New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro helped judge this month’s contest, which featured his drawing and elicited more than 500 entries. (If you like Toro’s work, you can find two of his best cartoons on pages 115 and 214 of my book on the caption contest.)
The drawing is set in the Garden of Eden, where Eve, who’s covered in leaves, is addressing Adam, who’s wearing just one leaf to conceal his genitals. Toro’s original caption alluded to the paradisiacal nature of the Garden while suggesting Eve was more modest than Adam: “My idea of paradise involves less T&A.” That punchline, of course, also suggests that Eve was surprisingly comfortable with vulgar language—an incongruity that adds to the humor and helps explain why Toro initially tried to sell the cartoon not to The New Yorker but to Playboy.
These captions are similar to Toro’s but less vulgar:
- “Frankly, I prefer something a bit more modest.”
- “I’ll lead you not into temptation.”
This is much more vulgar: “I’m covered in penises.” That entry made us all laugh out loud, and though it has a certain internal logic—Adam and Eve both use leaves only to cover penises—it doesn’t really make sense.
It does, however, allow me to segue into the best of the small penis jokes:
- “You only need one leaf? We’re definitely not in paradise anymore.”
- “My last boyfriend had two leaves.”
And the one big penis joke: “I can still see it from this angle.”
There was a good foreplay joke: “Why do you want me to take them off slowly?”
A great role play joke: “Now you pretend you’re a rake.”
And a somewhat clever scatological joke: “You’ll want a few extras for wiping.”
When my parents were on their honeymoon, my father stepped out of the shower and said to my mother, “Which towel is mine? The one you’ve wrapped around yourself or the one on the floor?” Maybe that’s why I loved the captions that suggest Eve wants every leaf for herself:
- “Could I borrow one more?”
- “I’ve been looking for that.”
- “Give me back my leaf.”
- “I need one more leaf.”
As regular readers know, I don’t care much for puns, but I love this one: “I’m dressed for the Fall.” A decent but still inferior variation on the same joke is, “It’s from the fall-of-man collection.”
These two captions suggest that the leaves are like evening clothes:
- “God’s gonna be here any minute. I thought we should dress up.”
- “I thought we were going out tonight.”
While the next two suggest that the leaves serve a more practical purpose—protection from the cold:
- “A Goddess would’ve made it warmer.”
- “I’m not ashamed. I’m chilly.”
“They were on sale” is not a bad caption, but I always see it in crowdsourcing when the drawing demands an explanation for why there’s an inordinate number of, for example, goats or sheep or pianos. Also, it suggests that Eve had to buy the leaves, which doesn’t make sense. As Toro pointed out, there was no commerce in the Garden of Eden.
The following entry suggests that Adam and Eve were a married couple who split up, and that the leaves were marital property: “I had a much better divorce lawyer.”
These two captions make the exact same joke, but the second version is shorter and better:
- “Getting dressed is so much easier for men.”
- “It’s so easy for men.”
I like this entry—“I ate from the Tree of Embarrassment, too.”—but the last word is unnecessary. “Too” is not the punchline.
The next two captions allude to the way very devout Jewish women dress:
- “How badly do you want me to wear a head covering?”
- “I’m Orthodox.”
If you want to split hairs, you could argue that those captions don’t make sense because Adam and Eve were not Jewish—according to Genesis, they lived more than 1,900 years before Abraham came on the scene—but they’re part of the Old Testament so I’m giving the captions a pass.
I like the way this next entry highlights a minor detail in the drawing—Eve’s left hand—and suggests that it’s especially alluring because it’s one of the few parts of Eve’s body that is uncovered: “Why are you staring at my hand?”
This caption cleverly suggests that Adam used to be covered in leaves and explains why he suddenly has only one left: “That was some gust of wind.”
I’d like this next entry more if it weren’t a variation on “My eyes are up here,” a caption that’s been recycled far too many times in previous contests: “Maybe now you’ll notice what color my eyes are.”
I like this caption—“Relax, Tom, they literally grow on trees.”—but why is the man named Tom? How does that improve the joke when the drawing is clearly set in the Garden of Eden?
This next entry cleverly alludes to the fact that Adam and Eve never experienced a certain emotion before the Fall: “Have you no shame?”
This caption comes out of left filed and suggests that Eve won all of Adam’s leaves in an adult card game: “I think that’s enough poker for today.”
This caption takes a common complaint and turns it into a fitting caption by changing one word: “Stop defoliating me with your eyes.”
Finally, this caption suggests that Eve is disappointed in Adam’s choice of an outfit: “Is that what you’re wearing?”
Congratulations to JOHN KONNO, who submitted this month’s winning caption: “I’m dressed for the Fall.” John was also a finalist in Caption Contest #184, which featured Sarah Morrissette’s drawing of Goldilocks in a hot tub. John had her saying, “It’s too wet.” He’s therefore won $600 from CartoonStock in just two months and should inspire all of you to keep entering this contest.
The five runners-up for this month’s contest are:
- “A Goddess would’ve made it warmer.”
- “Stop defoliating me with your eyes.”
- “Give me back my leaf.”
- “It’s so easy for men.”
- “I’m Orthodox.”
Watch the Judging Process
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process with Tom and posted it below
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