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Pat Byrnes has drawn a comedy club full of robots. An audience member is heckling the comic on stage and delivering the line that will serve as the caption. I therefore thought the caption should be an insult.<\/p>\nPat Byrnes has drawn a comedy club full of robots. An audience member is heckling the comic on stage and delivering the line that will serve as the caption. I therefore thought the caption should be an insult.<\/p>\n
Because robots are metal, and metal rusts, my first insult alludes to the title of Neil Young\u2019s 1979 live album, Rust Never Sleeps<\/em>: \u201cYou could put rust to sleep.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I then came up with two captions that play on the different meanings of the word \u201cdrone:\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, I made a reference to the fact that many jobs have been lost to automation: \u201cA human<\/em> could do your job.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s see how you did.<\/p>\n I had to reject about 90% of the entries (some of which were pretty funny) because they had the comic delivering the line that serves as the caption when I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s being delivered by the heckler. Look at the comedian\u2019s mouth. His teeth are clenched tight\u2014he\u2019s not saying anything\u2014whereas the robot in the audience is shouting.<\/p>\n A couple hundred of you\u2014still a small percentage of the almost 2,000 entries received\u2014identified the heckler as the speaker, and you submitted some really strong captions.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an entry that\u2019s similar to but better than one of my own: \u201cThe drone had better delivery.\u201d <\/strong>And here\u2019s a caption that uses \u201cdrone\u201d not as a noun but as a verb: \u201cYou\u2019re droning again.\u201d<\/strong> Again, better than my similar entry.<\/p>\n One of you submitted, \u201cNot logical!!!\u201d<\/strong> That\u2019s a nice twist on \u201cnot funny,\u201d but does it really need three exclamation points? Granted, Byrnes\u2019s drawing cries out for a caption that ends with an exclamation point because hecklers shout, but one is enough.<\/p>\n The next two captions go after essentially the same \u201cnot logical\u201d joke:<\/p>\n Every caption contest needs a few sex jokes, so here are the best of the lot:<\/p>\n That last one is, if I\u2018m not mistaken, a reference to the classic Seinfeld<\/em> scene where George crosses the line while delivering a comeback to a co-worker who\u2019s mocked him for eating too many shrimp.<\/p>\n Here are two motherboard captions that aren\u2019t sex jokes:<\/p>\n And here\u2019s one last take on the mother joke: \u201cI\u2019d insult your mother, if you had one.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The next three captions aren\u2019t sex jokes, but they are vulgar (or, in the case of the last two, references to a vulgar line that some hecklers use):<\/p>\n The next caption\u2014\u201cDid you really just use the n to the 9th Power word?\u201d<\/strong>\u2014may be inappropriate, but it\u2019s another clever Seinfeld <\/em>reference. It alludes to a notorious comment that Michael Richards, who played Kramer, made during one of his stand-up routines. A video of the routine went viral and almost destroyed Richards\u2019 career until Larry David used the incident as a running joke on a brilliant episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm<\/em> that reunited the core Seinfeld<\/em> cast.<\/p>\n While reviewing the next three entries I had to look up the acronyms and the word \u201cFortran\u201d\u2014I\u2019m old\u2014but once I understood the captions I thought they were pretty good.<\/p>\n This caption includes acronyms I actually do understand: \u201cIBM? More like BM.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are some fine Terminator<\/em> references:<\/p>\n I like this next caption\u2014\u201cWho told you you could perform, you prototype?\u201d<\/strong>\u2014but the \u201cyou you\u201d is awkward and distracting. A better version might be, \u201cWho said you could perform, you prototype?\u201d<\/p>\n This caption\u2014\u201cHey, pal, jokes are like user interfaces. If you gotta explain them, they suck\u201d\u2014<\/strong>hits a little too close to home as my commentaries are designed at least in part to dissect jokes, but I still really like it.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t initially get the next caption, but it does a nice job of addressing both hecklers and robots: \u201cBoooooooo\u2026p\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The following two captions stand out because they assume the audience member is not heckling the comic but rather trying to help out, first by responding to a line like, \u201cMy wife was so rusty . . .\u201d by shouting out, \u201cHow rusty was she?\u201d<\/strong> And next by offering advice to the comic, who appears to have frozen up: \u201cTry turning yourself off and then back on again.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I like this allusion to bad comics dying on stage: \u201cWho said robots can\u2019t die?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And here are seven good insults that fit the drawing well:<\/p>\n\n
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