I'm having difficulty removing the stats when using the function in a template (not shortcode, not widget).
Everything looks correct to me:
<?php
$popular = array(
'limit'=>'4',
'range'=>'day',
'order_by'=>'views',
'pages'=>false,
// 'stats_tag'=>array('comment_count'=>false),
'stats_comments' => false,
// 'do_pattern'=>true
);
if(function_exists('wpp_get_mostpopular')):
?>
<aside id="trending-now">
<p class="loop-category">Trending Now</p>
<?php wpp_get_mostpopular($popular); print_r($popular); ?>
</aside>
<?php endif; ?>
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/