Last month’s contest featured a drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Meredith Southard. It’s set on a pirate ship where the captain, who’s wearing an eye patch and has a hook for a left hand, is saying something to the pirate who’s standing to his right. The captain’s speaking out of the side of his mouth, as if he’s saying something under his breath. He’s also looking at and gesturing toward two other pirates, both of whom have lost at least one hand and an eye. One of them has also lost the bottom half of his right leg. The other appears to be waving his hook at the captain. (Bob Mankoff thought this aspect of the cartoon had to be addressed but, as you’ll see, the rest of the judges and Meredith Southard disagreed.) The pirate to whom the captain is speaking has both his eyes and all his limbs.
I know some people found this drawing confusing because both the captain and the pirate who’s waving his hook have their mouths open, but I don’t think it’s confusing at all. The captain is clearly speaking because he’s the focus of the drawing. Your eye is drawn immediately to him, and the other pirates (including the one whose mouth is slightly open) are there to provide clues as to what the captain could be saying.
Meredith Southard was unable to join the judging panel for this contest, but she did send us her original caption: “Arr, there be no OSHA regulations aboard this ship.”
One of you made a similar joke and gave it a nice ironic spin: “And that’s our safety team.”
These entries all suggest that the new guy will lose a limb or an eye soon enough:
- “I’ll teach you everything I taught them.”
- “You won’t be overqualified for long.”
- “And this is our mentorship team.”
- “There’s a bit of a learning curve.”
- “Be ye a registered organ donor?”
As mentioned above, Bob thought the captions had to address the fact that one of the pirates seems to be waving his hook. I disagree, but here are the best of those captions:
- “They sell those bobble-hooks in every port now.”
- “As mutinies go, this is pretty tame.”
- “Did he just give me the finger?”
- “Compliment his ASL.”
Bob loved the bobble-hook joke, but I did not. More on that later.
Though I usually get blamed for promoting tasteless sex jokes, I am not the one who included this caption among his top ten entries: “Unfortunately, that’s the hand he uses to masturbate.” It did make me laugh, though.
Here’s the month’s best joke about a Triple-A baseball team: “And that’s Charlie. Charlie from Poughkeepsie.” The term “Poughkeepsie Pirates” has several definitions, so that caption might actually be the best joke about a canoeing club on the Hudson River, thieves who steal packages from porches, or people who violate FCC rules by allowing their properties to be used for illegal broadcasts. But I think it’s about the baseball team.
I love the way the following caption suggests that the new pirate is on the right track but has a ways to go before he really looks the part: “Your bandana is a good start.”
The next four entries all highlight the new pirate’s ability to do certain things much better than his shipmates:
- “I think you’re the only one who can hold your liquor.”
- “Guess which one of you is giving me a backrub.”
- “Your job is mainly going to be tying knots.”
- “We have so many jars for you to open.”
On the other hand, hooks can on occasion provide an advantage:
- “Join us in the galley – it’s fondue.”
- “And in the evenings, we crochet.”
Most of the time, however, they’re a distinct disadvantage:
- “It happens a lot. They forget about the hook and stab themselves in the eye.”
- “Waving is ok, but no making hearts or blowing kisses.”
I love the way both those captions make you picture the slapstick ways the pirates injure themselves.
Here are the month’s best puns:
- “Don’t make the same mistake we did when they yell ‘all hands on deck!’”
- “Sorry, no severance pay.”
There were a lot of jokes about medical coverage. None was great, but these two were OK:
- “I think it’s pretty evident why our insurance rates are going up.”
- “Turns out the real treasure was group health insurance.”
That second joke reminds me of this classic by Dave Borchart:
Up next we have two variations on the same joke, which I really like because it’s consistent with each character’s expression:
- “Pretend we’re talking. I can’t do another chat about you-know-what.”
- “Argh, I cannot make any more small talk about prosthetics.”
I initially liked this caption—“We’re looking for someone with more experience.”—which suggests that the captain is telling the new guy why he’s not right for the job, but it doesn’t match the captain’s expression. Nor does it make sense because the new guy’s already working on the ship.
Bob and Joel Mishon had an unusually long argument about this caption: “I’m looking for a new right hand man.” Joel said it doesn’t make sense because there’s nothing wrong with the captain’s right hand, but Bob insisted that Joel must not understand the term “right-hand man.”
Bob and Joel, however, did both like this entry: “I want you to be my eyes and ears, and hands.”
Congratulations to JOLENE CHONGCHUA, who submitted this month’s winning caption: “Your bandana is a good start.” Jolene is married to Victor Chongchua, who won the New Yorker caption contest featuring this drawing by Ed Himelblau:
Victor also created WordsBelow.app, a subscription service that includes data from every New Yorker caption contest and enables you to search for any entry and find those that were selected as finalists and winners.
The five runners-up for this contest are:
- “Waving is ok, but no making hearts or blowing kisses.”
- “Guess which one of you is giving me a backrub.”
- “They sell those bobble-hooks in every port now.”
- “Your job is mainly going to be tying knots.”
- “You won’t be overqualified for long.”
Whoever submitted the bobble-hook joke should split their winnings with Bob because he is the only reason that entry was selected as a finalist. I would have knocked it out and replaced it with, “Pretend we’re talking. I can’t do another chat about you-know-what.”
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and posted on our YouTube Channel.