most viewed posts on homepage

Hey Everyone.

I am hung up on something so I wanted to see you had any suggestions.

1) I am using the wp-postviews plugin
2) I am on wordpress 2.9
3) str_img_src() is in the themes functions.php file

I am using the following code in the sidebar.php template file to pull the 5 most popular posts.

<?php
	$most_viewed = new WP_Query('v_sortby=views&v_orderby=desc&show_posts=5');
		if ( $most_viewed->have_posts() ) : while ( $most_viewed->have_posts() ) : $most_viewed->the_post();
			$content = get_the_content();
			$image = str_img_src( get_the_content() );
			$title = get_the_title();
?>

<li>
	<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><img src="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>/thumb.php?src=<?php echo $image ?>&h=50&w=72&zc=1" alt="" />
<h4><?php echo $title; ?></h4>
<p><?php echo $content; ?></p>
	</a>
</li>

<?php
	endwhile; endif;
?>

On a single post or page: the code works perfect, title, image, and content.

On an archive page or the home page: the title shoes up, but there is no content or image.

Do you see anything that would be making this happen?