Friday, February 29, 2008

Pop Culture in the Circuits

Given that the search for any interesting splits netted nothing that struck my fancy in the last two days, I thought I would take a riff off of Judge Rader's citation of South Park or Judge Coar's homage to the Middle Ages and see what elements of pop culture have filtered into the sacred pages of the Federal Reporter.

While Judge Evan's citation to Ludacris (comment 8)to clarify the spelling of 'ho' may win him the all time prize, I decided to see what the Judges (or their clerks) have been watching recently. Can you guess which of the top 20 TV shows for the period 1990-2000 or 2000-present has been cited the most in the last eight years? Answer, with methodology explained, in the comments...

1 comment:

Klerk said...

The winner is The Sopranos (8), despite Justice Alito's criticism. Closely second is Seinfeld, with 7. No other show had more than 2.

Admittedly, I was unable to search for some shows - like Friends - which would have returned far too many results to sift through. The results include cases where the TV show itself was at issue, and not just a *fun* reference. I attempted to exclude multiple cases and citations of the same example (Seinfeld Aptitude Test).

The Results as a whole are listed below, with multiple appearances only being listed under 1990s:

1990s Top 20:
Charmed: 0
Sex and the City: 1
X-Files: 0
Dragonball Z: 0
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 1
Seinfeld: 7
Beverly Hills 90210: 1
Futurama: 0
7th Heaven: 0
That 70s Show: 0
The Sopranos: 8
Star Trek: Voyager: 0
Will & Grace: 0
Frasier: 2
Saved by the Bell: 1
The King of Queens: 0

2000s Top 20:
Gilmore Girls: 0
The O.C.: 1
Veronica Mars: 1
Reba: 0
Third Watch: 0

Other Pop Culture:
South Park: 2
American Idol: 1
Family Guy: 0
Chapelle Show: 0