Jason Chatfield<\/a>, who joined our judges\u2019 panel to help select the winning entry and five runners-up. His drawing is set in a bar where a baby is sitting on a stool, looking down at his shot glass, and saying something to the bartender and other customer. Jason grew up in Perth, Australia, where his parents owned a pub, and he said the cartoon is almost like a journal entry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nJason\u2019s original caption was, <\/span>\u201cLeave the bottle.\u201d<\/i><\/b> That\u2019s terrific, if a little obvious, and I asked him whether he had submitted it to <\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/i> before letting us use it for the CartoonStock contest. He said he did, but <\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/i> rejected it on the grounds that some readers might be offended by the sight of a baby drinking alcohol. Assuming such humorless readers exist, they should not be allowed to dictate the magazine\u2019s standards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSeveral of you submitted Jason\u2019s original caption as your own entry, and one of you changed it to <\/span>\u201cJust leave the bottle,\u201d<\/i><\/b> a modification that Jason liked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMany of you transformed an ordinary statement\u2014in this case, something a depressed drunk might say to his bartender\u2014into a fitting caption that reconciled the two disparate elements: babies and barflies.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cShe got tired of trying to change me.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cAnd then she just pushed me out.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cAll I want to do is drink and cry.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cEach time, it\u2019s something new.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cShe said she doesn\u2019t want kids.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI can\u2019t just crawl back to her.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cNo one understands me.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI fell off the wagon.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI need a change.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI\u2019m so wiped.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These entries take ordinary statements and change them just slightly to address the fact that the drunk is a baby:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cIf that\u2019s my babysitter, I\u2019m not here.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cDon\u2019t tell my midwife I\u2019m here.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSomebody call me a stroller.<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cSomebody call me a stork.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cIt\u2019s 3 a.m. somewhere.”<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cIt\u2019s 5 a.m. somewhere.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The last two captions are nearly identical, but the \u201c5 a.m.\u201d joke (which two people submitted) is superior because it\u2019s closer to what people actually say to justify day-drinking.<\/span><\/p>\nHere\u2019s the month\u2019s best pun (which Bob liked): <\/span>\u201cAnd for this I gave up free womb and board.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nHere\u2019s the best Jewish joke (which I loved, in part because it came out of left field): <\/span>\u201cYou think you had a rough day? Ever hear of a bris?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nAnd here are the best sex\/relationship jokes, which I didn\u2019t expect in a contest that featured a baby:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cAnd then it hit me\u2014I\u2019m sleeping with my mother.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cWhy do I always go home with an older woman?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI just got out of a very short-distance relationship.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cApparently, it was just a playdate to her.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cWhere\u2019s the babes?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Trevor Hoey, a <\/span>New Yorker<\/span><\/i> cartoonist who helps judge every month\u2019s contest, liked this entry, which suggests that the baby thinks he\u2019s entitled to a reward for doing something annoying: <\/span>\u201cCan I get a beer, for crying out loud?\u201d<\/i><\/b> It might work better, however, without the comma.<\/span><\/p>\nThis entry reminded me of the SNL skits featuring Adam Grossman, the six-year-old Benihana customer (played by Jonah Hill) with the soul of a Catskill comedian, who\u2019s always making jokes he says he doesn\u2019t understand: <\/span>\u201cI\u2019m lactose intolerant\u2026and I don\u2019t even know what that means.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nHere are decent jokes about:<\/span><\/p>\nBreastfeeding: <\/span>\u201cI miss it on tap.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBaby formula: <\/span>\u201cAnother bottle of white.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nAnd making sure the baby formula you\u2019ve just warmed up on the stove is not too hot: <\/span>\u201cDon\u2019t shake it or stir it, just splash it on your wrist.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nI like both these references to Alcoholics Anonymous:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cI can barely manage the one-step program.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI\u2019m in a First-Few-Steps program.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Perhaps because this contest straddled two years, beginning in December 2023 and ending in January 2024, some of you assumed the child is Baby New Year, the personification of the start of the New Year:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cThe worst part is, I used the hat and sash as collateral.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cIt all started when I realized I was an election year.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This entry is funny but doesn\u2019t really make sense: <\/span>\u201cI\u2019m not drunk. I\u2019m nonverbal.\u201d<\/i><\/b> How could a nonverbal baby say that? Jason pointed out that the line would work better as a thought bubble.<\/span><\/p>\nWe all loved this caption\u2014<\/span>\u201cWould one of you help my dad up off the floor?\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u2014in part because it makes the reader imagine a person who\u2019s not pictured in the drawing, and because the idea of a parent who\u2019s irresponsible enough to bring a baby to a bar and then get black-out drunk is, in a dark way, very funny.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThis caption suggests that the baby is unexpectedly worried about mortality: <\/span>\u201cAnother day closer to death.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nAnd this one suggests that he\u2019s depressed about the thought of losing his status as an only child: <\/span>\u201cThey\u2019re having another.\u201d<\/i><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\nCongratulations to JOE AYELLA, who won the contest with an Oedipal joke: <\/span>\u201cAnd then it hit me\u2014I\u2019m sleeping with my mother.\u201d<\/i><\/b> The five runners-up are:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n- \u201cWould one of you help my dad up off the floor?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cI can barely manage the one-step program.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cShe got tired of trying to change me.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cShe said she doesn\u2019t want kids.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n
- \u201cIt\u2019s 5 a.m. somewhere.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Watch the Judging Process<\/h3>\n
If you who want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process with Jason and posted it below<\/p>\n
![\"CartoonStock](\"https:\/\/www.cartoonstock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Chatfieldsmall.jpg\")
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