I noticed that the celebrities/hosts for The Muppet Show's first season were kinda, well, short. OCD ensues.

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Yes, I'm a dork.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?

Oh, I plotted the heights of the hosts of The Muppet Show, separated by sex from the first and last seasons as well as the hosts from the last full season (2004) of Saturday Night Live (assuming that it's a similar type of variety show with celebrity hosts) and compared them against US national averages from 1976 and 2002.

It looks like female celebrities are far taller than the national average now, when it wasn't necessarily true back in the '70s. Male celebrities today tend to be taller than the average, when it wasn't necessarily true back in the '70s.

I love this, porpoise. I love every bit of the pure, geeky wonder of it.

who was the really tall woman in 81?

More sports-related hosts?

(and do a venn diagram of all this--i love those!) : >

Brooke Shields =)

I like it too, porpoise!

Also, note the distribution of male heights in 1981! I say it was intentional, don't you? For the group photos I mean...

Eideteker - it didn't feel that way; they were all actors, musicians, comedians, and Paris Hilton.

amberglow - I've always been meaning to ask, "Did you get your nick from the pre-green monochrome CRTs?"

The Venn-diagram isn't the best way to represent the data, so here's a faux Venn (where the overlap = those that are taller than average).

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carmina - heh, would you line them up with the tallest in the middle or in increasing height? It's interesting to me that the upper bounds for men's heights remains the same but the spread has narrowed in 2004 compared to the '70s (implying short people are finding it harder to get celebrity status now than it used to be?).

Upper bounds...

For the Muppet Show, does it have to do with some extraordinarily tall character in the show (sorry, I have not watched it ever :-( but I know Elmo!)?

SNL taller than average guys are probably not so tall after all. What I see is that actually there are more really short guys in SNL than really tall. Which is probably due to the character of the show...?

I ♥ porpoise.

Oh, sorry if I wasn't clear; these aren't heights of the recurring cast members - this was strictly a tabulation of guest hosts (both Muppets and SNL brings in one celebrity each episode to host - there are recurrent hosts, but typically not in the same season [re: Chris Walken for SNL]).

ahh! --flushing red!--
I have to think about it all over again...
:-(

amberglow - I've always been meaning to ask, "Did you get your nick from the pre-green monochrome CRTs?"

aura color/drag name (from years ago), but i used those monitors way back when.

yeah, the venn isn't right for this, i guess.

No worries, carmina.

Hmm, any elementary/highschool science fair judges here? Would a systematic analysis of entertainers/celebrities make a good science faire project?

ie., methods of science can be used for stuff outside of chemistry or materials science or physics or biology and stuff? How media has influenced society over the last 30 years or the socio-economics (more affluent family ~ increased height) of ending up famous? Then polish it off saying that there are short celebries as well* so short people need not (necessarily) despair?

*
Jodie Foster 161cm (5' 3&1/2")
Gillian Anderson 160cm (5' 3")
Britney Spears 163cm (5' 4")
David Spade 168cm (5' 6")
Jack Black 169cm (5' 6&1/2")

amberglow - ah, thank you. I originally thought that you were female when I first started lurking Mefi. May I ask if you have any affinity to the name Amber? (I used to be a friend in my college LGBTG group; after being ribbed with "Kevina" by some peers for participating in Family & Friends drag shows, I adopted Rebecca/Becky [no particular reason].)

Every time I come to hate the Internet, something like this thread comes along to change my mind. Thanks, porpoise.

Yay, porpoise!

This, *this* is what the internet was invented for. You are awsome porpoise.

porpoise, besides being specifically told about my aura color (on my birthday by suprise by a complete stranger who came up to me at Boy Bar 100 years ago) it's that it's a name that immediately brings up associations of what an Amber would be like, i think (sorta like a Debbie who uses a heart instead of the dot over the I)

And it predisposes people to think i'm nice and unthreatening and stuff. : >

Flushing Red is a helluva guy. Though to be technically correct about it, he's really Willets Point Red.