While in New Orleans we constantly hear Endymion is the best parade from the Endymion riders.  We hear Bacchus is better from the Bacchus riders.  The Orpheus Riders of course think they are the best.  And Krewe of Tucks says to heck with you all, we're the best.  So here's what we are going to do.  My group of unbiased raters and I will attempt to reward each krewe on their merits.  This page can be used as sort of a guide to which parade had the best throws and which ones threw the most on the previous year.

OK so here's the rules of this site.

1) We only rate what we catch.  I am privileged enough to have several very nice sets of beads and a few other mementos from Mardi Gras that were given to me but that I didn't get off a float, So I won't count them here.  You know who you are and I thank ya.  This page is to show what you can expect (or hope) to catch at the parades

2) This is our opinion.  If you don't like it, write your own page.

3) We primarily rate the Super Krewe parades on Mardi Gras Weekend in New Orleans.  That is Endymion, Bacchus, and Orpheus.  If you want us to include your parade in this rating contact me and we'll attempt to set up you parade for the next Mardi Gras.  I'm sorry we cannot rate the parades on the first weekend of Mardi Gras as we are only in town for Mardi Gras Weekend.  If we catch something from a parade other than the ones above we will list it anyway in the coolest throws section.

4) This year we really wanted to have an even playing field for all of the big three.  However the best laid plans etc.  For Endymion, after we set up a group of beautiful young girls crawled up on their ice chests right beside us.  We can't blame the Endymion guys for continuously bombing them. Heck I would too.  Not to mention the fact that the crowd was 6 - 10 deep compared to almost no crowd for the other two.  For Bacchus we had three people on the street and two IN the ball and one riding.  For Orpheus, well what can we say, Harry must have really pissed off God cause for the second year in a row they rode the abbreviated route, and there were between ten and twelve of us catching stuff 

5) I'm going to live by the rule that if you can't say something nice just shut the heck up.  I know people that ride in each of the three Super Krewes and I refuse to say anything bad about any of them. 

Before we start with the awards I'd like to make a few comments about Mardi Gras 2004. 

We noticed that most of the groups in Mobile and New Orleans were, once again, a little light on the throws this year.  We also noticed a lot of empty slots on the floats.  We believe that this is still due to the current economic conditions in the world.  Thank you to everyone that did ride.  We realize that you are the one that paid for the throws.  We hope you had a good ride.

Bacchus: It might have been where we were standing but out of 14 people only one person came up with a King's doubloon.  These used to rain off the King's float.  It has also come to our attention that the most sought after doubloon of all Mardi Gras, in our opinion, the Bacchus Riding Lieutenant's Doubloon can now be thrown by any member of Bacchus.  We believe that this dilutes their value.  I'm not just saying this to offend Bacchus riders, I'd say this about any group that allowed this and we found out.

Our total haul from the big three this year was almost 38 gross of mixed beads.  17.5 gross of 33 inch beads, 15.5 gross of 48 inch beads, and a little over 3 gross of longer beads.

This year's Overall We Threw the MOST winner is - Orpheus.  We caught just over 19 gross of beads from them.

If you break it down by the number of people catching the winner is  Bacchus with 1.875 gross per catcher

The krewe with the longest average bead was Endymion.

This is a highly subjective category.  We have received many nice things from people we know but this category only considers things that were thrown from a float to someone on the street.  We caught quite a few nifty things this year. 

KREWE OF TUCKS  The good Friar has moved from his keg to a toilet.  The squeaky toilets were way too cool.  Another crowd favorite is the Tuck's Toilet Paper which we managed to catch two rolls of this year. (Normally these are used to decorate the parade route by the riders)

ENDYMION  That little Endy dude showed up this year driving a street car on their footballs and as an inflatable doll.

THOTH  These guys always seem to give the bigger boys a run for their money.  I believe this is the first time I've seen Panties a normal young woman can wear

BACCHUS  This year Bacchus returned with a special bead for each float.  We got a riding Lieutenant's Medallion.  We also got "Girls Gone Wild" Caps and a nice coffee cup

ORPHEUS    Orpheus also had float beads and we did manage to catch a few of these.  and no we did not get a Leviathan stuffed animal this year, did anyone?

This category is only for the krewe emblems.  This does not include the float emblems above.

LE KREWE D'ETAT  The BONER beads are always fun to catch.  This year htey had a gargoyle bead and Ashton managed to come up with this really nice emblem bead.

KREWE OF TUCKS  Tuck's not only has the Tuck's on his Throne medallion but also the Funky Tuck's.  Both show that this krewe is not sitting back and growing stale

ENDYMION  .Seems like Endy read this page a couple of years ago. They're putting the little dude everywhere.  See just how many different emblem beads they threw this year.  (It'd sure be nice if they threw more than just a few of them).  The nicest set of emblem beads from Endy this year were caught by the Throw-o-Meter

THOTH  I can't say it enough, these guys are on the leading edge of medallion beads every year.  Just look at the details on this bead That's an emblem bead I'd be proud to throw.

BACCHUS  Once again Bacchus has taken the face of their namssake and made two fresh new images from it.  The regular emblem bead and the parade theme emblem bead.  It really takes some doing to use basically the same image and keep it interesting every year.  I hope this comes across as a good thing because it's meant to be.  So many organizations take their logo and do the same ol thing every year but Bacchus has been able to keep it as a desirable throw.

ORPHEUS  Orpheus has basically used this same design every year.  This year we caught it in four colors.  Maybe they are putting all their effort into creating nice Float beads

We were given some very nice things from some riders that we'd like to recognize 

One of our fine judges has put together an overview of the parading krewes in New Orleans for your information