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This month\u2019s contest featured a cartoon by Robert Leighton<\/a>, whose work and insights appear throughout my upcoming book, \u201cYour Caption Has Been Selected\u2014More than anyone could possibly want to know about <\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/i> Cartoon Caption Contest,\u201d which will be published on June 4, 2024. (I decided to change things up this month by opening instead of ending with a plug for my book, which you can pre-order here: <\/span>https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9781250333407<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n Leighton\u2019s drawing is set in a hospital waiting room, where a trio of surgeons is delivering some news to Dorothy Gale, the protagonist in \u201cThe Wizard of Oz.\u201d From the doctors\u2019 expressions, the news isn\u2019t good. Leighton\u2019s original caption suggested that Dorothy\u2019s misguided attempt to help The Tin Man killed him: <\/span>\u201cWell, we put in a heart like you insisted, and now he\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/span><\/i> I love that line.<\/span><\/p>\n One of you noted another possible and unintended side-effect to the operation: <\/span>\u201cWe gave The Tin Man a heart and now he\u2019s proposed to the MRI machine.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n There have been several screen adaptations of Frank Baum\u2019s books about Oz, but the most famous is the 1939 musical, which may have set the record for the most memorable lines. Many of you submitted entries that were inspired by one of these lines, but the success of each entry depended on how well it alluded to the hospital setting. I\u2019ve organized the best of the \u201cmovie quote\u201d entries by the lines to which they refer:<\/span><\/p>\n Toto, I\u2019ve got a feeling we\u2019re not in Kansas anymore.<\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n I like the reference to \u201cKaiser Permanente,\u201d a huge managed care consortium based in California, because Kaiser is a clever substitute for Kansas. But one of my fellow-judges, Joel Mishon, is from England, and he pointed out that no one outside America would get the joke.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re off to see the wizard.<\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The last two captions are making the same dark joke\u2014the patient died on the table\u2014but I can\u2019t decide which one I like best. The \u201ccoroner\u201d line has a great deadpan tone, but the \u201cSt. Peter\u201d entry scans beautifully and has the exact same rhythm as the line from the movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lion and tigers and bears! Oh my!<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cLesions and tumors and burns! Oh my!\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n I love the way that entry matches not only the rhythm of the line from the movie but the first letter of each word in that line.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If I only had a brain.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIf he only had better insurance.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s no place like home.<\/strong><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n A few entries tried to work in a reference to the same line by making HMO or home care or homeopathy jokes, but they were all too clunky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Several of you suggested that the doctors were operating on the witch:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Mankoff did not like any of those captions because he didn\u2019t think Dorothy would be concerned about the witch, but I think the fourth entry addresses that concern.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the best anesthesia joke: <\/span>\u201cIt took a whole field of poppies to sedate him.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n And here\u2019s the best flying monkeys joke: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s possible their monkeypox was airborne.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n A couple of you focused on the fact that The Tin Man needed a heart and the Scarecrow needed a brain:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n This entry highlights the fact that the 1939 movie is a musical: <\/span>\u201cThere\u2019s no easy way to say this, so we\u2019ll have to sing and dance.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Finally, here\u2019s an entry that has the surgeon trying to make the best of a bad situation: <\/span>\u201cWe couldn\u2019t save The Tin Man, but we do recycle.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Congratulations to VINCENT COCA, a co-host of The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest podcast, who submitted the winning entry: <\/span>\u201cYou\u2019ll be going home alone.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0The runners up are:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n For those of you who want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and it’s posted below<\/p>\n\n
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Watch the Judging Process<\/h3>\n
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