February 20, 2001

RinkChat, NH - Dave and Brunnen-G enjoyed a wealth of success Tuesday night when the RinkAwards nominations were announced. Dave led the pack for numbers of nominations, garnering 12 for himself and sharing six more. G earned nine nominations. Stephen, Mousie, Darien, and Sam each earned seven, with a small number of shared nominations among them.

Predictably, the most commonly archived chatters tended to get the most nominations. Of the 20 most frequently archived chatters, all but one received at least one nomination. The exception was Genlanar, who appeared in just one archive in an exceptionally lengthy role; therefore the number of categories he was eligible in was less than what his total time in the spotlight might suggest.

Among Dave's 12 nominations are three for Best Male Comic Conversationalist. Because he is competing against himself in this and other categories, the most awards he can win, excluding shared awards, is seven. G is also only eligible for seven awards, as she has dual nominations in two separate categories.

The most dramatic case of someone splitting his own vote comes from Nyperold, whose six nominations are spread across just two categories. For Best Pun, Nyperold owns five of the six nominations. In a similarly strange twist of fate, five of Dave's shared nominations come from all five of the Best Kick nominees, guaranteeing him a shared win in that category.

The number of nominations garnered by individual archives would seem to say little about what voters thought of them overall. "WHAMMO!" earned six nominations, more than any other archive, but it was not nominated for Best Archive. Three archives earned five nominations: "The Great Ginger Ale Tragedy," "Safari," and "Self-Chat." Of these, only "The Great Ginger Ale Tragedy" was nominated for Best Archive. The other four Best Archive nominees are "The Sting, Part I," "The Sting, Part II," "Dave Makes Dinner," and the dark horse nominee "Split Stephen," which snatched a nomination many experts thought would go to "Stupid Day 2000."

The subdivided archive categories held some surprises. It was not generally expected that "Blood Drops" and "The Red Button" would win out over "Group Therapy" and "Dudes To Be Feared" in the Best Improvised Humor Archive category. Another upset occurred in the Best Conversational Archive category when the relatively low profile "Hey! There's Corn In Here!" was nominated and "The Affair" was not.

In the performance categories, it was unexpected that the "Dudes To Be Feared II" archive went unrecognized in the Best 733t ahX0r category. Also conspicuous was the the absence of the two alter-egos in "BatDarien vs. the Jokestah" from the list of Best Alternate Personality nominees, especially since Darien earned a Best Male Comic Improvisor nomination for his BatDarien role. Darien's other nomination in Best Male Comic Improvisor, for "Another Self-Chat," is unique as well: it was the only performance nomination for a self-chat role.

A surprising number of ties meant more than the expected number of nominees in several categories. In the Best Self-Chat Archive, the four eligible archives were narrowed down by only one: Stephen's "Self-Seance" was the only one not nominated. In Best Prank, seven out of the nine eligible archives were nominated. The most dramatic tie, however, occurred in the Best Female Comic Improvisor where what was at least a seven-way tie pulled in eleven separate nominations. The Best Male Comic Improvisor category had eight nominations.

"The ties surprised me," said Samuel Stoddard, producer of the RinkAwards. "With a small number of voters, ties are expected, but we had almost 150 casting votes. But in several categories, the first three or four were clear wins, and by the time you got down to fourth or fifth place, ties became common."

Here you can view the complete list of nominees.