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The opening round of the Jerks Bracket is over. We started with 64 jerks, now we’re down to 32.
There was one overwhelming theme in Round 1 of The Ringer’s Best Pop Culture Jerks Bracket: overwhelming dominance. Across 32 matchups, only three were decided by fewer than 10 percentage points. Sure, Jerry from Tom & Jerry edged out Pete Campbell with only 51.9 percent of the vote—but everywhere else you looked, White Goodman was beating Issa Dee by a 93 percent to 7 percent margin, and Larry David was nearly shutting out Dina from Girls Trip. (If there’s one thing that’s going to unite this country, it’s the idea that Larry David is a jerk.)
There’s nothing quite like a character you love to hate. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Jerks Week at The Ringer. Vote for your favorite ones in the Best Pop Culture Jerks Bracket, and check back throughout the week for a selection of stories on one of the most underrated archetypes.
I gotta say, I am pretty surprised! The way the selection committee struggled to seed these jerks, there was a prevailing notion that nearly every matchup could be a toss-up. And that’s not to say that everything went chalk, but where there were upsets, they were convincing upsets—for example, Office Space’s Bill Lumbergh took down Mad Men’s Roger Sterling with nearly 70 percent of the vote.
This can only mean good things for the round of 32. These remaining jerks, as decided by the public, are the best jerks out there. And there are no more inferior jerks for these jerks to cruise past—they’re gonna have to square up against each other. We’ve got Kenny Powers versus Ron Burgundy; Roman Roy versus Jonah Ryan; Newman versus Lucille Bluth …
Let’s stop jerking around and get into it.
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Voting on the second round is officially open. Remember: You can place votes here, on X, and on Instagram until 6 p.m. ET. Voting will go as follows:
Tuesday: Round of 32
Wednesday: Sweet 16
Thursday a.m.: Elite Eight
Thursday p.m.: Final Four
Friday: Championship
Saturday: Winner revealed
The Waterbury Open
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Can the Upsets Continue?
Shooter McGavin’s region currently stands as the one with the most remaining double-digit seeds, thanks to convincing victories by Spider-Man’s J. Jonah Jameson (over Steve Martin’s titular jerk from The Jerk) and Office Space’s Bill Lumbergh (over Mad Men’s Roger Sterling). And it’s not hard to see why those jerks advanced to the second round—they’re iconic, they’re aggravating, and they each wear a tie in a way that makes you want to strangle them with it.
But today is when we’ll find out if they’re serious competitors, or just one-hit jerks, because standing in front of them are two contestants with legitimate championship aspirations. Jameson draws the 4-seed, Top Gun’s Iceman, who took down Gollum in Round 1 with relative ease. (RIP to my favorite jerk.) Lumbergh has it even worse: the 10-seed will face off against 2-seed Draco Malfoy, who just got done breaking HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey into a million little pieces. The odds aren’t with either of these double-digit Cinderellas, but you still can’t count them out. Jerks do unexpected things all the time.
The Matchups
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
73%
(1) Shooter McGavin, ‘Happy Gilmore’
(11599 votes) -
26%
(8) White Goodman, ‘Dodgeball’
(4188 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
44%
(12) J. Jonah Jameson, ‘Spider-Man’
(6976 votes) -
55%
(4) Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, ‘Top Gun’
(8838 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
51%
(6) Steve Stifler, ‘American Pie’
(8175 votes) -
48%
(3) Bugs Bunny, ‘Looney Tunes’
(7846 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
55%
(10) Bill Lumbergh, ‘Office Space’
(8978 votes) -
44%
(2) Draco Malfoy, ‘Harry Potter’
(7102 votes)
Hill Valley High
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Can the God of Mischief Conjure a Trick?
Remember all that stuff about how most of the jerks who made it to the second round dominated their first-round matchups? Well, Loki is one of the jerks who really didn’t—and that becomes all the more shocking when you consider that he was facing off against a 13-seed. Sure, that 13-seed was Stewy Hosseini, perhaps the best bit player on Succession, a show that just finished off a legendary run. Maybe the shimmer of Stewy’s series gave him a bump, while the recent stench of the MCU worked against Loki. What it all boiled down to was a 58-42 split, one of the closer matches in the first round.
Loki felt like a favorite coming into the week. Now he’s going up against Ferris Bueller—the Chicago area’s god of mischief, circa late ’80s—and it’s starting to feel like even the Sweet 16 might be out of reach. Expect this one to go down to the wire—and if Loki loses, I think we can officially declare the superhero era to be dead.
The Matchups
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
76%
(1) Biff Tannen, ‘Back to the Future’
(12142 votes) -
23%
(9) Jim Halpert, ‘The Office’
(3820 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
55%
(5) Ferris Bueller, ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’
(8850 votes) -
44%
(4) Loki, the MCU
(6960 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
55%
(6) Kenny Powers, ‘Eastbound & Down’
(8760 votes) -
44%
(3) Ron Burgundy, ‘Anchorman’
(7011 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
49%
(7) The Grinch, ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’
(7805 votes) -
50%
(2) Selina Meyer, ‘Veep’
(7869 votes)
Tom’s Restaurant
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The Jerk Store Called, and Seinfeld Is Dominating.
It’s a very appropriate name for this region—you gotta give us that. In Round 1, George Costanza, Larry David, and Newman routed their opponents (c’est la vie, the Xenomorph, Dina, and Joey Donner) with an average 90.1 percent of the vote. That sort of domination hasn’t been seen since the Jimmy slipped on that puddle. The Seinfeld universe clearly does jerks well—it almost seems like they have a copyright on the term.
But things will get tougher now. LD can probably survive his matchup against Dr. Perry Cox, but 1-seed George finds himself in a surprisingly tough face-off against Seasons 1 and 2 Jaime Lannister while Newman is set to go head-to-head against Lucille Bluth. On Tuesday morning, it looks like a trophy might be coming to the Upper East Side, but by Wednesday, the region named after Seinfeld could be without any Seinfeld characters. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
The Matchups
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
84%
(1) George Costanza, ‘Seinfeld’
(13477 votes) -
15%
(8) Jaime Lannister, ‘Game of Thrones’ (Seasons 1-2)
(2497 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
55%
(5) Newman, ‘Seinfeld’
(8691 votes) -
44%
(4) Lucille Bluth, ‘Arrested Development’
(7110 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
60%
(6) Johnny Lawrence, ‘The Karate Kid’
(9423 votes) -
39%
(14) Jerry, ‘Tom & Jerry’
(6091 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
26%
(7) Dr. Perry Cox, ‘Scrubs’
(4103 votes) -
73%
(2) Larry David, ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’
(11605 votes)
Bikini Bottom
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Is There a Favorite Here?
I don’t trust a single character in this region. Every one of them feels vulnerable. Most of them excelled in the first round, but now they’re all locked into battles against each other. (Derek Huff vs. Cartman and Roman Roy vs. Jonah Ryan are some true heavyweight matchups.) And even Han Solo—Han Solo—struggled somewhat to dispatch Beauty and the Beast’s Gaston. Who’s to say he’ll do any better in Round 2?!
No, this one’s wide open. It could go chalk, it could turn upside down. Although … what I’m actually getting at here is that Cartman is probably going to the Final Four.
The Matchups
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
47%
(1) Squidward, ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’
(7332 votes) -
52%
(8) Gob Bluth, ‘Arrested Development’
(8038 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
74%
(5) Cartman, ‘South Park’
(11473 votes) -
25%
(4) Derek Huff, ‘Step Brothers’
(3942 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
43%
(6) Jonah Ryan, ‘Veep’
(6379 votes) -
56%
(3) Roman Roy, ‘Succession’
(8168 votes)
Poll
Which character should advance?
This poll is closed
-
49%
(10) Phil Connors, ‘Groundhog Day’
(7679 votes) -
50%
(2) Han Solo, ‘Star Wars’
(7688 votes)
Remember, voting closes at 6 p.m. ET. Come back tomorrow for a breakdown of the Sweet 16.