Juan Astasio Soriano<\/a>, joined our panel of judges from Madrid. His drawing is set on a busy sidewalk, where two tiny aliens with ray guns have emerged from their flying saucers. They\u2019re surrounded by and at risk of being squashed to death by huge pedestrians, whom we see only from the knees down. One alien is addressing the other. Astasio’s original caption suggests that the little green men are unprepared because the Earthlings looked so much smaller when viewed from the aliens\u2019 home planet: <\/span>\u201cTo be fair, it was hard to estimate the scale of the operation from Alpha Centauri.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nSeveral of you provided similar explanations:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cI must have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cThey looked a lot smaller from 53 trillion miles away.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cThey looked smaller from a distance.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cFrom space they looked so tiny.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This entry has the speaker focusing on an irrelevant concern and oblivious to the real threat: <\/span>\u201cDon\u2019t worry; Texas is an open carry State.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nThough I typically prefer captions that are short and have no exclamation points, this unusually long entry made me laugh out loud, and every one of the many words, as well the exclamation point, is necessary: <\/span>\u201cFor God\u2019s sake, Frank, you\u2019re a bright green alien monster with a death ray\u2014now go out there and act like one!\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nHere are the month\u2019s best:<\/span><\/p>\nJoke about foot odor: <\/span>\u201cI expected fresher air.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nPolitical joke: <\/span>\u201cCareful \u2013 half of them hate guns, and the other half hate illegal aliens.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAnd sick joke: <\/span>\u201cIf I\u2019m not back in five minutes, call for a spatula.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHere are two variations on a famous line from \u201cStar Trek:\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cSet phasers to Antifungal.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSet phasers to stub.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
That second entry is especially good, not only because it follows one of the most important rules of good caption writing\u2014end on the punchline\u2014but because it turns the very last letter (b) into the punchline. I\u2019ve never seen that before.<\/span><\/p>\nThe next three entries have the aliens wisely rethinking their strategy:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cUnless you brought the shrink ray, I say we get the hell out of here.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cWhat about, \u2018Take me to your smallest leader.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSo, hearts and minds, then?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I love the following two captions, both of which turn the alien who\u2019s speaking into a very funny coward:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cYou go ahead and attack. I\u2019ll close up the ship.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cNo, you demand they surrender.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Can\u2019t you just hear Woody Allen or Bob Hope delivering those lines?<\/span><\/p>\nSpeaking of Bob Hope, here\u2019s a great deadpan joke: <\/span>\u201cRemind me to send a stern letter to the planetary scouting division.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThis entry suggests that the aliens\u2019 position may be better than it initially appeared: <\/span>\u201cLuckily they have small brains.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nMy fellow judges loved this variation on that most famous line from \u201cJaws\u201d\u2014 <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019re gonna need a bigger probe.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u2014but I did not. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna need a bigger ________\u201d is now a tired caption clich\u00e9. It appears in crowdsourcing every week <\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/i> contest features a drawing with something unusually large, and the joke\u2019s no longer fresh. Here\u2019s another and slightly darker variation on the same tired clich\u00e9: <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019re gonna need a bigger cookbook.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nThese captions all suggest that the aliens will have trouble abducting such large pedestrians:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cWhat about just hair samples?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cMaybe we can strap one to the hood.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSo much for our abduction plans.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Here\u2019s a great example of transforming an ordinary statement into a caption that makes perfect sense within the contest of the drawing: <\/span>\u201cThey\u2019ll never see us coming.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nAnd here\u2019s an entry that delighted the judges (especially Bob) because it was so unexpected and it undermined our assumption that the aliens were hostile invaders trying to take over the planet: <\/span>\u201cThe scavenger list specifically says Ferragamo.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nCongratulations to JAMES MOLE, who submitted this month\u2019s winning caption: <\/span>\u201cYou go ahead and attack. I\u2019ll close up the ship.\u201d <\/i><\/b>The five runners-up are:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u201cWhat about just hair samples?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cWe\u2019re gonna need a bigger probe.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSet phasers to stub.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cThey\u2019ll never see us coming.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cThey looked smaller from a distance.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Watch the Judging Process<\/h3>\n
For those of you who want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process with Juan and its posted here<\/p>\n
![\"CartoonStock](\"https:\/\/www.cartoonstock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/CAP_LittleAliens_Final-300x262.jpg\")
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