Last month’s contest featured a captionless drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Lindsey Budde, who helped judge the entries. Her work is great, and you can see more of it at CartoonStock and on her website: lindseybudde.com.
Lindsey’s drawing is set in the shallow end of a swimming pool, where two mothers are standing in waist deep water and holding their babies. The boy baby (on the left) is smiling and saying something to the girl baby, who looks surprised if not shocked by what she’s hearing.
Like more than 70% of the entries, Lindsey’s original caption was scatological:
“Rumor has it that you never have to stop peeing in here.” That’s better than many similar entries, including this pun: “Let’s get this potty started.” I hated that joke—it exemplifies the problem with cute humor—but I was in the minority. Bob insisted it was funny, and Trevor thought it would make a great children’s birthday card. I’ve never felt so alone.
Here’s my favorite scatological entry: “You come to appreciate the chlorine.” That’s as subtle, and therefore as good, as such jokes get.
I’ll move on to another category of captions soon but before I do, here are four more pee jokes:
- “Stare straight ahead and ignore the obvious change in temperature.”
- “We’re all putting a lot of faith in swim diaper technology.”
- “I’m not wearing a diaper.”
- “Wanna see me close the pool?”
That last entry would be better if “wanna” were replaced with the words “want to.” I don’t like colloquialisms. They’re annoying, even (or especially) when coming from the mouths of babes.
The final pee joke I’ll highlight is the month’s best pun: “Everyone leaves this class relieved.” Here are the runners-up:
- “What are you drinking? I’m still on the house white.”
- “I identify as a buoy.”
- “I do laps every day.”
This next set of cations explain why the girl baby looks so alarmed:
- “Relax, you could drown and still get a participation certificate.”
- “It’s just like being in the womb, except you can drown.”
- “Your name came up in the car. What’s ‘custody?’”
- “The good news is it only bites the slowest baby.”
- “If this were safe, there wouldn’t be a class.”
- “Watch out for the monster in the deep end.”
- “And that’s the plot of Jaws in a nutshell.”
That last caption buries the punchline, which is “Jaws.” Always put the punchline at the end, like this: “And that, in a nutshell, is the plot of ‘Jaws.’”
The next two captions suggest that the boy baby is trying to upset not the girl but the mothers:
- “After they dunk you, hold your breath until you turn blue. It really freaks them out.”
- “Learning to hold my breath has really improved my tantrums.”
I like the implication that the boy baby is a malicious little shit.
The next three entries explain why the wide-eyed mothers are focused not on their babies but on something in the distance:
- “I think the lifeguard in the speedo is the only reason they brought us here.”
- “They haven’t blinked since the instructor took his shirt off.”
- “Your mom just mouthed ‘call me’ to the lifeguard.”
I like this next entry not only because it’s dark—“You ate 28 minutes ago? Nice knowing you.”—but because it reminded me of a great collaboration between New Yorker cartoonist Kamraan Hafeez and Vincent Coca, who co-hosts the Caption Contest Podcast: 
Here are two fine examples of turning a common statement into a fitting caption:
- “I’ve been training for this my whole life.”
- “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”
This caption suggests the boy baby gets annoyed when he should be grateful: “I hate when parents hover.”
This entry comes out of left field but works really well: “Look. The man in the highchair has a pacifier that whistles.”
Bob questioned this next caption—“The last time I raced, I beat fifty million swimmers.”—on the grounds that a sperm does not by itself become a baby, so the boy baby could never claim that he swam with millions of other sperm. That’s nitpicking. Speaking of which, I know New Yorker cartoonist Robert Leighton will say I misspelled that word.
Finally, here’s a caption that acknowledges just how scary swimming lessons can be for very young children: “My mom writes for ‘How to Terrify a Baby’ magazine.”
Congratulations to PATTI HOLLAND, who submitted the winning caption: “If this were safe, there wouldn’t be a class.”
The five runners-up are:
- “Learning to hold my breath has really improved my tantrums.”
KATHY WROBEL
- “They haven’t blinked since the instructor took his shirt off.”
KATHY WROBEL
- “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”
KARI WOODWARD
- “You come to appreciate the chlorine.”
ELIZABTH LAWLER
- “Let’s get this potty started.”
HENRY SAMPSON
I want to say something about three of the finalists.
First, Kathy Wrobel is on an incredible winning streak. Not only did she make the finalists’ round with two captions in this contest; she achieved the same remarkable feat in the last contest.
Second, Beth Lawler co-hosts the Cartoon Caption Podcast and runs a business that sells original New Yorker cartoons. It’s called Curated Cartoons, and you should check out her website: www.curatedcartoons.com
Finally, I want to apologize to Henry Sampson, who came up with the pun I hated. Instead of criticizing him for submitting it, I should be excoriating my fellow judges for insisting it be selected as a finalist. Furthermore, I think Mr. Sampson deserves credit for making it to the finalists’ round in New Yorker Caption Contest No. 963, which featured Mick Stevens’s drawing of a clown sitting behind a desk in the reception area of an office and addressing a man who’s come in for a meeting. Mr. Sampson’s caption was, “The boss has an irrational fear of secretaries.” There’s a chance, of course, that Henry Sampson does not deserve credit for that caption because he was at the time identified as Hank Sampson, but I’m guessing it’s the same guy.
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and posted it on our YouTube channel (Subscribe!).
Like what you see? Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Caption Contest episodes.
Just a reminder, the rules have changed a bit. The winner will get half the money we collect from entrants (which could be far more or far less than $500, depending on the level of participation), and the five runners-up will split the balance. Furthermore, there is no longer a limit to the number of entries you may submit, but after the first three you submit for an entrance fee of $5.00, each additional entry costs $3.00.
The prize money increases with each participant, so encourage your friends to play.
And if you haven’t yet ordered my book on the caption contest even though it’s been out for almost two years, click on the following link: