Let's Win the New Yorker Caption Contest

The flight risk one is pretty excellent.

xpost

Yeah, I wonder about that too. On one hand, I could submit the winner myself, but then if it actually got to top 3 territory I'd worry that I'd somehow be outed as a fraud because it wasn't my caption, and plus it would feel wrong to see my name listed as the caption writer.

And plus, anyone who writes a decent caption should enter, for sure. The more we enter, the better the chance that an ILXor will make it to the top three.

So then it's tempting to say "why have a poll and choose a winner?" But if we eliminate the poll, this whole idea will probably be dead within a few weeks (it may anyway, I suspect).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jMCplra4Obw/SdI-9HkdumI/AAAAAAAAAo0/7LtEUfVSj9U/s400/teachers-head-explodes.jpg

i don't get the flight risk one ;_;

The three NYer finalists for the plane caption:

http://i43.tinypic.com/2dhtqu0.jpg

“She thinks her bomb bay makes her look fat.”
Submitted by Eric Schares
Portland, Ore.

“It's a pretty good aircraft, except that it keeps nagging you to ask for directions.”
Submitted by Adam Pfeffer
Boca Raton, Fla.

"She's a lover, not a fighter."
Submitted by Robert McLean
Tampa, Fla.

The three ILXor nominees:

"she was a bitch to land today"

"If comfort were a concern I'd take the train."

"I call her Ladybird, because she's my lady."

Was "If comfort were a concern I'd take the train" entered? Because that one is more New Yorkery than any of the official 3.

ugh those official 3 suck

ha ha bitches want you to ask directions

Seems like they're tired of satirising contemporary middle class mores, going for straight-down-the-line sexist gags. Good job.

Eric Schares, Portland, Ore.; Adam Pfeffer, Boca Raton, Fla.; Robert McLean, Tampa, Fla.: not funny

and they think they look fat! do u see the comedy!

florida is the saddest state

The last one is way, way funny compared to the first two.

None are as good as ours.

i don't get the ladybird one?

yeah, the fact that the winning captions routinely aren't funny kind of removes the one criterion we are all concentrating on.

i just want to know when "new yorker cartoon captions" and "brick-wall comedy hell" started sharing the same tired jokes? or have i not been paying sufficient attention

as a weekly reader of the new yorker, i can't think of the last cartoon they published that even made me smile.

okay, i have modified my approach. how about: "Uh oh, I'm in deep water now!"

it made me cringe just the right amount. i think it could be a winner.

"Well, your honor, I was going down on your wife when the incident occurred."

'So then it's tempting to say "why have a poll and choose a winner?"'
The winner should be entered automatically by Ignatius Lem Xanadu, lest sloth tempt the winner not to enter.

baby ruth?

Agreed.

for the flight risk one, in the poll please put "your honor said" instead of "you said"

he wouldn't fuck w/ court etiquette

I think italicizing "flight" might help too

I'm going to enter "If the snorkel doesn't fit, you must acquit," I think it might be obvious and unfunny enough to have a chance.

"I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque."

"I've been dressing this way since my business went under."

Yes, I do like this one. It's a pun, but it's elegant. And it has that New Yorkery "oh, the rich" dimension to it.

oh wow, I didn't even get the "under" dimension -- not to workshop everything here, but maybe there's a way to bring that out

(it might be too, umm, specialized a reference to work it into something about a mortgage being "underwater," right?)

I was trying to work with "belly-up" somehow.

I threw out six (!) of these things, and I think the one jaymc pointed out is the best of them. The floating debt one ("All my financial problems can be traced back to the fact that I don't float.") and the mortgage one ("I misunderstood the meaning of sub-prime.") don't quite get at the sort of knowing, unfunny, raised eyebrow humor of typical New Yorker cartoons.

So consider that one my entry.

"Well, your honor, I was going down on your wife when the incident occurred."

^ if only this one stood a chance.

"When a reef needs protection, I'm the guy, OK?"

i like the first official answer has "bombay" in it

i guess that makes it a bomb bay satire?

"HOW YOU LIKE MY AMICUS TRUNKS!"

"No your honor, I wouldn't call it fishing for evidence exactly."

"What do you mean I'm in deep water?"

*groan*

"Oh, and the octopus gets off scott free? Typical."

SO, what's happenin'

i was wonderin

Double issue last week, no issue this week.

I think groany puns are the wrong approach. New Yorker captions almost never do that.

Oh shit, I forgot to set up the poll last week. Sorry!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/07/the_new_yorker_no_the_new_york.html#more

I came up with what I think would make a perfect New Yorker cartoon --

It's a relatively close frame of two women talking, and one his showing her hand, and one is showing an engagement ring with a very large diamond and a kind of clip-on spotlight attached to the ring, lighting the diamond, and the woman is saying "You don't think it's too ostentatious, do you?"

So, uh, if that's ever the contest drawing, there's my entry.

let's win the imaginary new yorker caption contest

weird, I kinda miss these threads

Anyone is welcome to keep them going if you want! I've been ultra unreliable the past two weeks because I've been relocating to a different city, visiting friends out of town, and starting a new job. Hopefully next week I'll be able to set it up (which just means saving a copy of the new caption on tinypic.com so the link won't disappear in the future, and starting a new poll thread later in the week), but if not anyone can do it too of course.

It's been a while, so...

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1318/091026contestp465.jpg

Entries for this drawing, by Zachary Kanin, will be accepted through Sunday, October 25th.