Kyle came up with a game in the early days of the pandemic to give us a reason to schedule Zoom calls with our friends (our wit and good looks weren’t enough), and we aggressively played it for a handful of months until we were all sick and tired of being cooped up and then we dropped the game like we did our interest in the Tiger King. Apparently enough time has passed that we can no longer remember who killed Carol Baskin’s husband (If anyone? I’m pretty sure he was found alive in Costa Rica but everyone was like, “Meh, who cares, our only takeaway is to wear leopard-print stretch pants”), because Kyle has since resurrected the game and has been making our friends play at every opportunity. As it has everything people love – Math! Movie Critics! Scrap Paper! – I am going to teach it to you.
The game is called “Fresh Tomatoes.” For legal reasons, I am obligated to tell you that Kyle’s Fresh Tomatoes has absolutely no association with the internationally-recognized movie rating system Rotten Tomatoes, which aggregates the reviews of hundreds of film and television critics into a percentage called the Tomatometer®. Kyle’s game is 100% based on the scores of the Tomatometer®, but the name is a coincidence.
Here’s how you play:
One person – The Kyle in your group of two or more people – selects four movies based on whatever criteria he or she wants. Horror movies from the 1990s. Comedies starring Paul Rudd. Horror Movies with a comedic twist from the 1990s starring Paul Rudd. The Kyle then communicates said list to the other participants. We were at the lake this past weekend and The Kyle (in this case, the real Kyle) selected Movies with a lake: Friday the 13th, The Great Outdoors, What About Bob, and Wet Hot American Summer.
Once the movies have been identified, The Kyle asks the participants to guess the Tomatometer® score for each of the movies, one movie at a time – rotating the order of the guessers so no one has to go first every time. This past weekend went like this:
Kyle: Friday the 13th.
Amanda: 57%.
Joe Exotic (names have been changed to protect the players): 85%.
Carol Baskin: 32%.
Kyle: Okay, now The Great Outdoors.
Carol: 76%.
Joe: What number did Carol say? 76%? Okay, 75%.
Amanda: 81%.
It is important(?) to note that participants can guess the same number, but I’ve found that only happens when everyone has stopped paying attention…and people not paying attention is basically the foundation of the game because there’s something about Fresh Tomatoes that makes people want to pivot their conversation to something unrelated/related. Like how they saw The Great Outdoors in the theater with their Uncle Jim who smuggled in cans of Miller Lite in his socks and owned a Camaro.
After the guessing has concluded – which can take up to thirty minutes depending on how many people also had Uncle Jims with Camaros – The Kyle calculates the difference between the guess and the Tomatometer®. In the example above, the actual Tomatometer® score for Friday the 13th is 66%. Since I guessed 57%, my score was eight.
You’ll be unsurprised to hear that Fresh Tomatoes goes even farther off the rails during the math section of the game than it was during the guessing portion. It takes The Kyle more than a moment to do all of those calculations, giving the participants time to further realign the conversation to the last time they made out in a Camaro, to the state of the auto industry, to the state of teenage relationships, to the state of social media, to a discussion on how teenage relationships were so much easier when they could make out in Camaros without a phone camera nearby.
Due to this deviation of conversation, it often takes up to an hour for The Kyle to find a time in between stories in order to communicate the results. While the winner of Fresh Tomatoes is the person with the overall lowest cumulative score, the real winner is the movie that the group deems the most misjudged by the critics. The Great Outdoors, for instance, has a 40% Tomatometer® score and a 71% audience score. How does that make you feel? Discuss.
History has shown that you can get in up to three rounds of Fresh Tomatoes in a three-hour period if alcohol is not involved. If Miller Lite or Camaros are involved, then you’ll be lucky to finish one.
Here is the frequently (and only)-asked question:
What if I haven’t seen the movie? The only requirement of Fresh Tomatoes is being able to state a number between 1 and 100. Having any knowledge or background of a movie is more of a suggestion. It is not against the rules to ask questions of the other participants (“Is this movie an Oscar nominee?” is a great one because that basically guarantees an 80% or higher rating; “Was this before or after so-and-so got arrested?” is also excellent because the Venn diagram of people who review movies and people who have the feels about celebrity gossip is a tight circle). It is also not against the rules to listen to another participant’s guess and then make your own guess based on your opinion of their opinion of movies. The number of times where I’ve been in a round of Fresh Tomatoes where a participant has guessed 92% and their own spouse has asked, “Wait, what did you say?” and then has picked 12% is more than one.
Anyways, Fresh Tomatoes pretty fun; give it a go. Let me know what you think. Kyle will come and be your Kyle for $5. He will sell you a franchise of Fresh Tomatoes for the same amount.
Also, in case you were wondering, the first two seasons of Tiger King have 84% and 22% Tomatometer® scores, respectively.
I don’t have a photo of Fresh Tomatoes (well, I do, but I don’t want to spend the time getting everyone in it to approve its use), so here is a photo of me on a lake.
I wasn’t on North Dakota Today this week because of the holiday – but I’ll be back next Monday! Last week, we talked about a fifth-grade class at Thompson Elementary taking storytelling to new audiences, and a gentleman in Grand Forks named Gary Urness who knows a lot about birdhouses and license plates. (Valley News Live)
A wonderful reader of ND Nice – and a retired master chief petty officer of the Navy – has become my pen pal. He sent a Memorial Day Reflection this morning, and has given me permission to share it with all of you (with a wish to remain anonymous). (North Dakota Nice)
Speaking of ND Nice, I posted about two different events upcoming across the state: Small Town Saturday in Climax (this weekend!), and Citywide Cookouts in Minto (every Thursday!). Click the underlined words in the last sentence to read more. (North Dakota Nice)
Williston’s Tate Purvis has designed a flag disposal box with the help of area veterans to create a place for people to bring their old American flags. (KX Net)
Mandan’s Leon House is a really dedicated fan of Track and Field. (KFYR TV)
I will post virtually any story that has to do with rescuing ducklings. (KX Net)
This is not a euphemism: Wahpeton college students lent a hand to help move a 5,000-pound rhino. (Valley News Live)
Congratulations to Bismarck’s Lucy Lengenfelder, the state winner of the Google Doodle competition. (Valley News Live)
UND’s flying team has won AGAIN at the 2024 National Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference. (UND Today)
Kyle and his friends, Corey and Kelly, have a podcast called North Dakota After Dark where they talk about youth hockey in North Dakota. The latest episode is up and is an interview with Kevin Vaughn. Check it out. Bonus: you can watch it on YouTube. (North Dakota After Dark)
North Dakota Nice 
Leave a comment