Fug Madness 2016 Starts Thursday. And The Contenders Are...

And there they are, your Fug Madness 2016 field of sixty-four. They look pretty gnarly, don't they?

What is Fug Madness? Glad you asked; here's the FAQ, but in brief I can tell you that it's our annual elimination-style tournament that decides who the fugliest celeb of the time period is -- and the reason we do this time period as opposed to a nice, clean year-ender is to dovetail with the college basketball March Madness. We started it that way in 2008 and it'd be weird to change it now; we are nothing if not creatures of habit.

The eligibility period for outfits goes from February 23rd, 2015, to March 1, 2016. Another way of looking at it: from Oscars to Oscars. If they wore it to this year's ceremony, it counts; if they wore it after, it goes in Fug Madness 2017. Likewise, if they wore it to last year's Oscars, it doesn't count, because it was included in Fug Madness 2015.

Each celeb has been chosen with moderate care, seeded with our wildest guesses, and then randomly plopped into one of four brackets. This determines their path to the championship. So for example, we decide which four celebs are ranked No. 1, but of those No. 1 seeds, the randomizer chooses which bracket in which they live. And so on and so forth. That way, the universe decides. Isn't it nice that we can hand off the tough decisions? Truthfully, it's because we'd much rather be amused and surprised by the games than to be their puppetmasters.

This is decided by reader votes. Clear your cache and vote as often as you like. The first round starts Thursday, March 17, and let me tell you, mixing this much fug with green beer will test your constitution intensely. Oh, and the name of each bracket means nothing; they're simply in honor of four historic, artistic fuggers, who paved the way for those who cleave to sartorial inanity.

The full printable bracket is here; click to view it all and print: