Pretty, Pretty, Dresses 465 2 45 3 10 A Fire Fighting We Will Go 466 2 46 3 11 To Spank with Love 467 2 47 3 12 Three Coaches and a Bobby 468 2 48 3 13 De-Kahnstructing Henry 469 2 49 3 14 The Wedding of Bobby Hill 470 2 50 3 15 Sleight of Hank 471 2 51 3 16 Jon Vitti Presents: Return to La Grunta 472 2 52 3 17 Escape from Party Island 473 2 53 3 18 Love Hurst and So Does Art 474 2 54 3 19 Hank's Cowboy Movie 475 2 55 3 20 Dog Dale Afternoon 476 2 56 3 21 Revenge of the Lutefisk 477 2 57 3 22 Death and Texas 478 2 58 3 23 Wings of the Dope 479 2 59 3 24 Take Me out of the Ball Game 480 2 60 3 25 As Old as the Hills (1) 481 2 61 4 1 Peggy Hill: the Decline and Fall (2) 482 2 62 4 2 Cotton's Plot 483 2 63 4 3 Bills are Made to be Broken 484 2 64 4 4 Little Horrors of Shop 485 2 65 4 5 Aisle 8A 486 2 66 4 6 A Beer Can Named Desire 487 2 67 4 7 The Hank's Giving Episode 488 2 68 4 8 Not in My Back Hoe 489 2 69 4 9 To Kill a Ladybird 490 2 70 4 10 Hillennium 491 2 71 4 11 Old Glory 492 2 72 4 12 Rodeo Days 493 2 73 4 13 Hanky Panky (1) 494 2 74 4 14 High Anxiety (2) 495 2 75 4 15 Naked Ambition 496 2 76 4 16 Movin' On Up 497 2 77 4 17 Bill of Sales 498 2 78 4 18 Won't You Pimai Neighbor? 499 2 79 4 19 Hank's Bad Hair Day 500 2 80 4 20 Meet the Propaniacs 501 2 81 4 21 Nancy Boys 502 2 82 4 22 Flush with Power 503 2 83 4 23 Transnational...: Peggy's Magic Sex Feet 504 2 84 4 24 Peggy's Fan Fair 505 2 85 5 1 The Perils of Polling 102 # P Ep S Sep Title 506 2 86 5 2 The Buck Stops Here 507 2 87 5 3 I Don't Want to Wait 508 2 88 5 4 Spin the Choice 509 2 89 5 5 Peggy Makes the Big Leagues 510 2 90 5 6 When Cotton Comes Marching Home 511 2 91 5 7 What Makes Bobby Run? 512 2 92 5 8 Twas the Nut Before Christmas 513 2 93 5 9 Chasing Bobby 514 2 94 5 10 Yankee Hankie 515 2 95 5 11 Hank and the Great Glass Elevator 516 2 96 5 12 Now Who's the Dummy? 517 2 97 5 13 Ho Yeah! 518 2 98 5 14 The Exterminator 519 2 99 5 15 Luanne Virgin 2.0 520 2 100 5 16 Hank's Choice 521 2 101 5 17 It's Not Easy Being Green 522 2 102 5 18 The Trouble With Gribbles 523 2 103 5 19 Hank's Back Story 524 2 104 5 20 Kidney Boy and Hamster Girl: A Love Story 525 2 105 6 1 Bobby Goes Nuts 526 2 106 6 2 Soldier of Misfortune 527 2 107 6 3 Lupe's Revenge 528 2 108 6 4 The Father, the Son and J.C. 529 2 109 6 5 Father of the Bribe 530 2 110 6 6 I'm with Cupid 531 2 111 6 7 Torch Song Hillogy 532 2 112 6 8 Joust Like a Woman 533 2 113 6 9 The Bluegrass is Always Greener 534 2 114 6 10 The Substitute Spanish Prisoner 535 2 115 6 11 Unfortunate Son 536 2 116 6 12 Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Hill 537 2 117 6 13 Tankin' it to the Streets 538 2 118 6 14 Of Mice and Little Green Men 539 2 119 6 15 A Man Without a Country Club 540 2 120 6 16 Beer and Loathing 541 2 121 6 17 Fun with Jane and Jane 542 2 122 6 18 My Own Private Rodeo 543 2 123 6 19 Sug Night 544 2 124 6 20 Dang Ol' Love 545 2 125 6 21 Returning Japanese (1) 546 2 126 6 22 Returning Japanese (2) 547 2 127 7 1 Get Your Freak Off 548 2 129 7 3 Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do 549 2 130 7 4 Goodbye Normal Jeans 103 # P Ep S Sep Tide 550 2 131 7 5 Dances With Dogs 551 2 132 7 6 The Son Also Roses 552 2 133 7 7 The Texas Skillsaw Massacre 553 2 134 7 8 Full Metal Dust Jacket 554 2 135 7 9 Pigmalion 555 2 136 7 10 Megalo Dale 556 2 137 7 11 Boxing Luanne 557 2 138 7 12 Vision Quest 558 2 139 7 13 Queasy Rider 559 2 142 7 16 The Miseducation of Bobby Hill 560 2 143 7 17 The Good Buck 561 2 144 7 18 I Never Promised You an Organic Garden 562 2 145 7 19 Be True to Your Fool 563 2 146 7 20 Racist Dawg 564 2 147 7 21 Night and Deity 565 2 148 7 22 Maid in Arlen 566 2 149 7 23 The Witches of East Arlen 567 2 150 8 1 Patch Boomhauer 568 2 151 8 2 Reborn To Be Wild 569 2 152 8 3 New Cowboy on the Block 570 2 153 8 4 The Incredible Hank 571 2 154 8 5 Flirting With the Master 572 2 155 8 6 After the Mold Rush 573 2 157 8 8 Rich Hank, Poor Hank 574 2 158 8 9 Ceci N'est Pas Une King of the Hill 575 2 159 8 10 That's What She Said 576 2 160 8 11 My Hair Lady 577 2 161 8 12 Phish and Wildlife 578 2 162 8 13 Cheer Factor 579 2 163 8 14 Dale Be Not Proud 580 2 164 8 15 Apres Hank, le Deluge 581 2 165 8 16 Daletech 582 2 166 8 17 How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 583 2 167 8 18 Girl, You'll Be a Giant Soon 584 2 168 8 19 Stressed for Success 585 2 169 8 20 Hank's Back 586 2 170 8 21 The Redneck on Rainey Street 587 2 171 8 22 Talking Shop 588 2 172 9 1 A Rover Runs Through It 589 2 173 9 2 Ms. Wakefield 590 2 174 9 3 Death Buys a Timeshare 591 2 175 9 4 Yard, She Blows! 592 2 176 9 5 Dale to the Chief 593 2 177 9 6 The Petriot Act 104 # P Ep S Sep Title 594 2 178 9 7 Enrique-cilable Differences 595 2 179 9 8 Mutual of OmAbwah 596 2 180 9 9 Care-Takin' Care of Business 597 2 181 9 10 Aden City Bomber 598 2 182 9 11 Redcorn Gambles With His Future 599 2 183 9 12 Smoking and the Bandit 600 2 184 9 13 Gone With the Windstorm 601 2 185 9 14 Bobby on Track 602 2 186 9 15 It Ain't Over Till the Fat Neighbor Sings 603 2 188 10 2 Bystand Me 604 2 190 10 4 Harlottown 605 2 193 10 7 You Gotta Believe (In Moderation) 606 2 194 10 8 Business Is Picking Up 607 2 195 10 9 The Year of Washing Dangerously 608 2 196 10 10 Hank Fixes Everything 609 2 197 10 11 Church Hopping 610 2 199 10 13 The Texas Panhandler 611 2 200 10 14 Hank's Bully 612 2 201 10 15 Edu-macating Lucky 613 2 202 11 1 The Peggy Horror Picture Show 614 2 203 11 2 SerPUNt 615 2 204 11 3 Blood and Sauce 616 2 205 11 4 Luanne Gets Lucky 617 2 206 11 5 Hank Gets Dusted 618 2 207 11 6 Glen Peggy Glen Ross 619 2 208 11 7 The Passion of Dauterive 620 2 209 11 8 Grand Theft Aden 621 2 210 11 9 Peggy's Gone to Pots 622 2 211 11 10 Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow 623 2 212 11 11 Bill, Bulk and the Body Buddies 624 2 213 11 12 Lucky's Wedding Suit 625 2 215 12 2 Bobby Rae 626 2 216 12 3 The Powder Puff Boys 627 2 217 12 4 Four Wave Intersection 628 2 218 12 5 Death Picks Cotton 629 2 219 12 6 Raise the Steaks 630 2 220 12 7 Tears of an Inflatable Clown 631 2 221 12 8 The Minh Who Knew Too Much 632 2 222 12 9 Dream Weaver 633 2 223 12 10 Doggone Crazy 634 2 224 12 11 Trans-Facism 635 2 225 12 12 Untitled Blake McCormick Project 636 2 226 12 13 The Accidental Terrorist 637 2 227 12 14 Lady and Gentrification 105 # P Ep S Sep Tide 638 2 228 12 15 Behind Closed Doors 639 2 229 12 16 Pour Some Sugar on Kahn 640 2 230 12 17 Six Characters in Search of a House 641 2 231 12 18 The Courtship of Joseph's Father 642 2 232 12 19 Strangeness on a Train 643 2 233 12 20 Cops and Robert 644 2 234 12 21 It Came From the Garage 645 2 235 12 22 Life: A Loser's Manual 646 3 1 1 1 Death Has a Shadow 647 3 2 1 2 I Never Met the Dead Man 648 3 3 1 3 Chitty Chitty Death Bang 649 3 4 1 4 Mind Over Murder 650 3 5 1 5 A Hero Sits Next Door 651 3 6 1 6 The Son Also Draws 652 3 7 1 7 Brian: Portrait of a Dog 653 3 8 2 1 Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater 654 3 9 2 2 Holy Crap 655 3 10 2 3 Da Boom 656 3 11 2 4 Brian in Love 657 3 12 2 5 Love Thy Trophy 658 3 13 2 6 Death is a Bitch 659 3 14 2 7 The King is Dead 660 3 15 2 8 I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar 661 3 16 2 9 IfI'mDyin'I'mLyin' 662 3 17 2 10 Running Mates 663 3 18 2 11 A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Bucks 664 3 19 2 12 Fifteen Minutes of Shame 665 3 20 2 13 Road to Rhode Island 666 3 21 2 14 Let's Go to the Hop 667 3 22 2 15 Dammit Janet 668 3 23 2 16 There's Something About Paulie 669 3 24 2 17 He's Too Sexy for His Fat 670 3 25 2 18 E. Peterbus Unum 671 3 26 2 19 The Story on Page One 672 3 27 2 20 Wasted Talent 673 3 28 2 21 Fore, Father 674 3 29 3 1 The Thin White Line (1) 675 3 30 3 2 Brian Does Hollywood (2) 676 3 31 3 3 Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington 677 3 32 3 4 One If By Clam, Two If By Sea 678 3 33 3 5 And the Wiener is ... 679 3 34 3 6 Death Lives 680 3 35 3 7 Lethal Weapons 681 3 36 3 8 The Kiss Seen Around the World 106 # P Ep S Sep Title 682 3 37 3 9 Mr. Saturday Knight 683 3 38 3 10 Fish Out of Water 684 3 39 3 11 Emission Impossible 685 3 40 3 12 To Love and Die in Dixie 686 3 41 3 13 Screwed The Pooch 687 3 42 3 14 Peter Griffin: Husband, Father ... Brother? 688 3 43 3 15 Ready, Willing, and Disabled 689 3 44 3 16 A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas 690 3 45 3 17 Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows 691 3 46 3 18 From Method to Madness 692 3 47 3 19 Stuck Together, Torn Apart 693 3 48 3 20 Road to Europe 694 3 49 3 21 Family Guy Viewer Mail #1 695 3 50 3 22 When You Wish Upon a Weinstein 696 3 51 4 1 North by North Quahog 697 3 52 4 2 Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High 698 3 53 4 3 Blind Ambition 699 3 54 4 4 Don't Make Me Over 700 3 55 4 5 The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire 701 3 56 4 6 Petarded 702 3 57 4 7 Brian the Bachelor 703 3 58 4 8 8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter 704 3 59 4 9 Breaking Out Is Hard To Do 705 3 60 4 10 Model Misbehavior 706 3 61 4 11 Peter's Got Woods 707 3 62 4 12 Perfect Castaway 708 3 63 4 13 Jungle Love 709 3 64 4 14 PTV 710 3 65 4 15 Brian Goes Back to College 711 3 66 4 16 The Courtship of Stewie's Father 712 3 67 4 17 The Fat Guy Strangler 713 3 68 4 18 The Father, The Son, and the Holy Fonz 714 3 69 4 19 Brian Sings & Swings 715 3 70 4 20 Patriot Games 716 3 71 4 21 I Take Thee Quagmire 717 3 72 4 22 Sibling Rivalry 718 3 73 4 23 Deep Throats 719 3 74 4 24 Peterotica 720 3 75 4 25 You May Now Kiss The ... Uh ... Guy Who Receives 721 3 76 4 26 Petergeist 722 3 77 4 27 Unotled Griffin Family History 723 3 78 4 28 Stewie B. Goode 724 3 79 4 29 Bango Was His Name Oh 725 3 80 4 30 Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure 107 # P Ep S Sep Title 726 3 81 5 1 Stewie Loves Lois 727 3 82 5 2 Mother Tucker 728 3 83 5 3 Hell Comes to Quahog 729 3 84 5 4 Saving Private Brian 730 3 85 5 5 Whistle While Your Wife Works 731 3 86 5 6 Prick Up Your Ears 732 3 87 5 7 Chick Cancer 733 3 88 5 8 Barely Legal 734 3 89 5 9 Road to Rupert 735 3 90 5 10 Peter's Two Dads 736 3 91 5 11 The Tan Aquatic widi Steve Zissou 737 3 92 5 12 Airport '07 738 3 93 5 13 Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey 739 3 94 5 14 No Meals On Wheels 740 3 95 5 15 Boys Do Cry 741 3 96 5 16 No Chris Left Behind 742 3 97 5 17 It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One 743 3 98 5 18 Meet the Quagmires 744 3 99 6 1 Blue Harvest (1) 745 3 100 6 2 Blue Harvest (2) 746 3 101 6 3 Movin'Out (Brian's Song) 747 3 102 6 4 Believe It Or Not, Joe's Walking On Air 748 3 103 6 5 Family Guy 100th Episode Special 749 3 104 6 6 Stewie Kills Lois (1) 750 3 105 6 7 Lois Kills Stewie (2) 751 3 106 6 8 Padre de Familia 752 3 107 6 9 Peter's Daughter 753 3 108 6 10 McStroke 754 3 109 6 11 Back to the Woods 755 3 110 6 12 Play It Again, Brian 756 3 111 6 13 The Former Life of Brian 757 3 112 6 14 Long John Peter 758 4 1 1 Cartman Gets an Anal Probe 759 4 2 3 Weight Gain 4000 760 4 3 2 Volcano 761 4 4 4 Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride 762 4 5 5 An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig 763 4 6 6 Death 764 4 7 7 Pink Eye 765 4 8 8 Starvin' Marvin 766 4 9 9 Mr. Hankey, die Christina Poo 767 4 10 10 Damien 768 4 11 11 Tom's Rhinoplasty 769 4 12 12 Mecha-Streisand 108 # P Ep S Sep Title 770 4 13 1 13 Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut (1) 771 4 14 2 1 Terrance & Phillip in "Not Without My Anus" 772 4 15 2 2 Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut 773 4 16 2 3 Chickenlover 774 4 17 2 4 Ike's Wee Wee 775 4 18 2 5 Conjoined Fetus Lady 776 4 19 2 6 The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka 777 4 20 2 7 City on the Edge of Forever (a.k.a Flashbacks) 778 4 21 2 8 Summer Sucks 779 4 22 2 9 Chefs Salty Chocolate Balls 780 4 23 2 10 Chickenpox 781 4 24 2 11 Roger Ebert Should Lay Off die Fatty Foods 782 4 25 2 12 Clubhouses 783 4 26 2 13 Cow Days 784 4 27 2 14 Chef Aid 785 4 28 2 15 Spooky Fish 786 4 29 2 16 Merry Christmas Charlie Manson 787 4 30 2 17 Gnomes 788 4 31 2 18 Prehistoric Ice Man 789 4 32 3 1 Rainforest Shmainforest 790 4 33 3 2 Spontaneous Combustion 791 4 34 3 3 The Succubus 792 4 35 3 4 Jakovasaurs 793 4 36 3 5 Tweek vs. Craig 794 4 37 3 6 Sexual Harassment Panda 795 4 38 3 7 Cat Orgy (1) 796 4 39 3 8 Two Guys Nakes in a Hot Tub (2) 797 4 40 3 9 Jewbilee (3) 798 4 41 3 10 Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery 799 4 42 3 11 Chinpokomon 800 4 43 3 12 Hooked on Monkey Fonics 801 4 44 3 13 Starvin' Marvin in Space! 802 4 45 3 14 The Red Badge of Gayness 803 4 46 3 15 Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics 804 4 47 3 16 Are You There God, It's Me Jesus 805 4 48 3 17 Worldwide Recorder Concert 806 4 49 4 1 The Tooth Fairy's TATS 2000 807 4 50 4 2 Cartman's Silly Hate Crive 2000 808 4 51 4 3 Timmy! 2000 809 4 52 4 4 Quintuplets 2000 810 4 53 4 5 Cartman Joins NAMBLA 811 4 54 4 6 Cherokee Hair Tampons 812 4 55 4 7 Chef Goes Nanners 813 4 56 4 8 Something You Can Do With Your Finger 109 # P Ep S Sep Tide 814 4 57 4 9 Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? (1) 815 4 58 4 10 Probably (2) 816 4 59 4 11 4th Grade 817 4 60 4 12 Trapper Keeper 818 4 61 4 13 Helen Keller! The Musical 819 4 62 4 14 Pip (a.k.a. Great Expectations) 820 4 63 4 15 Fat Camp 821 4 64 4 16 TheWacky Molestation Adventure 822 4 65 4 17 A Very Crappy Christmas 823 4 66 5 1 It Hits the Fan 824 4 67 5 2 Cripple Fight 825 4 68 5 3 The Super Best Friends 826 4 69 5 4 Scott Tenorman Must Die 827 4 70 5 5 Terrance and Phillip: Behind the Blow 828 4 71 5 6 Cartmanland 829 4 72 5 7 Proper Condom Use 830 4 73 5 8 Towlie 831 4 74 5 9 Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants 832 4 75 5 10 How to Eat With Your Butt 833 4 76 5 11 The Entity 834 4 77 5 12 Here Comes the Neighborhood 835 4 78 5 13 Kenny Dies 836 4 79 5 14 Butters' Very Own Episode 837 4 80 6 1 Jared Has Aides 838 4 81 6 2 Asspen 839 4 82 6 3 Freak Strike 840 4 83 6 4 Fun With Veal 841 4 84 6 5 The Terrance & Phillip Movie Trailer 842 4 85 6 6 Professor Chaos 843 4 86 6 7 Simpsons Already Did It 844 4 87 6 8 Red Hot Catholic Love 845 4 88 6 9 Free Hat 846 4 89 6 10 Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society 847 4 90 6 11 Child Abduction is Not Funny 848 4 91 6 12 A Ladder to Heaven The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two 849 4 92 6 13 Towers 850 4 93 6 14 The Death Camp of Tolerance 851 4 94 6 15 The Biggest Douche in the Universe 852 4 95 6 16 My Future Self n' Me 853 4 97 7 1 Cancelled 854 4 98 7 2 Krazy Kripples 855 4 99 7 3 Toilet Paper 856 4 100 7 4 I'm A Little Bit Country 110 # P Ep S Sep Title 857 4 101 7 5 Fat Butt and Pancake Head 858 4 102 7 6 Lil' Crime Stoppers 859 4 103 7 7 Red Man's Greed 860 4 104 7 8 South Park is Gay! 861 4 105 7 9 Christian Rock Hard 862 4 106 7 10 Grey Dawn 863 4 107 7 11 Casa Bonita 864 4 108 7 12 All About the Mormons 865 4 109 7 13 Butt Out 866 4 110 7 14 Raisins 867 4 111 7 15 It's Christmas in Canada 868 4 112 8 1 Good Times With Weapons 869 4 113 8 2 Up the Down Steroid 870 4 114 8 3 The Passion of the Jew 871 4 115 8 4 You Got Fucked in the Ass 872 4 116 8 5 AWESOM-O 873 4 117 8 6 The Jeffersons 874 4 118 8 7 Goobacks 875 4 119 8 8 Douche and Turd 876 4 120 8 9 Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes 877 4 121 8 10 Pre-School 878 4 122 8 11 Quest for Ratings 879 4 123 8 12 Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset 880 4 124 8 13 Cartman's Incredible Gift 881 4 125 8 14 Woodland Critter Christmas 882 4 126 9 1 Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina 883 4 127 9 2 Die Hippie, Die 884 4 128 9 3 Wing 885 4 129 9 4 Best Friends Forever 886 4 130 9 5 The Losing Edge 887 4 131 9 6 The Death of Eric Cartman 888 4 133 9 8 Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow 889 4 134 9 9 Marjorine 890 4 135 9 10 Follow That Egg 891 4 136 9 11 Ginger Kids 892 4 137 9 12 Trapped in the Closet 893 4 138 9 13 Free Willzyx 894 4 139 9 14 Bloody Mary 895 4 140 10 1 The Return of Chef! 896 4 141 10 2 Smug Alert! 897 4 142 10 3 Cartoon Wars (1) 898 4 143 10 4 Cartoon Wars (2) 899 4 144 10 5 A Million Litde Fibers 900 4 145 10 6 ManBearPig Ill # P Ep S Sep Tide 901 4 146 10 7 Tsst 902 4 147 10 8 Make Love, Not Warcraft 903 4 148 10 9 Mystery of the Urinal Deuce 904 4 149 10 10 Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy 905 4 150 10 11 Hell on Earth 2006 906 4 151 10 12 Go God Go (1) 907 4 152 10 13 Go God Go XII (2) 908 4 153 10 14 Stanley's Cup 909 4 154 1 With Apologies to Jesse Jackson 910 4 155 2 Cartman Sucks 911 4 156 3 Lice Capades 912 4 157 4 The Snuke 913 4 158 5 Fantastic Easter Special 914 4 159 6 D-Yikes! 915 4 160 7 Night of the Living Homeless 916 4 161 8 Le Petit Tourette 917 4 162 9 More Crap 918 4 163 10 Imaginationland 919^ 4 164 11 Imaginationland: Episode II 920 4 165 12 Imaginationland: Episode III 921 4 166 13 Guitar Queer-o 922 4 167 14 The List 923 5 1 1 The Foundling 924 5 2 2 The Carnival 925 5 3 3 The Calf 926 5 4 4 The Hunt 927 5 5 5 The Typewriter 928 5 6 6 The Star 929 5 7 7 The Sinner 930 5 8 8 The Boy from the C.C.C. 931 5 9 9 The Ceremony 932 5 10 10 The Legend 933 5 11 11 The Literary Man 934 5 12 12 The Dust Bowl Cousins 935 5 13 13 The Reunion 936 5 14 14 The Minstrel 937 5 15 15 The Actress 938 5 16 16 The Fire 939 5 17 17 The Love Story 940 5 18 18 The Courtship 941 5 19 19 Gypsies 942 5 20 20 The Deed 943 5 21 21 The Scholar 944 5 22 22 The Bicycle 112 # P Ep S Sep Title 945 5 23 1 23 The Townie 946 5 24 1 24 An Easter Story 947 5 25 4 1 The Sermon 948 5 26 4 2 The Genius 949 5 27 4 3 The Fighter 950 5 28 4 4 The Prophecy 951 5 29 4 5 The Boondoggle 952 5 30 4 6 The Breakdown 953 5 31 4 7 The Wing-Walker 954 5 32 4 8 The Competition 955 5 33 4 9 The Emergence 956 5 34 4 10 The Loss 957 5 35 4 11 The Abdication 958 5 36 4 12 The Estrangement 959 5 37 4 13 The Nurse 960 5 38 4 14 The Intruders 961 5 39 4 15 The Search 962 5 40 4 16 The Secret 963 5 41 4 17 The Fox 964 5 42 4 18 The Burn Out Parts I and II 965 5 43 4 19 The Big Brother 966 5 44 4 20 The Test 967 5 45 4 21 The Quilting 968 5 46 4 22 The House 969 5 47 4 23 The Fledgling 970 5 48 4 24 The Collision 971 6 1 X X Little Bear: Exploring 972 6 2 X X Secret World of Og: The Great Escape 973 6 3 X X Yam Roll: Poltergoof Naughty Pets Up, Up and Away; Pretty Vicky Shopping 974 6 4 X X Spree 975 6 5 X X Dragon Booster: When Opposites Attract 976 6 6 X X Storm Hawks: Velocity 977 6 7 X X Archie's Weird Mysteries: The Extra-Terror-estrial 978 6 8 X X Di-Gata Defenders: Snared 979 6 9 X X Biker Mice From Mars: Changes 980 6 10 X X Best of TMNT: The Big Brawl Part 1 [#491 981 6 11 X X Dinosaur King: Tee'd Off 982 6 12 X X Recess: Good Luck Charm; Diggers Split Up Chop Socky Chooks: Return the Other Cheek 11/11 2008 or 983 6 13 X X 2007 Angela Anaconda: Childhood For Sale; The Best is Yeti to 984 6 14 X X Come 985 6 15 X X My Goldfish is Evil: (3 untitled episodes) 113 # P Ep S Sep Tide 986 6 16 X X Erky Perky: Sucked In; Tongue Tied 987 6 17 X X Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends: Bus the Two of Us 988 6 18 X X Mr Meaty (dead guy in freezer) 989 6 19 X X Carl Squared: A Tale of Two Carls; Replacement Carl Johnny Test; Deep Sea J; J & Amazing Turbo Bkpk; Dog 990 6 20 X X Days of J; J's Pink Plague Iggy Arbuckle: Oh, Brother WAT:, Ol' Trusty; Any Friend of 991 6 21 X X Yours; Miner Misfortunes 992 6 22 X X Captain Flamingo; Ten Pin Peril; Whack-a-Max Camp Lazlo: There's No Place Like Gnome; Hot Spring 993 6 23 X X Fever My Gym Partner's A Monkey: Save the Drama Llama; 994 6 24 X X Hornbill & Ted's Bogus Journey Squirrel Boy: The Trojan Rabbit: The Endangered Species 995 6 25 X X Twist (inc) 996 6 26 X X Pig City: Metal Mayhem 997 6 27 X X RoboRoach: It's a Mad Mad Mad Reg; Gold Fever 998 6 28 X X Scooby-Doo: Pompei and Circumstances 999 6 29 X X Flintstones: The Dress Rehearsal and Blessed Event Atomic Betty: Big Top Betty; Dr. Cerebral and the 1000 6 30 X X Stupifactor Ray 1001 6 31 X X Mucha Lucha: Mars Madness; Fears of a Clown 1002 6 32 X X SBS: Shanghaied; Gary Takes a Bath 1003 6 33 X X SBS: Whale of a Birthday; Karate Island 1004 6 34 X X SBS: Driven to Tears; Rule of Dumb 1005 6 35 X X SBS: Sandy on Strike; Sandy, SpongeBob and die Worm 1006 6 36 X X SBS: Born to be Wild; Best Frenemies 1007 6 37 X X FOP: Fool's Day Out; Deja Vu 1008 6 38 X X FOP: The Odd Couple; Class Clown 1009 6 39 X X FOP: Cosmo Con; Wanda's Day Off 1010 6 40 X X FOP: Truth or Cosmoquences: Beach Bummed 1011 6 41 X X FOP: Odd Jobs; Movie Magic 1012 6 42 X X FOP: Shelf Life (half-hour episode) SPS: SpongeBob Squarepants FOP: Fairly Odd Parents 114 APPENDIX II Objectionable Words The basic list of words counted is: ass bitch piss [bleep] shit fart hell bastard penis fuck [fart] damn dick flatulence crap vagina break wind douche pass gas tit Notes on search and inclusion: ass: context did not influence inclusion -'make an ass of yourself counted the same as 'asswipe' - see Bart's delight in 'ass' as a swear word that you can say because it's in the bible, multiple spellings were encountered (dumb ass, dumb-ass, dumbass) ass is commonly used as an intensifier (cheap-ass), in compound words (ass- scratching), and as part of word play (nostra-dumbass) 'ass' words included: ass dopey-ass long-ass asses dumb-ass lousy-ass ass-face dumbass nazi-ass asshole fancy-ass nostra-dumbass assless fat-ass poor-ass assoholi... fatass punk-ass ass-race freak-ass rich-ass ass-scratching funny-ass sick-ass ass-sucker gay-ass smart-ass ass-welts greedy-ass smartass ass-whomping half-ass stinky-ass ass-whooping half-assed stupid-ass asswipe hard-ass sweet-ass ass [bleep] jackass umass-day bad-ass jack-assery whoop-ass baddest-assed jackassery wiseass 115 bare-ass janky-ass big-ass jerk-ass bitch-ass kick-ass candy-ass kick-ass cheap-ass lardass cracker-ass lazy-ass hell: - context (religious discussion) did not influence inclusion - hellfish (name - Grandpa Simpson's unit) not included - Hell's Kitchen not included (place name in New York City) - many compound words counted - words included: hell's hell-hole hell'd hellhound hella hellion hell-a hellish hell-bent hell-raiser hellcat helluva hellfire damn: - damn and dammit must be searched for separately (damn vs damm as search terms) - they have been included in one category for this study but keeping separate tallies is recommended as this word may show a distinctive pattern based on writer, character, geographic location, etc. Example: The term is more frequent in King of the Hill than in The Simpsons; does not appear in Family Guy at all, but is frequent in South Park. - goddamn is probably a good candidate for a sub-category for similar reasons - words included: dammit damnit damn goddamn damnation guaran-damn-tee damnedest oddamn-gay damning 116 crap: - context checked for reference to dice game (Craps is a proper name - not included) - crapulence (used by Mr. Burns in The Simpsons) means drunkenness - not included - words included: craphole crappy crapola craps (if not referring to game) crap-o-rama crap-shack crapped crapshack crapple bastard: - plural included, but did not include 'bastardized' bitch: - includes bitchin' and bitchingest even if context indicates it is a term of praise as this usage is not widespread and those sensitive to the word bitch are likely to react in the same way despite the context. (Flanders: That is one bitchin' bike. Roddy: Daddy said a cuss word.) - words included: bitch son-bitch bitching som'bitch bitchingest sumbitch bitchin' piss: - occurs in expression 'piss and vinegar' - usual variations would be included (pissed, pissing) - also seen as pissy penis: - no variants noted for this word 117 dick: - context considered; not included if a proper name (Andy Dick, Moby Dick) - dickens appears in The Simpsons - not included - includes dick-face, dickface, dickhole vagina: - includes vaginal and vaginoplasty (so search term should be Vagin') douche: - includes douchy (so search term should be 'douch') tit: - titmouse and Titicaca observed as wordplay - includes: sugartits, tits, titties, titty, tittys [bleep] - [bleeping] is often the caption (so search term should be '[bleep' - no final bracket - context considered: - 'ass[bleep]' - implying 'asshole' counted as 'ass' only - [bleep] as captioned sound effect for machine or game sounds not included - word 'bleep' not counted, must be within brackets - only 'naked' [bleep] counted, if preceded by s, sh, or f, counted as shit or fuck subcategory shit: - counted in three subcategories: - s[bleep or shfbleep (indicates censoring by an audible tone) - s— or sh— (indicates censoring by silencing) - 'shit' indicates audible word - Note that the above are general rules for captioning. What is actually heard versus what is captioned may vary. Full captioning over censored broadcast has been noted, and censored captioning over audible broadcast has been noted. Recently published standards for captioning in Canada use the pattern stated above. The textfile of captions served as the source for counting and 118 these rules were assumed to hold. Not every instance was verified against the recording. - context of 'sh—' checked; not counted as word if some other interrupted word is indicated or if a 'shushing' vocalization is indicated - shite was not counted - words include: dipshit, shithead fuck: - three subcategories (as for shit, above) - f[bleep -f- - fuck - 'f-' includes 'motherf-' - frickin' not included fart: - this word could be spoken or it could appear in square brackets as a description of a sound - alternate verbal descriptions of the same event were 'flatulence', 'break wind', and 'pass gas' - as with 'fart', the alternate terms appeared in spoken text and as descriptions - fart as a word was tallied separately for spoken word and sound description - alternate expressions were totaled together and were not separated into speech or sound - variants existed for alternate expressions: 'flatulating', 'passes gas', etc. - fart words included: farted farts fart-face fartsy farting farty fartin' fartzilla fartland fa-art (indicating drawn-out pronunciation) fart-loving outfarted fart-off