This is a discussion topic for the recently released fan favorites album. Personally I find the album to have horrible choices in episodes like Legacy, ya know, one of the most hated episodes recently, yeah this album is garbage.

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I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E

Mm, I think calling it "garbage" is a bit over the top.

When you say it included some of the most hated episodes, the question that comes to my mind is "hated by whom?" If you're talking about just the members on this forum, that's probably close enough to accurate, since I'm not infrequently the only one who has much positive to say about certain newer episodes -- for example, Legacy, since you mentioned it by name. Talking about the AIO community at large, though, I'm not sure I agree. The fans I know in real life have generally been enthusiastic about 'new' AIO, and I expect they would be happy enough with this album.

I admit when I looked at the album listing, I was a bit curious as to which fans they were asking. The blurb itself says it was influenced by voting. I expect their criteria was probably loaded towards asking younger fans, given that most of the episodes are newer ones (I don't recall if there's any episodes with Hal Smith besides "Secret Room") and a larger percentage than expected from post-2009. If it was, say, a AIO Club poll, that would probably explain it.

It doesn't look much like a list of fan favorites that I would make, but most of these episodes were popular in their day and I imagine still are, and when you consider the inherent bias towards newer episodes that there is in a young fan community, and that the AIO community here is biased in the opposite direction, I can see how the album's episodes are so dramatically at odds with what the people here might have chosen.

I suppose perhaps the best way to get some life out of this thread would be to ask what episodes you would pick for a 24-episode 'fan favorites' album. I'm willing to make a list of my own when I find the time.

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A classic never goes out of style.

Okay then, but still I do think that choices like "Spy who Bugged Me", "Legacy"," Push The red Button",and "Crash Course" are very odd, while episodes like "Mortal Coil", "The Time has Come", "Mysterious Stranger", "Mistaken for Good", and "Old Tricks" are left out, and where was the poll anyway? I have an AIOC account and I didn't see this poll so how where these episodes decided anyway?

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I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E

I can see "Spy Who Bugged Me". I remember it being popular back in the day and for a long time, with younger listeners. As far as the newer ones, the core plot of "Push the Red Button" was used for one of the live shows, so we can assume it got popularity that way, and I don't think "Crash Course" stands out any more than "Old Tricks" does.

As far as where the voting took place, I have to confess I don't know about that, I was just speculating. It might be worth studying to see if there's some notice on their page somewhere everyone missed.

I mean to take a crack at making a 24 episode list, with a good balance of episodes from across AIO history that are actually broadly popular fan favorites (not just the episodes I like), avoiding ones that are already included in other compilations (particularly the Christmas and Road Trip albums), and trying to have episodes that are not primarily major parts of story arcs. I don't have the time to do it tonight, but hopefully sometime next week.

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A classic never goes out of style.

I will make one at some point, although Snow Day was actually a decent choice for this album, same with Broken Window and I Slap Floor. I will probably keep those three and Search For Whit.

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I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E

100% agree. I don't want to roast them too bad, because they really did have a legit poll, it's just... not representative of any good episodes, that's all.

I actually liked most of them until 17, then they pretty much just put in the ones they wanted to be fan favorites.

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*Finger guns aggressively*

In all fairness, it's "fan favorites", not "best episodes". There's nothing in there that says the episodes have to be good. In that sense the kind of poll they did might be more accurate than our impressions of what ought to be there, since we're necessarily biased towards the episodes we or people we trust critically think are good, instead of the ones that the broadest number of people like (which might be very different -- many episodes that are good are not necessarily the most enjoyable, and vice versa. For example, I think a decent number of people enjoy an episode like "My Favorite Things", but objectively speaking, I think it's terrible, so its appeal/enjoyment level doesn't seem strongly related to its quality).

I admit thinking the post-09 focus was exaggerated, but if you're polling younger people, that's quite possibly reflective of their actual preferences; I wouldn't necessarily blame it on AIO. Indeed, I'm not sure there's any reason for them to 'load' it that way.

A good question when evaluating what episodes should go on a list is how many two or three parters you want. It's hard to have those because they eat into your 24-episode limit very quickly. Most two parters have more content worth hearing than just one episode, but they're not necessarily 'twice as good', so you have to ask whether you can get more bang for your buck with more singletons.

-- Tue May 29, 2018 3:58 am --

Here is a quick preliminary take on such a list, which is meant to be used as a jumping off point for making a better one. Some important details about the criteria I used:

1) This list consists entirely of single episodes, with no two or three parters. I'm not opposed to including multiparters in a fan favorites album but I think it'd take a careful analysis to make sure that you're getting the most for your time, an analysis I didn't feel up to doing at this moment. I'm interested in hearing more of your thoughts on what you think would be essential for this kind of thing.
2) This has a lot in common with an "easy listening" collection. There are very few serious episodes. I imagine there are a number of great serious episodes that should probably be on a popular list, but I had a hard time guessing which ones would actually be most popular, so for this take, I didn't even try. This is a detail y'all could definitely help fill in.
3) There also aren't any Bible episodes, and few history ones -- not because I dislike them but because I couldn't decide right now which ones the broad majority would want in.
4) If the episode was already included in one of the other major compilations, most notably The Ultimate Road Trip Collection and Countdown to Christmas, I didn't consciously include it (I didn't carefully examine those collections, though, so it's possible one still slipped into the list. If so, another one should be substituted.)
5) No Club exclusives are included.
6) No more than 24 episodes (of course, that being the size of the official fan favorites album).

With those caveats, and without further ado, my first draft at such a list, roughly in chronological order:
The Day Independence Came
Suspicious Minds
Someone to Watch Over Me
Real Time
Family Values
License to Drive
Truth, Trivia & 'Trina
Top This!
A Victim of Circumstance
Hidden In My Heart
Poor Loser
The Devil Made Me Do It
The Buck Starts Here
Gloobers
I Slap Floor
Snow Day
Broken Window
Nothing But the Half Truth
Bassett Hounds
Sunday Morning Scramble
Two Friends and a Truck
Push the Red Button
Unbecoming Jay
Groundhog Jay

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A classic never goes out of style.

Good balance, but some popular serious episodes are The Mortal Coil and The Mysterious Stranger and including The Time Has Come does make a good amount of sense so you should cut 5 episodes in favor of these. I would cut The Day Independence Came, Devil Made Me Do It, Groundhog Jay,Gloobers, and License To Drive.

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I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E

Well, I included Independence Came because it was specifically mentioned in a podcast as having been very popular for many years, and one of their most purchased episodes. I'm not a huge fan of it myself but considering that legacy I felt it made sense to include it.

I don't think License to Drive can go anywhere. I consider it something of a lock in the Odyssey canon, and I think most fans do too. Objectively I don't think it is that great of an episode, but we're talking about favorites, not best episodes. I'd consider any list somewhat suspect that didn't include it, or at least explain why it wasn't included.

I personally prefer Groundhog Jay to Unbecoming Jay, but I don't guess it makes a huge difference if you're to axe one of those. I included Gloobers because it was chosen as the source material for one of their DVDs, so I assumed it had popularity, but I'm willing to sacrifice it too if necessary.

I'm not sure I would include Time Has Come myself. It's a definite storyline episode which I think works best in the context of that story. I also suspect it's one of those that people rate high because they know they 'ought' to, but don't actually listen to that often (not uncommon for the most serious episodes). That might mean it's good but it doesn't make it a 'favorite', if that makes sense. That said, I'll listen to it again and think about it.

It would be a lot easier if it was possible to split this up into *two* albums, one for singletons and one for multiparters, but that would be twice as many as they apparently intended to release.

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A classic never goes out of style.

The poll was announced during the Get in the Show event last year, there was a banner on WhitsEnd.org, and the AIO Facebook page. It was not exclusive to club members.

The poll was actually a survey where you would write in the names of your favorite episodes. I believe that the ones that got the most nominations were picked. The reason a lot of the newer episodes were chosen is probably because more younger fans voted than older fans.

This is the first time (that I know of) that fans have gotten to actively choose what episodes go into a collection. It was a cool thing for Focus to do for us. I voted some of my favorites. Even though only one got in (Do or Diet), a lot of the episodes that made the final list are ones I enjoy or love. The only ones that I didn't like making the list was Push the Red Button (the studio version is terrible, but the live version is awesome) and Connie the Counselor.

If you are unhappy with the results of the poll, that's fine. There's no list of any number of episodes that every fan would say is all are their favorites. I hope more people will vote next time if AIO does this kind of thing again so there is a more diverse selection of episodes.

Agreed. Well said, Austin.
If any one of the Era 9 episodes (A Very Bassett Wedding, Connie the Counselor, Legacy, Crash Course) were included, I'd see why. Any one by itself would be a favorite. But having one-fourth of the episodes in the album be ones that aired within a year and a half before its release seems too much for me. Although I get why they're in there; my "Top 5" were episodes since 2006. They were the only ones I could remember.

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...Castles and Cauldrons gets too much backlash.

Yeah it didn't make sense.

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I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E