In the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, players are challenged to link any actor to Kevin Bacon through roles in movies common to both. The number of such links that must be followed between an actor and Kevin Bacon is known as that actor's Bacon number. The name is derived from and the game conceptually inspired by, a play called Six Degrees of Separation.
Bacon himself spoofed that game during an appearance in a VISA Check Card TV commercial and in an episode of Mad About You in 1996. He also referenced the game on the season 5 Will & Grace episode "Bacon and Eggs" in which he played himself. The game has also been spoofed by The Onion, in an issue which showed, in six steps, how "Kevin Bacon [is] Linked to Al-Qaeda."
Also it was spoofed in a response to Bernard Goldberg's book the 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America which instead said how Kevin Bacon is related to the 100 people who are screwing up America.
A key movie to use in the quest to link Bacon and virtually any movie actor is It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Because Bacon is linked to so many contemporary actors because It's a Mad . . . has so many actors with long and extensive careers who have crossed paths with Bacon's contemporaries, it's fairly easy to connect a large chunk of the acting community with Bacon.
Example: How is Annette Bening related to Kevin Bacon? Annette Bening was in Being Julia (2004) with Maury Chaykin. Maury Chaykin was in Where the Truth Lies (2005) with Kevin Bacon. Thus Annette Bening has a "Bacon number" of 2.
Kevin Bacon himself possesses a Bacon number of 0, as he is zero degrees away from himself.
Kevin Bacon trivia
Roller Disco Bacon
Kevin Bacon makes an appearance demonstrating techniques such as "the can opener" and "the scissors kick" in the 1979 book, "Roller Disco Dancing" by Kerry Kollmar & Melody Mason. Sterling Publishing Co.
Kevin Bacon's anatomy
An anatomically-correct computer model of Kevin Bacon's entire body was made for the movie Hollow Man. This model was later donated to scientists.
Threesome issue
Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and Rachel Blanchard depict a ménage à trois in their new film, Where the Truth Lies. Bacon and director Atom Egoyan have condemned the MPAA ratings board decision to give the film their "NC-17" rating over the preferable "R".
Bacon decried the decision, commenting: "I don't get it, when I see films (that) are extremely violent, extremely objectionable sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more of their clothes on."
Filmography
2007 : The Air I Breathe
2005 : Where the Truth Lies
2005 : Beauty Shop
2004 : The Woodsman
2004 : Cavedweller
2003 : Mystic River
2003 : In the Cut
2002 : Trapped
2002 : Elvis Lives
2001 : Code of Conduct
2001 : Novocaine
2000 : My Dog Skip
2000 : Hollow Man
2000 : We Married Margo
1999 : Stir of Echoes
1998 : Digging to China
1998 : Elizabeth Jane
1998 : Wild Things
1997 : Telling Lies in America
1997 : Picture Perfect
1997 : Destination Anywhere (video)
1996 : Sleepers
1995 : Balto
1995 : Apollo 13
1995 : Murder in the First
1994 : New York Skyride
1994 : The River Wild
1994 : The Air Up There
1992 : A Few Good Men
1991 : A Little Vicious
1991 : JFK
1991 : Queens Logic
1991 : Pyrates
1991 : He Said, She Said
1990 : Flatliners
1990 : Tremors
1989 : The Big Picture
1988 : End of the Line
1988 : Criminal Law
1988 : She's Having a Baby
1988 : Lemon Sky (TV)
1987 : Planes, Trains & Automobiles
1987 : White Water Summer
1986 : Quicksilver
1984 : Mister Roberts (TV)
1984 : Footloose
1983 : The Demon Murder Case (TV)
1983 : Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
1982 : Forty Deuce
1982 : Diner
1981 : Only When I Laugh
1980 : Hero at Large
1980 : Friday the 13th
1979 : The Gift (TV)
1979 : Starting Over
1978 : National Lampoon's Animal House
Kevin Bacon also appeared in the soap operas Guiding Light (from 1980 to 1981) and Search for Tomorrow (1979).
