The Kevin Bacon Game

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Using The Oracle of Bacon website, I’ve figured out who one of only two actors (actors being a somewhat loose term) who have a Bacon number of 8.

(For those that don’t know the game, an actor who has a Bacon number of 1 has played in a movie with Kevin Bacon. {Kevin Bacon himself has a Bacon number of 0.} Someone with a BN of 2 has been in a movie with someone who has been in a movie with Kevin Bacon. Productions that don’t count are TV shows, their pilots, miniseries, and other made-for-TV movies.)

According to The Oracle of Bacon (which has data access to The Internet Movie Database), the BNs for all the actors:


Bacon #   # of Actors
   0             1     (Kevin Bacon himself)
   1          1469
   2        105800
   3        240195
   4         52627
   5          2931
   6           309
   7            75
   8             2     (of whom I found one)

It’s a fun game to play: simply plug in a name of an actor who you think would have a large BN, then be surprised when it comes out much smaller. For example, Glenn L. Martin, founder of an airplane company and actor in one silent film only has a BN of 3:
Glenn L. Martin was in Girl of Yesterday, A (1915) with Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp was in Prince Valiant (1954) with Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner was in Wild Things (1998) with Kevin Bacon

Can anyone here find actors with BN’s of 4 or more?

2

I just found the second actor with a BN of 8. To be fair, he and the first one I found are only two apart, i.e., there’s an actor with a BN of 7 with whom both have acted in a movie.

3

Damn! 90% of my guesses have a quotient of 2! Everyone from John Cassavetes to Beverly D’Angelo to Ron Ely. The only 3’s I got were Bela Lugosi and Margaret Dumont.

4

Just for the record, James Arness and Raymond Burr also have BN’s of ZERO. So Kevin isn’t alone.

5

Strike my last. I went back and checked, now they both show a 2. Hmm, must have updated the system since the last time I played in there.

6

Not to brag of anything, but…

[CRANKY OLD MAN]
When I played this game, we didn’t have any computers to help us… we did it by hand! In the snow! Uphill! Both ways!!!
[/CRANKY OLD MAN]

We played this game a lot at a summer camp I worked at. The two I am proudest of (I figured them out!) are Charlie Chaplin and Olivia Hussy.

7

Yeah, they must’ve. I know it wasn’t always based directly off of IMDb data, so it took time to update. For example, Jeri Lynn Ryan had been in a theatrical movie, but the Oracle said she wasn’t a valid actor, since to its knowledge she hadn’t been in one.

8

Okay, I finally found a 4 – Jenny Lind.

And now I’m quitting!

9

just fyi… a variation of this was played here in SD a little while ago. The only difference was we tried to figure out how close people were to Harvey Keitel’s penis.

10

Darn… everyone I put in is a 2. then again I don’t know many actors but who would have thought Channon Roe and Michael T Weiss were 2’s?

11

M. Chiqovani = 4
I. Demetrashvili = 5
L. Sokolovi = 5
I. Mamporya = 4
Niko Sanishvili = 4
Kokhta Karalashvili = 4
N. Tukhareli = 5
Ilia Zurabishvili = 5
Aleqsandre Imedashvili = 4
Yuliya Solntseva = 4
Maria Rutz = 5
Hans Hedemark = 5
Signe Danning = 5
Emmy Worm-Muller = 6

Whoohoo, six! Take that, Bacon!

12

Six? That’s not bad!

BTW, is your username in reference to Scupper the Sea Dog of Golden Books fame? :slight_smile:

13

I’m impressed. A serious waste of computer power, and no pornography in sight! And it’s so FAST! I am very happy I didn’t have to plug in all that data.

Hmmmm, Colleen Moore with Mickey Rooney with Clint Howard with Kevin Bacon. There could probably be a whole subset using Clint Howard. Linda Lovelace with Gary Goodrow with Kevin Bacon. Hermione Gingold with Rance Howard (another of those damned Howards!) with Bacon.

This is a tough game. I’ll need to do some research on people with only one movie, like Glenn Martin. (Knew a Dutch fellow named Glenn after Glen L. Martin because his father flew a Maryland in the war.)

14

After 5 minutes of toying around I only came up with one 4 (Xerem).

But, when you peek into the Hall of Fame you discover:
“Martin Goldstern wrote ‘a few short perl programs’ and found all of the 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, and 11s.”(!)

How many 9s, 10s, and 11s are out there?

15

I think once The Oracle was linked to IMDb, they “killed” all the BNs above 8. A lot of obscure movies also got logged into IMDb, so the computed numbers got lower. I think 8 is the greatest Bacon Number out there now.

16

Now this is funny. I put in the name of a friend of mine, and her BN is 2! She has been in exactly one movie.