Caption Contest Commentary

Charles Barsotti’s drawing is set in a bar. The top of a Jack-in-the-box has just sprung open, and out of the box has popped a doll dressed like a businessman. This doll is happily addressing the bartender, and in the background another customer looks on. Any caption contest drawing that features a box will inevitably…
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“Well, that’s embarrassing.” So began my submission to The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest (#665), and it explains how I feel after my entry made it to the finalists’ round but then came in last. Congratulations to the winner, Judy Kramer of Broomfield, Colorado, and the first runner-up, Andrew R. Blanford of Santa Barbara, California….
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Jack Ziegler updated a German fairy tale by turning Rapunzel’s tower into an apartment building. She’s leaning out a fourth story window and letting her long hair cascade down to the sidewalk below, where a man is standing in front of the building’s entrance and shouting up to her. My first several captions identify easier…
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Before we get to this week’s commentary, I want to let you know that I am for the first time in more than two years a finalist in that other caption contest at the New Yorker. I’ll let you know in two weeks whether I can claim my eighth victory, or whether I have lost…
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In Bob Eckstein’s cartoon, a doctor who’s bandaging a patient from head to toe is pushing his foot against the patient’s back for leverage, and delivering the line that will serve as the caption. Focusing on the tape, I first made an insurance joke: “If you had Medicaid, I’d have to use red tape.” I…
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