1529: Bracket

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Bracket

Title text: I'm staring at the "doctor" section, and I can't help but feel like I've forgotten someone.

Explanation

A tournament bracket shows the planned series of matchups in a tournament. In this comic Randall has shown a plan for a tournament between a wide range of cultural icons, both real and fictional, based mostly on similarities in their names. Various Internet groups have speculated on who would win in a fight between characters from different films. It may be relevant that the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was soon to be released at the time the comic was made where the two eponymous superheroes, Batman and Superman, fight against each other.

The individual starting pairings are generally based on common or similar given names or surnames. Some adjacent brackets are "segued" by someone like Jeff Daniels, who segues from a bracket of "Jeff"s into a bracket of "Daniels"es. The bracket itself is fairly arbitrary. Most initial matchups are pairs, although several are trios and there's a quadruplet in the Russels group, while a single entry, Beyoncé, is given a first- and second-round bye. Most of the participants in the tournament are people, with a few exceptions. Shallots (small onions), scallops (bivalve mollusks), and scallions (green onions) are similar sounding foods, therefore may be confusing for some individuals (perhaps including Randall). The final grouping on the lower right of the bracket features a several retail stores and a film.

The title text may be a reference to Dr. Dre's 2001 song "Forgot About Dre" or could simply be a reference to the large number of pop culture personas that include the word "Doctor", such as Doctor House, Dr. Oz, Dr. Eggman, Dr. Phil, Dr. Watson, "Doc" Brown, Dr. Seuss, Dr Pepper, Doctor Doom, Dr. Zoidberg, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and many others. A simpler explanation is that it would cause the reader to question "Doctor Who?" answering their own question, although this answer would be incorrect because The Doctor is already present. It could also be a reference to the dual meaning of "The Doctor," either he meant to include Time Lord from Doctor Who and forgot about the EMH from Voyager, or he remembered the EMH and forgot the Time Lord.

The incentive for the comic may have been the French Open 2015, which started on the day of the publication.

The comic inspired several groups to play out versions of the bracket. One user-voting based match-up on twitter, XKCD Bracket, was featured by Randall on the xkcd home page, with a link at the top of the website, although the account was not created by Randall. (The link was part of a "news" flash, the other was regarding his book based on 1133: Up Goer Five. See more on this news in that comics explanation). In the final match on July 29, Neil Armstrong defeated Mister Spock (see the complete bracket). The link was removed sometimes before Monday, 10 August 2015, within two weeks of the final result being revealed.

Later Randall has made one smaller but similar bracket in 1819: Sweet 16, and then an interactive April fools' comics in 2019, with an even larger bracket for determining the best emoji in 2131: Emojidome. The bracket for this comic was shown with links from the comic during the matches.

Table of the bracket

• The names and other entries in the bracket are given here below, sorted to explain why the individual entries have been grouped as they are.
• The first-round match-ups are grouped by shading.

Grouping	Subgrouping	Person/Entry	Known as	Winning probability
* Armstrong		Louis Armstrong	Jazz-musician	1/32
		Neil Armstrong	First human on the moon
		Lance Armstrong	Cyclist
		Stretch Armstrong	Action figure
Jeff *		Jeff Gordan (Probably Jeff Gordon)	Retired race car driver	1/64
		Jeff Bridges	Actor in King Kong, The Big Lebowski, Iron Man, Tron: Legacy
		Jeff Daniels	Actor in Dumb and Dumber
J* Daniels
		Jack Daniels	Alcoholic beverages
*Well*		Orson Welles	Director of Citizen Kane and known for his radio-play of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
		H.G. Wells	Author, known for The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine
		George Orwell	Author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm
		Wells Fargo	Bank and stage coach company
* Russell *		Kurt Russell	Actor in John Carpenter's Escape from L.A., The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Stargate, Fast & Furious 7	1/128
		Russell Brand	Comedian
		Russell Crowe	Actor in Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Les Misérables, Noah
		Russell Simmons	Rapper
* Simmons
		Richard Simmons	Host of exercise programs	1/64
		Gene Simmons	Musician, known from KISS
Gene *
		Gene Hackman	Actor in Superman	1/96
*ckman
		Hugh Jackman	Actor in the X-Men franchise as Wolverine
		Alan Rickman	Actor in Die Hard, Harry Potter franchise, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Alan *
	Alan Par*	Alan Parsons	Musician	1/64
		Alan Partridge	Fictional radio character
* McCarthy		Jenny McCarthy	Anti-vaccination activist
		Joseph McCarthy	American Senator known for anti-communist policies.
		Eugene McCarthy	Senator and Presidential candidate
*gene*	Eugene *
		Eugene V. Debs	Labor leader
	* Wilde*	Gene Wilder	Actor in Young Frankenstein, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory	1/96
		Olivia Wilde	Actress in Tron: Legacy, Her, House M.D.
		Oscar Wilde	Writer
Oscar *
		Oscar De La Renta	Fashion Designer	1/32
Oscar De La *
		Oscar De La Hoya	Boxer
Jack Nic*		Jack Nicklaus	Golf player	1/32
		Jack Nicholson	Actor in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, Batman, Witches of Eastwick, The Bucketlist
*ichol* / *ickel* / *ickle*
		Phil Mickelson	Golf player
		Nicholas Nickleby	Charles Dickens protagonist in the novel by the same name
*ryan Adams		Ryan Adams	Singer
		Bryan Adams	Singer
Singers with Stage Names Referencing Weight/Games		Chubby Checker	Singer famous for "The Twist"
		Fats Domino	Rock and Roll Singer
Colin F*		Colin Firth	Actor, Pride and Prejudice, Love Actually	1/64
		Colin Farrell	Actor in Daredevil, In Bruges, Total Recall
F*rell*
		Will Ferrell	Comic actor, Anchorman and The Other Guys
		The Farrelly Brothers	Comedy film-makers
J* * *evitt/*ewitt (three names)		Joseph Gordon-Levitt	Actor in Third Rock from the Sun, Dark Knight Rises	1/32
		Jennifer Love Hewitt	Actress in Garfield: The Movie
D* Glover		Danny Glover	Actor, Lethal Weapon series	1/64
		Donald Glover	Actor, Community, also a rapper, aka Childish Gambino
Don*
		Donnie Wahlberg	Singer, New Kids on the Block, actor, Blue Bloods
* Wahlberg
		Mark Wahlberg	Actor in The Departed, The Other Guys, and former hip-hop singer for Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Mark *
		Mark Ruffalo	Actor, known for his role as the Hulk in the film The Avengers	1/32
		Mark Shuttleworth	Entrepreneur, founder of Ubuntu
* Pullman		Philip Pullman	Author, His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ	1/48
		Bill Pullman	Actor in Spaceballs, and Independence Day
Bill *
		Bill Paxton	Actor in Apollo 13, Aliens
		Bill Murray	Actor in Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day	1/32
Ghostbusters/SNL alumni
		Dan Aykroyd	Actor in Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers
* Rogers		Ginger Rogers	Actress known for dancing with Fred Astaire	1/64
		Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers	Confusing reference to Fred Rogers (host of children's show, popularly known as "Mister Rogers") and to Fred Astaire (Dancer, actor, and singer)
* Spock		Mister Spock	Character on Star Trek portrayed by Leonard Nimoy	1/96
		Doctor Spock	Author of book on childcare
Doctors
		Doctor Octopus	Villain in Spider-Man comic books
		Doctor Manhattan	Character in Alan Moore's Watchmen
		Doctor Strangelove	Character in a movie about nuclear war by Stanley Kubrick
		Doctor Strange	Sorceror Supreme in Marvel Comics
		Dr. No	Main villain in the first James Bond movie
		The Doctor	Ambiguous reference to either the main protagonist of the science fiction series Doctor Who or the emergency medical hologram in Star Trek: Voyager.
		Cory Doctorow	He is a real person and has been in many xkcd comics
J* Lewis		Jerry Lee Lewis	Rock and Roll singer	1/32
		Jerry Lewis	Comedian and former chairman of charitable organization
		Jenny Lewis	Indie singer-songwriter
Sounds like *"enny"
		Xeni Jardin	Digital commentator, Boing Boing co-editor
Chris *	Chris * (Avengers actors)	Chris Evans	Actor, Captain America
		Chris Hemsworth	Actor, Thor
	Chris P*	Chris Pine	Actor, Star Trek, Wonder Woman
		Chris Pratt	Actor, Guardians of the Galaxy
S*all*o*s Foods		Shallots	Small onions (although the word 'shallot' can also refer to green onions in some dialects)	1/96
		Scallops	Bivalve mollusks
		Scallions	Green onions.
Suz* (Similar phonetics)		Siouxie Sioux	Rock singer	1/64
		Suzanne Vega	Folk rock singer-songwriter
* Arnold *		Tom Arnold	Actor; ex-husband of Roseanne Barr	1/48
		Arnold Palmer	Golf player
A* Palmer
		Amanda Palmer	Singer/songwriter
Wes *		Wes Craven	Film maker	1/64
		Wes Anderson	Movie Director
* Anderson
		Paul Thomas Anderson	Film maker
P*ul Anderson
		Poul Anderson	Science fiction author
Sirs	Sir Walter *	Sir Walter Scott	Scottish poet and writer
		Sir Walter Raleigh	British explorer of Virginia
	Fran* Drake	Sir Francis Drake	British explorer, 2nd to circumnavigate the Earth
		Frank Drake	Astrophysicist, SETI pioneer
"Van"	Van *	Van Halen	Rock band	1/96
		Van Morrison	Singer/songwriter
		Van Wilder	Comedy film
	R* Van Winkle	Robert Van Winkle	AKA Vanilla Ice, rapper	1/64
		Rip Van Winkle	Fictional character
Rip/Torn
		Rip Torn	Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, actor on Cross Creek, Larry Sanders Show	1/32
		Natalie Imbruglia	Singer of "Torn"
Businesses with the word "Body" in their name		The Body Shop	Shop	1/64
		Bath and Body Works	Shop
Businesses with the word "Bath" in their name
		Bed Bath and Beyond	Shop
Beyon*
		Beyond Thunderdome	Motion picture
		Beyoncé	Singer	1/16

Trivia

• The "Chris" group (Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt) was later referenced in Chris Pine's opening monologue for SNL (though without explicit reference to this comic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGurtL83zhY
• Shallots, scallops and scallions were mentioned together in 2372: Dialect Quiz.
• There is another comic that juxtaposed similar-looking names: 1970 (Name dominoes).

Transcript

[A tournament bracket. With the names listed in groups on the left-hand side and right-hand side as shown below. Within individual groups the names are ordered in match-ups, two, three or even four in the first match. The last name on the right, Beyoncé, is not even matched for first round. The winners goes on to the next match, but there are many that skips some of the matches up until the quarterfinals, so some need to win 5 matches to reach the quarterfinals, others only need to win 4 of 3, and Beyoncé only 2. After the first level, the match-ups are always between two names. The two sides join up in a final in the middle, where the winner of the left side has a place for the name below and the winner of the right a place for the name above a central rectangular frame with place for the winners name. Below the pairing in the first round matches are mentioned above each of the clear groupings of the bracket.]

[These are paired two and two.] Louis Armstrong Neil Armstrong Lance Armstrong Stretch Armstrong [These are paired two and two.] Jeff Gordan Jeff Bridges Jeff Daniels Jack Daniels [These are paired two and two.] Orson Welles H.G. Wells George Orwell Wells Fargo [The first four, two, three and two are paired.] Kurt Russell Russell Brand Russell Crowe Russell Simmons Richard Simmons Gene Simmons Gene Hackman Hugh Jackman Alan Rickman Alan Parsons Alan Partridge [The first four, three and two are paired.] Jenny McCarthy Joseph McCarthy Eugene McCarthy Eugene V. Debs Gene Wilder Olivia Wilde Oscar Wilde Oscar De La Renta Oscar De La Hoya [These are paired two and two.] Jack Nicklaus Jack Nicholson Phil Mickelson Nicholas Nickelby [These are paired.] Ryan Adams Bryan Adams [These are paired.] Chubby Checker Fats Domino [These are paired two and two.] Colin Firth Colin Farrell Will Ferrell The Farrelly Brothers [These are paired.] Joseph Gordon-Levitt Jennifer Love Hewitt [These are paired two and two.] Danny Glover Donald Glover Donnie Wahlberg Mark Wahlberg Mark Ruffalo Mark Shuttleworth

[The first three and two are paired.] Philip Pullman Bill Pullman Bill Paxton Bill Murray Dan Aykroyd [The first two, and then three times three are paired.] Ginger Rogers Fred Rogers|Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers Mister Spock Doctor Spock Doctor Octopus Doctor Manhattan Doctor Strangelove Doctor Strange Dr. No The Doctor Cory Doctorow [These are paired two and two.] Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lewis Jenny Lewis Xeni Jardin [These are paired two and two.] Chris Evans Chris Hemsworth Chris Pine Chris Pratt [These are paired.] Shallots Scallops Scallions [These are paired.] Siouxie Sioux Suzanne Vega [These are paired.] Tom Arnold Arnold Palmer Amanda Palmer [These are paired two and two.] Wes Craven Wes Anderson Paul Thomas Anderson Poul Anderson [These are paired two and two.] Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Francis Drake Frank Drake [The first three, two and two are paired.] Van Halen Van Morrison Van Wilder Robert Van Winkle Rip Van Winkle Rip Torn Natalie Imbruglia [The first four are paired two and two the last is the only one not paired.] The Body Shop Bath and Body Works Bed Bath and Beyond Beyond Thunderdome Beyoncé

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Discussion

Interesting to me that no one has noted the order of the doctors. Doctor Octopus is from a comic, Doctor Manhattan is from a graphic novel and, trying to avoid spoilers here, the atomic bomb plays a key role in the story. The atomic bomb was the product of the Manhattan project (a fact not lost on Alan Moore), and the subject of the movie referenced by the next line, Dr Strangelove ("or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"). I can't believe this order is arbitrary. 173.245.48.108 04:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

What's the connection between Rip Torn and Natalie Imbruglia? 108.162.238.183 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Answer: Her song, Torn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV1XWJN3nJo- -- Stumpy (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Rip Torn could have a preliminary match with Prof. Lance Rips -- Mitch Marks uchicago (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2015 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Any pairings that you'd add, given the opportunity? Personally I always confuse Wilson Pickett and Wilson Phillips. Studley (talk) 08:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC) Will Ferrell and Pharrell Williams for me! - -- Stumpy (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) Bill Paxton should be followed by Bill Bixby... 108.162.254.92 09:10, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

How about George Washington and George Washington Carver? and the George Washington Bridge?

At one time, the White House had both a Donald Regan and a Ronald Reagan.108.162.215.190 17:14, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Why do some first round pairings have more than two people? Beyoncé starts at the third round, so it can't be just because of the number of people. There has to be a joke in them but I don't see it. --141.101.104.176 08:45, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Possibly an in-joke at the NCAA bracket's First Four round. Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers is a more "traditional" reference to the First Four. 108.162.219.103 10:32, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Beyoncé starts first, before the first round. She's singing the national anthem before the players start competing. She doesn't compete until the third road because she needs time to change clothes since you don't wear the same thing to sing the national anthem as you wear as a competitor.  :-) 108.162.215.189 04:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth adding to a trivia section that (assuming every person/thing has an equal chance of winning every matchup, Beyonce has the highest odds of winning (1/32 = 3.125%) while Kurt Russell, Russell Crowe, Russell Brand, and Russell Simmons are all tied for having the worst starting odds (1/256 = .391%).108.162.219.91 09:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I may be worth mentioning that the bracketing trees resemble hierarchical clustering dendrograms in which some string similarity metric was used as a distance function. 141.101.91.7 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Although the comic is formatted as a tournament bracket, there are hints that it is in fact a dendrogram based on string similarity, in a similar way to how trees of evolutionary relationships between proteins are formed. We see this especially in the "Russell" group where there is equal similarity between any name containing "Russell" and so that group is not resolved into two separate forks. If readers wish to recreate such an analysis for themselves they can take the text on here paste it into a multiple sequence aligner, press Submit, then after processing click Phylogenetic Tree and scroll down. 141.101.99.74 12:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Somewhat disagree. There is no "string similarity" between domino and checker. The connection between the names seems to be that there are games named Dominos and Checkers. They would not be together if it was based on strictly on string similarity or generated automatically by software without human intervention.108.162.215.190 17:09, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Is there any significance to the number of entries? 52 on the left side but only 51 on the right? 108.162.216.84 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Should it be noted at all that Chubby Checker's name was inspired by Fats Domino? 108.162.215.121 21:05, 26 May 2015 (UTC)Akiosama

Title text

Changed the reference of the Title Text from Doctor Who (who is already listed in the comic) to Dr. Dre, as the phrasing of the Title Text seems like a very direct reference to the 2001 song "Forgot About Dre." -- Conquistador (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Probably would have been better to add it as an option since we're clearly far from certain - -- Stumpy (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Why not Zoidberg? --RhyvenNZ 198.41.238.41 09:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Pretty sure Doctor Who is covered by "The Doctor". He doesn't go by "Who" in the show. He's just the Doctor. I think the missing doctor is House. 108.162.215.127 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Dr. Pepper, maybe? Does "staring" or "forgotten" have to do with it? 108.162.237.156 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Whatagainnow? 108.162.222.178 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Dr. Oz? Dr. Phil? Dr. Watson? Dr. Kavorkian? Dr. Seuss? Wasn't there a famous literary work, The Lost Island of Dr. Moreau? I agree that Dr. House and/or house calls could be a missing candidate for the bracket. But then, there are a ton of 'Sirs' that didn't make the list. -- GAKDragon (talk) (please sign your posts appropriately with the appropriate user and talk page links using ~~~~)

Doctor Teeth! Jarod997 (talk) 13:50, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Pete Docter? 108.162.249.191 11:27, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Or is "The Doctor" http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor? 108.162.215.108 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The Doctor is already in the bracket. --141.101.99.49 10:40, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

It's Doctor House - definitely and finally! -- Raydleemsc (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Definitely "Doc" Brown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Brown 108.162.221.171 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It's clearly Dr. Doolittle. Can't imagine why no one has realized this yet. 108.162.238.193 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Could the joke simply be "there are way too many famous doctors", so even though it's arguably the most numerous category in the bracket, some are still "forgotten"? 108.162.254.164 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Probably not talking about doctor who, however he could be referencing The Silence, which is a an alien race, on that show, which you immediately forget about after losing sight of it. -- KroniK907 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I immediately thought of Amy's wedding in Dr Who S5Ep13 where she needed to remember the doctor to bring him back. Too obscure? Blu003 (talk) 13:07, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Hardly. You want obscure, try The Doctor's granddaughter. Yep, he had/has one. --108.162.237.144 13:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Martha Jones, from Doctor Who? The Doctor Donna? Even the companions on the show are Doctors. 108.162.222.178 03:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that no one thought of Julius "Dr. J" Irving, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Erving given the similarity to a Basketball tournament style graphic. 108.162.219.165 17:35, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

When this comic first went up, I emailed xkcd the same day to say that "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" had been missed out. -- @WPSCrimsonshade 20:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Y'know, I can't help but feel that this is a little to bland and unfinished for xkcd. I'm willing to bet that the picture updates with winners. May be sorely disappointed though. 108.162.219.119 15:02, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Can't help but feel that there's a better way to lay this explanation out, but I haven't been able to come up with it. Maybe some sort of table listing all the different groups, with people allowed to be in more than one group? 141.101.98.232 15:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I personally don't love the large listing of people. It is a bit bland, but more importantly, it doesn't really show the linkages between the participants (though most people ought to be able to figure out these overt links Jeff Gordon... Jeff Daniels... it doesn't need explanation. That said, the current format doesn't quite demonstrate the chain-link nature of some matchups like:

• Body Shop
• Bath and Body Works
• Bed Bath & Beyond
• Beyond Thunderdome
• Beyoncé.

I wouldn't mind a format with that kind of bolding. I think that shows the chain of links better than the first to being grouped "businesses with the word "body" and the second two "things with the word beyond" and "Beyoncé" separately. Similarly, Jeff Daniels belongs to both the "Jeff"s and the "J. Daniels"es. TheHYPO (talk) 15:48, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't categorize Fats Domino and Chubby Checker (just) as games. Given that they're directly under Ryan Adams and Bryan Adams, I'd have identified them as 50's singers, with some physical similarities. KenWhitesell (talk) 16:17, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. I put in the identification about games without knowing who Chubby Checker was.108.162.215.190 17:09, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Then you are one of today's lucky 10,000! 1053 Chubby CheckerZeimusu (talk) 21:32, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

celebrity deathmatch

This reminds me of Celebrity Deathmatch. Then have:

• Charles Manson vs. Marilyn Manson
• Backstreet Boys vs. Beastie Boys
• The Three Stooges vs. The Three Tenors
• Kevin Costner vs. Kevin Smith
• John Cusack vs. John Malkovich
• David Blaine vs. David Copperfield
• Corey Feldman vs. Corey Haim
• Jack Black vs. Jack White

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Celebrity_Deathmatch_episodes -- Bart9h (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Who is Jeff Gordan? There's an extremely famous NASCAR driver named Jeff Gordon, but I don't know of a Jeff Gordan. Significant or typo? 108.162.238.182 16:07, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Where is Colin Furze? And Arnold Swarzenegger? And all other people I never heard of? -- 141.101.104.116 21:12, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

What about my favourite triple: Robbie Williams, Robin Williams and Robyn Williams? -- Ian N. 162.158.3.11 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

And who can forget Dermot Mulroney and Dylan mcDermott?108.162.254.164 09:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a major "Get Out Of My Head, Randall" comic for me. The day before this comic was posted, my friend and I were discussing a "Hunger Games" type simulation being done on 8chan involving loads and loads of characters across genres, and he had asked me about the probability of a particular match-up occurring with a desired outcome. It led to a long and detailed math conversation. The original match-up has been bumped out of existence, but this image still lives on. Appropriately, the comic was posted on my birthday. 2spooky4me. 108.162.210.177 06:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

It reminds me of a song - The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WgT9gy4zQA Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 13:59, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I would have added Amanda Plummer. Will confuse Plummer with Palmer any day. 108.162.249.191 23:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Just as well we don't have to deal with Paul Ryan - Ayn Rand - Rand Paul...Ron Paul, Les Paul, Saint Paul, John Paul, John Paul Jones...Wolfgang Pauli, Pollyanna...Taibhse (talk) 11:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Surprised Tommy Lee and Tommy Lee Jones aren't there. 108.162.238.124 12:31, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Personally I think its pointless having the probabilities listed as if they mean something. We don't know what the competition is, but its almost certain that the result of say 'The Body Shop' vs Beyonce is not going to be a 50:50 probability. --Pudder (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Are the probabilities listed half what they should be? 108.162.237.165 17:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers also refers to "Mr. Rogers" of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I don't think there's a reference for the last combination, "Mister Astaire", other than to Fred Astaire.

Kevin Kline vs. Calvin Klein would also have made a good match. --108.162.229.88 20:15, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

What about Johnny Cash v Johnny Paycheck? To which one could then add Johnny Carson v Johnny Unitas v Johnny Depp? 173.245.48.98 16:36, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

---

Cory Doctorow described as "real person"?

Well, yeah, but he's famous for some actual things. Perhaps "blogger and author" would better describe him. 141.101.98.143 22:56, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

What about the Silents from series 6 of Doctor Who? 108.162.250.144 04:20, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm disappointed John McCarthy isn't there. 173.245.52.127 12:46, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

While I'm of the opinion that the doctor he is "forgetting" is CLEARLY Dr. Dre, I can see why we put the rest of the doctors on there since we don't know for sure. However, I'm removing the multiple long, rambling, and unnecessary references to The Doctor since he's already listed. Ul2006kevinb (talk) 16:43, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with the removal to be honest. I agree it got a bit long-winded, but the Doctor still could be either one of the two (Doctor Who and ST:Voyager). To then ask the question "Doctor Who?" would be a very valid joke/ question imho. Also, the list is now again referring to him as "Dr. Who", whereas his name is simply "the Doctor". 141.101.75.107 01:39, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Livingstone, I presume? --Eraoul (talk) 07:28, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

This description probably needs to be updated with the factoid given in https://twitter.com/xkcdbracket/status/612221512133816320, if it can be verified 141.101.99.87 12:34, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

It should be updated with "The Doctor, alien explorer of time" [1] Dorus (talk) 09:29, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks that the Transcript shouldn't be updated to match the unofficial Twitter Bracket feed? It should be on the page, but the transcript section should be related to the comic as it appears on xkcd.com only. --Pudder (talk) 09:47, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

No that is correct. The transcript is always only what occurs on the original comic at xkcd. I have corrected the error. If someone wish to do a trivia section on the result they should feel free to include that. I have linked to the twitter account in the explanation as it is interesting since Randall links to it on xkcd. The trivia entry could be linked from that paragraph. --Kynde (talk) 12:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Two comments: First, if that is the case, then several pages need to be updated; the fact that wetriffs.com was created in response to 305: Rule 34 is not "in the comic itself" nor is the fact that Randall was responsible for (another example, 1485: Friendship triggered a movement to delete the wikipedia Bromance article - and a third example 1190: Time triggered multiple twitter followings and web communities that are referenced in the explanation); if we purge #xkcdbracket from this, we need to purge all of those too for consistency. Second, transcript is what happens in the comic, but explanation includes background and consequences of comic; this consequence was featured by Randall for several weeks, if that's not canon, then nothing is. I have moved the explanation to trivia as requested, but filled in the victor. If you want to remove, please discuss first and also clean up the other pages I just listed. Djbrasier (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

More pages that need to be purged of references to internet consequences and followings inspired by comics: 1185 inspired someone to make stacksort, 239 inspired people to photoshop capes onto Cory Doctorow, Little Bobby Tables refers to a website created (not by Randall) to teach people to properly sanitize database inputs, 1167 inspired wikipedia vandalism that temporarily caused a page to be protected (as did 1193) 576 inspired someone to create a service that does what is described, I'm sure that given 10 more minutes I could find 10 more examples. None of these were featured as banners on the xkcd.com page by Randall and yet all are in explainxkcd.com. Please remove all of those references from explainxkcd.com (as well as fixing 305, 1485, and 1190 before deleting the reference to #xkcdbracket on this page. Djbrasier (talk) 16:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I do not know what I (or Pudder) wrote to get this response from Djbrasier. I agreed that the transcript should not be updated to match the brackets on the twitter account, and that the results written in the transcript (full results with results of all individual matches, that I removed when updating the transcript to look more like the comic) should be in the trivia if anyone wished them to be on this page. I do not think there is anything wrong (and also wrote that) with linking to the bracket. I actually linked my self to that bracket on twitter. And I don't even think the link should be a trivia item as it is important since Randall links to it. But the results (apart from the final, which is fine to have in the main explanation) is not for the explanation and definitely not for the transcript. So all the other pages and talk you write about purging explain xkcd from what happens because of xkcd has nothing to do with the subject here. And of course these thing should be a part of this page. So we agree on that! --Kynde (talk) 09:18, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

NOOOOO!! I bet everything on Scallions!Saspic45 (talk) 11:14, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

No love for Sandra Day O'Connor and Sinead O'Connor? They're practically the same person! 162.158.62.243 00:59, 29 March 2018 (UTC)My winner is George Orwell.162.158.62.243 00:59, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

can someone please move gene simmons up to be with the rest of the simmons in the table? I don't know how to do that. 172.70.111.75 16:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

(Moved Discussion item to bottom...)

Gene Simmons has to 'match' both the Simmonses (above) and the Gene (below), so I can't see what sort of retabling would help here. ((Had considered two or more columns for the match-strings, that overlap like bricks, but sideways...) Personally, I would leave it. From your comment, I thought that he was misplaced (or that Randall had somehow used him completely outwith the bracketting area that he quite rightly did).

As to how, you would need to juggle "rowspan=" table parameters (and ensure you don't make that shuffle across lower lines of table, into which it intrudes) analogously to how you'd do it in HTML, but in wikimarkup form of course. I'd advise using Preview a lot, though, if you ever try it. Tables break so easily, even if you're used to them, and you don't want to make a record of all your mistakes along the way. ;) 172.70.162.56 22:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Anyone else notice that 3 of the Chrises are Marvel actors? (Pratt is the Star-Lord, Hemsworth is Thor and Evans is Captain America)172.71.30.46 17:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Chris Pine would also be a Marvel (voice-)actor, three years after the comic... 172.70.86.139 20:03, 20 September 2023 (UTC)