Cartoon movies, cartoon sports, and cartoon TV shows dominate this week's new Lycos 50. Take a look:
- Pokemon (#1) and Dragonball (#4), those animated TV favorites, remain in this week's top 5 -- where they've been for all of the year 2000.
- They're joined by two cartoony live shows: Big Brother (#2) and Survivor (#3). It's true: despite the terrible reviews for Big Brother, it remains more popular than Survivor with Web users. That makes four cartoony topics out of our top 5. (And that's not counting Britney Spears.)
- #6 is the comic book movie X-Men, and #8 is the hot new shoot-em-up video game Diablo II. Toss in the WWF (#9), a goofball sport if there ever was one, and you've got a top 10 trend toward cartoon entertainment.
Permanent movement or frivolous summer fling? Time will tell.
Now for more detail on this week's Lycos 50:
CARTOON MOVIE: The X-Men, Hollywood's version of the long-running comic saga, leaps to #6 in its first full week after release. Users showed strong interest in the flick's individual stars: searches for Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin and Famke Janssen are all up at least 1000% over a month ago. Halle Berry is up, too, though of course there are other reasons for her fame.
Not so hot is Patrick Stewart, whose searches have barely doubled since the movie's release.
DISTINGUISHED SPORTING EVENT: European sports have been surprisingly strong on the Lycos 50 lately. Earlier this summer we saw both Wimbledon and the soccer tourney Euro 2000 place in our top 15. Then two weeks ago the Tour de France made its debut (and it moves up to #14 in its third week).
Now golf's British Open turns up with a very strong debut at #7, outranking heavyweights like the WWF and Harry Potter (#13).
Odd sidelight: despite running away with the Open -- and despite all the fame, money, and favorable press in the world -- Tiger Woods couldn't crack the Lycos 50. In fact he only got about 60% as many searches as Korn, our #50 term, and he got slightly less searches than rapper Tupac Shakur (who hasn't even won a golf tournament recently).
The same strange pattern holds true in bike racing, where the Tour de France is hot stuff but winner Lance Armstrong couldn't even get as many searches as origami or the Powerpuff Girls. Odd!
HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: The Lycos 50 was on hiatus last week, and an extra week has been added to the rankings to reflect that: Pokemon, for instance, stood at 47 straight weeks on our last list, and is listed at 49 straight weeks on this week's list.
SHORT SUBJECTS: Pamela Anderson drops to #15 this week, her lowest ranking since we began the Lycos 50 last fall. Another four years at this rate and she'll be off the list... As soon as the Tall Ships left New York and Boston they dropped off our search logs -- another indication of the power of big East Coast cities in driving media reports and user queries... interest in the Olympics (#22) is sporadic: they first appeared on June 13, faded away, and now pop up again this week... old-timers Martha Stewart, Howard Stern, and the Atkins Diet all made a run this week -- what's up with that?... Summer must be dwindling: swimming pool queries have disappeared after seven weeks on our list... Nelly (#43) is the latest one-name rapper to make the Lycos 50, following recent hotties Sisqo and DMX.
NEW THIS WEEK: The X-Men, the Olympics, the IRS, football, Martha Stewart, Beanie Babies, Nelly, shopping hottie golf clubs, the Atkins Diet, Howard Stern, pop singer Mariah Carey.
DROPOUTS: Actress Shannon Elizabeth, musicians Shania Twain, Dr. Dre, Kid Rock and Ricky Martin, the 4th of July, fireworks, swimming pools, movie The Perfect Storm, the Tall Ships, Wimbledon.
BIGGEST RISE: The X-Men, up 19 spots to #6.
BIGGEST DROP: Farcical fiancee Darva Conger, down 12 to #18.
AND FINALLY: Time for another Blair Witch watch? The creepy flick was the search smash of summer '99, and this week we see another surge in searches as news of Blair Witch Project II leaks out. The movie is still months away, but the buzz seems to be right on track.
