Would the 80s Voltron show be considered anime? I would think so since it is a edited and dubbed over version of a Japanese show.

The Criterion Challenge (encouraged not to number lists), TV on DVD* Challenge (numbering not required), and MYOC (numbering method up to the individual) also use "easy numbering," so that's almost half of them right there.
Aren't the Horror and Drive-In Challenges the only ones that say anything about 100 being the goal? If 100 was the "standard Challenge goal" you'd scare away even more people.
C'mon, you're not really looking at anything close to 200 total hours (especially with this Challenge and the Drive-In Challenge, where many qualifying films are barely over an hour long).

Sure.

Same with the Horror challenge if you're doing a marathon of Lugosi, Karloff, and other films from the '20s-'40s. Many of those are around 50 minutes, give or take 10 minutes.

True, there are some very short films in those genres, but I doubt that even one of us owns anywhere close to 100 films of that length.

I have a huge collection and specialize in those genres, but think I only have 30 or so films that are under an hour.

I bet most of us average at least 100 minutes per film.

After the nearly three hour The Abyss last night, I'm anxious for some shorter films. Perhaps it's time to open my Pink Panther ultimate collection.

I vote we dump the current counting rules. Maybe not this year, since we're already into it, but maybe something to think about for 2012. I think one item per entry is fine, regardless of how many minutes it is. This year I am watching a bunch of Superman shorts from the 60s that are about 6 minutes each. The process of itemizing them on my list is kind of a drag. I am not really trying to "win" the challenge or whatever, so I don't care what my total is at the end.

That sounds like a...challenge.

edit: I have 100 movies, not counting TV horror movies, that range from 40-66 minutes.

On things like that, I've summed it up in the past. Something like Superman - 4 episodes. I'm not going to write out every Looney Tunes title I watch.

I said films "barely over an hour long" (meaning 65 to about 75 minutes or so). I agree, those under an hour are harder to come by.

I'm with you on this for this Challenge (since there are so many short cartoons). I've been avoiding shorts for this Challenge (but I watched the heck out of them during the Academy Award and Holiday Challenges, where they're easy to count).
Wait. So Looney Tunes shorts count 4 for 1 entry?

Probably not. I was thinking 1/4 entry since I've been on a TV kick most of the day.

Yeah, I didn't think that sounded right since they typically run about 7 minutes or so.

I added up the run times for the shorts I watched last year, but I haven't felt like doing that this time around, so I've just avoided shorts and stuck with mostly TV stuff.

WB shorts usually run in between 7 - 8 minutes so, yeah that makes sense to me too

I agree. I just came in here to see how to list a bunch of Woody Woodpecker shorts I watched this evening. Ugh. I don't want to go back and check the times on these, and this does make me want to avoid watching any more shorts, which for an animation challenge is a bit of a bummer. For future challenges, I'd consider giving all shorts - despite the actual length - an official 10 minute running time credit to make it easier on the book keeping. So three Looney Tunes would count as 30 minutes, etc.

I'm glad you stated that. That makes life easier in listing.

No. From the rules:
Because most shows in which LT (or other short cartoons) were included typically had 3 shorts per half hour that's how I count them. For a full entry it's 12 Looney Tunes shorts (or Disney, Casper, Droopy, etc.). It might be a few minutes short of 1 1/2 hour but it's still as long as many movies.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of what I see is on "broadcast" TV and that's just not an option. I watch *all* foreign films that way If I can.
The frame of art you posted is a far cry from that of the titles I listed. I've always been surprised that everything I've sampled up to this date pretty much looks the same as you'd think, like American animation, there should/would be a larger variety.

3 shorts = 1/4 entry, 12 shorts = 1 entry sounds good to me. I wouldn't have to keep track of the exact run times and worry about whether or not I'm a minute or two short of 23 minutes. Can we get a ruling on this, Mister Peepers?

I wouldn't spend too much time getting down to an exact number of minutes, if you're watching shorts. A general time estimate is good enough.

The problem with saying 3 shorts = 1/4 entry comes when you aren't watching things with a standard length, like with Looney Tunes. I watched a bunch of animated stuff last night that was in the bonus features of American Dad, and each thing ranged from a few seconds to a lot longer. Same deal with watching animation on youtube, where they can be 15 minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. So if someone watched 3 15 minute shorts, that shouldn't automatically count as only 1/4 entry.

I saw Trevor's suggestion about counting in the Sci-Fi 2012 suggestion thread and thought about it. As someone who has yet to hit 30 in any challenge, the idea has appeal. This month I watched the first episode of the Spider Woman Agent of SWORD motion comic (ooh, motion comic! check!), which was 10 minutes. I wasn't super-motivated to watch more but then I got to thinking about how I was going to take credit for it. Should I force myself to watch three more so I can get 1/2 credit? But having watched those four, shouldn't I just bite the bullet and watch the fifth and final episode for completeness even though I likely won't get any more credit from it, and I may not even be that excited about it? Or should I cut my losses now and either (1) not take credit or (2) find something else to fill in 30 minutes for that the 1/2 entry slot?

When I first started the challenges, I was pretty intimidated by others' lofty numbers and seeing myself at the bottom of the standings. Thanks to encouragement from folks like Trevor and MinLShaw, I grew less concerned about that and have been satisfied to watch as much as I can, and now that I'm on to my second round in some cases, I'm getting some satisfaction from trying to top last year, and the good thing about keeping the same scoring system is that I know I'm making a true comparison from year to year. But I agree it can be tough for a newbie.

As far as watching shorter stuff, I'm sure I have a number of Sam Katzman/Charlie Chan-type films in my collection. I wouldn't really enjoy my challenge if that's all I were watching, though. I prefer more of a mix, and I'd feel like I was selling out to pad my numbers.

The average Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies TV episode runs half an hour and is comprised of three classic shorts, so I figure twelve shorts = 1 movie. Not sure how helpful that formula might be.

As for counting, there are two practical reasons that it matters. One is the arbitrary objective of reaching 100 movies in a month. By counting 2 hours of TV/shorts as the equivalent of a movie, I think the current system retains that objective while still allowing participants to get to shorter content in a way that's reasonable. The other reason is when prizes are awarded based on view counts.

Now, I'm already on record as saying I don't expect to ever hit 100 movies watched for a challenge and I don't even try. I get to what I get to and my only personal objectives are to use the challenge as an impetus to finally see things that have been in my Unwatched Pile or on my To See List, and to have fun in the discussion threads. I've been very satisfied on both counts since I became a participant in earnest last year. I've finally gotten a lot of monkeys off my back so far as seeing movies goes, and to be honest, the challenge discussion threads are now my favorite part of this whole forum.

Back to the challenge at hand, I caught a pair of Family Guys on [adult swim] I hadn't seen ("Hannah Banana" and "April in Quahog"), then Robot Chicken and Aqua Force Patrol Unit episodes I had seen before ("S&M Presents" and "The Creditor," respectfully). I love me some Meatwad.

Then I switched over to my iPod. iTunes recently offered the first episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, The Brak Show and Sealab 2021, and I enjoyed revisiting those shows again. They also recently offered the first episode of the Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection and I watched that. I never really watched that show, though a friend of mine was a huge fan in high school and I remember spending the night at his house one night and we watched it for a while before throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into playing Zombies Ate My Neighbor! on his SNES.

I have never viewed the challenges as a contest to see who views the most. I number my list to see how much I've watched throughout the challenge.

I like the challenges because it gives me a reason to watched stuff from the unwatched pile or movies I should see, but haven't. It's just fun for me.

I also love to look at other lists and watch some movies that others are watching. I especially love when folks mark whether or not the movie is on Netflix Streaming.

For the former, 100 is a nice number and that's what a couple of challenges have goals of.

As for the latter, I think it's a decent way to be able to measure TV and other shorts when comparing them to movies.

I tried doing 100 a few times in other challenges but now I don't really care. If I somehow manage to do it, that's fine. I have more interest in just seeing rankings and how many things people watch.

If you watch all of them, you can get a check in the checklist or you could get the rest of the entry with TV or shorts from the internet.

I've only run across a few minutes of some motion comics and I'm not all that impressed. I'm doing the checklist now and that will be one of the last things I do.

The relative handful of Japanese animated shows that have made it to American television represent just a tiny part of the spectrum of anime as seen in Japan. Also, in addition to animated movies and TV shows, there are OAV's (Original Animation Video, i.e. made-for-home video), made largely in the 1980s and '90s, which also experimented with different styles of art. (Check out VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU, from 1988, a standalone work of Japanese art, in my book.)

One significant anime genre that gets very little exposure in the U.S. is sports anime. Just this evening I watched four eps. from the classic anime boxing drama, "Tomorrow's Joe" (1970), in Japanese with no subtitles, because it never got released here. (I have two VHS tapes from the series that I bought from a Japanese video store.)
Here's an image from it:

Just finished streaming Ponyo, a first-time viewing. The story was pretty predictable, but sweet and there were a lot of really clever and interesting touches throughout. For instance, there is a scene where Kôichi (voiced in the English version by Matt Damon) is out at sea instead of coming home and Lisa (Tina Fey) is mad at him for it and they bicker by way of light-flashing. It was a nice slice-of-life moment, and not the kind of thing we see that often, particularly in these kinds of movies.

I've never been terribly into anthropomorphism stories, though, so I didn't quite fall in love with Ponyo, but I was pleasantly surprised enough that I did thoroughly enjoy it.

haaaam!

My friend said his wife started having a freak out session when the mom got a beer and drank it because it was a Disney movie.

That was one of several moments that made me laugh!

That surprised me, too. It also immediately endeared me to Lisa. Not because she drank beer, but because she had actual grown-up frustrations and reacted to them in a plausible way. Often when adults are shown with grown-up problems and behaviors in these kinds of movies, they're one-dimensional caricatures of stuffy, unimaginative boring old people. Lisa's none of those things. When she slammed down the salad and wanted to go out, that was a terrific character moment. She elects to appease her son by staying home, though, and the beer is her consolation prize. The movie doesn't dwell on any of this, but it's right there and easily identifiable, I think, for most of us.

Yeah, for me it's realistic and I'm not going to complain about it or make a bigger issue than it is.