Style Conversational Week 1126: Putting the cartoons before the horses
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The Style Invitational Empress discusses this week’s new contest and results
By Pat MyersMay 28, 2015
This week’s caption contest might be more challenging than usual. It wasn’t until late in the process that it dawned on me that none of Bob Staake’s four cartoons this week featured characters saying anything. While of course you can always just write a funny description of the person in the picture (or in one case, part of a person), it’s also handy to be able to use an amusing quote. Which is why I have decreed: Feel free to assume that the people in this week’s cartoons are able to speak perfectly well with their mouths closed, and that they could be speaking to someone just out of the picture. Really, I am very easy sometimes: As Gilbert and Sullivan put forth the Loser Mantra: They don’t blame you so long as you’re funny.

. And I’ll also have you know that I’m easier than the folks at The New Yorker, which runs a cartoon caption contest every week, drawing more than 5,000 entries (but only one per person). For one thing, the caption can’t exceed 250 characters and you can’t enter if you live in Quebec — true fact. But even worse, all those captions are for one cartoon. The editors then pick three finalists, and readers vote for the winner, who then gets something possibly nicer than a bobblehead of the Lincoln Memorial statue — the original cartoon, valued at $250 (i.e., $250 of taxable income). Which you then get to frame yourself. I know that last part because at least two Style Invitational Losers have won this contest: 231-time Loser Gary Crockett and, before that, 217-timer Jay Shuck, who’s won it twice.

But the duplication of ideas must be enormous every single week, with 5,000 captions for one picture. I know this because I get a fair amount of duplication in our caption contests, and I’m offering four to six cartoons to choose from, and get a total of usually fewer than 2,000 entries.


I also know this because I had a sneak peek at the Below the Beltway column by Gene Weingarten in the June 7 Washington Post Magazine, in which Gene interviews Robert Mankoff, The New Yorker’s cartoon editor and the head of the contest. I don’t want to give too many details about the column, but Mankoff does mention that one particular word was used in a recent contest in sixty-eight different entries. In its strict and legalistic set of rules, TNY says that in the case of two or more entries that are absolutely identical, including punctuation, the one that arrived first gets the ink.

Meanwhile, we have the Empress, whose fuzzy and illegalistic set of rules state that “when two or people send pretty much the same idea and their wording is equally good, either (1) I’ll use one person’s wording and credit both people, or (2) I’ll use elements of both entries and credit both people. When people send in the same idea but one person says it significantly better, that person gets the sole ink. If several entries are similar and all pretty much the same quality, I just toss them all or, very rarely, print the entry and credit no specific person.”

But the real difference is that I am going to give ink not to one entry, but to perhaps 30. In fact, part of the fun of the caption results is in seeing a cartoon interpreted in wildly different ways. Like these from our most recent caption contest, six months ago. And all those entrants got prizes that no one will ever get from The New Yorker. And if you win the big one and you are tax-fastidious, you may declare income valued at $12. Jay and Gary have probably paid off their big-shot-contest tax bills by now, so I hope they’ll enter Week 1126.


PUN FOR THE ROSES: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1122

It might seem no surprise that all four of this year’s “grandfoal” “breeders” are longtime successes in the Invite’s equine history — but it actually was to me. Over their 20-year history, and especially since the institution of the 25-entry limit, the horse names contests have provided more parity than many others. For instance, there aren’t that many people who are going to send me an elaborate, perfectly crafted song parody, and the people who win tend to be those who know just what I’m looking for. But so many people have come up with a clever way to play off two horse names and produce a pun or other joke.

And! Just as with this year’s first horse contest, Week 1118, not only did i not know who wrote which entry, I didn’t even judge anyone’s set of entries in a block: Thanks to a program devised and run by Loser Jonathan Hardis, all the entries were sorted by “parent” name. And there were lots of good entries for practically every parent name on the list.


But Jonathan Paul’s “NOT WITH TONGUE!!!” made me laugh out loud, repeatedly, sending him across the finish line first, as he did in the horse contests of Weeks 396, 810 and 914 (along with 21 wins in other contests). And with the super-synthesis of Absolut Zero and Look Ma No Hanes into Me and My Kelvins,* Pam Sweeney added to her amazing record with the ponies, which includes wins in Weeks 660, 712, 763, 863 and 918. And Brendan Beary and Chris Doyle, zub zub zub.

*The levels of Pam’s breeding success: 1. Absolute zero is zero on the Kelvin temperature scale. 2. The famous slogan for Calvin Klein jeans: “Nothing [absolutely zero! and certainly not Hanes underwear] comes between me and my Calvins.”

Also another huge horse week for Jeff Shirley, who had four horses in this week’s field, and special mention to Francis Canavan, who got his FirStink with Poise N the Hood in the previous horse contest, then came back to be magnetized with the pithy “Hertz!”

Laugh Out of Courtney: Before she took off on a three-week vacation, Post copy chief Courtney Rukan shared her faves for this week. Her verdict: “Please send Pam Sweeney my regards; she is the ‘grandfoals’ goddess.”


(Unprintable entries are at the bottom of this column.)

LAST CALL FOR THE FLUSHIES!

There are still a few more places left for Saturday afternoon’s Flushies, the annual award ceremony/meetup/songfest/potluck-pigout/humiliation sponsored by the Losers themselves. I’ve just seen the amazing sort-of-board game devised by emcee Kyle Hendrickson, and have printed out the lyric sheets for the song parodies written to “honor” the Loser of the Year and others. And I will bring a dessert that is guaranteed to be edible by the undiscriminating. To RSVP and to get the address of Chez Danielle Nowlin, RSVP right away to Elden Carnahan. Details here.

Neigh neigh neigh! Unprintable ‘grandfoal’ names from Week 1122
I was going to try to run this one — Gone Tomorrow x Tough, Customer! = Tempus Fuggit (Frank Osen) — but went with Larry Passar’s slightly safer-sounding Zit Outta Luck. But no way for:


Magnum, T.I. x Rush Lintball = Private Dick (Kathye Hamilton)
Look Ma No Hanes x BobDylan’sMustache = Like Two Lolling Stones (Rob Huffman)
Buzzed Aldrin x Prince Charmin = Orbiting Uranus (Rob Wolf)
Prince Charmin x KO Pectate = Seeping Booty (Pam Sweeney — ewwww)
Paternity Soot x Sphinxter = Ash Hole (Rob Wolf)

A special bad-taste mention to Mike Gips for a reference I had to look up to refresh my memory: Kiljoy Was Her x Let My Pimple Go = MaryBeth Whitehead. Mary Beth Whitehead was the woman hired in the 1980s by a couple named the Sterns to be inseminated by Mr. Stern with her own egg, carry the fetus to term, then hand over “Baby M.” And then, 24 hours later, she changed her mind. The courts went back and forth, as did custody of the baby; now-adult Melissa Stern now lives in London. Anyway, I didn’t think we wanted to call the baby a pimple, or even Ms. Whitehead a killjoy. Clever as it was.

Can’t wait to see more than 50 of you on Saturday!