| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1126 | Picture this | Provide a humorous caption for any of the cartoons provided. | H |
| 1118 | Breed 'em and weep | Breed any two of the provided 100 racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown events and name the foal the reflect both names. | H |
| 1066 | It's mating season | Breed" any two from the provided list of 100 of the 3-year-old racehorses nominated for this year's Triple Crown and name the foal to reflect both names. | H |
| 1059 | With parens like these . . . | Add some words in parentheses to a well-known song title to make it funnier in some way. | H |
| 1041 | What have you got to lose? | Answer a question, real or rhetorical, that appears in a song. | H |
| 1028 | Joint Legislation | Combine the names of two or more of the First Congress senators and/or representatives to create "joint legislation". | H |
| 1023 | Hai there, Martians! | Write one or more humorous haiku that will greet the Martians or share a little nugget of what life is like on Earth. | 3 |
| 988 | A faster break | Suggest ways to make sports and other leisure activities more time-efficient or exciting. | H |
| 952 | Dead Letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2011. | 3 |
| 943 | Ask backward XXIX | You are on "Jeopardy!" You supply the questions for as many of the provided answers as you like. | W |
| 939 | MASH 2: The Retread | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H |
| 934 | Same difference | Explain how any two items in the provided list are similar or different. | H |
| 917 | Wryku | Write a haiku--a sentiment that can be broken into three lines with exactly five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third--on any subject that's been in the news in the last couple of weeks. | W |
| 908 | Recast away | Fire an actor or actress from a movie or TV show, past or present, and offer a replacement for the role. | H |
| 904 | We move on back | Move the first letter in a word or name to the end of that word and define the resulting word. | H |
| 900 | Dear us! | Submit a "Dear Blank" letter to us instead. | H |
| 899 | Clue us in | Send us funny, clever clues for any of the words already in this grid. | H |
| 898 | Pre-current events | Predict some humorous news event that would happen in 2011. | H |
| 897 | Catch their drift | Take any sentence from an article or ad in The Washington Post or washingtonpost.com from Dec. 3 to Dec. 13 and translate it into "plain English. | W H |
| 896 | Other people's business | Describe what might happen if any of the above institutions (a) were run by an institution of your choice or (b) ran an institution of your choice. | H |
| 895 | Picture this | Supply a caption for any of these cartoons. | 3 |
| 892 | Get a move on | Change the location of something for humorous effect. Provide an explanation if you wish. | 3 |
| 792 | Clue Us In | Compile a set of funny alternative clues to a crossword penned by Ace Constructor Paula Gamache. | H |
| 763 | Another Time Around the Track | Breed any two of the winning "offspring" included in this week's results, and name THEIR foal. | H H |
| 732 | The Chain Gang | Supply a chain of 25 names -- they may be names of people, places, organizations, products, etc., but they must be names -- beginning and ending with "George W. Bush. | W |
| 617 | Best the Best | Write something about any famous personage that uses only the letters in his or her name. | H |
| 613 | Tour de Fours II | Create and define a word that includes, consecutively, E, R, A and N. in any order. | W H H |
| 610 | MASH | Find two well-known movies, plays, or TV shows whose title have a significant word in common, combine their titles, and describe the hybrid. | H |
| 609 | A2D2 | Give us some funny "corrections" to brighten up Page A2. | H |
| 589 | Hyphen the Terrible (New Edition!) | Combine the beginning of any multi-syllabic word in this week's Invitational with the end of any other multi-syllabic word in this column (or in this week's Web supplement) to coin a new word, and then define it. | H |
| 588 | Gadget If You Can | Tell us what these nifty, indispensable items are. | H |
| 583 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, from the Washington Post or its Web site from today through next Sunday, and reinterpret it by writing either a "bank headline"--or subtitle--or the first sentence of an article that changes the original meaning entirely. | H H |
| 581 | Evil Things in Store | Think of evil or just plain stupid practices that the staff of a retail or other establishment might perpetrate. | H |
| 578 | Ask Backwards | You are on "Jeopardy!" Above are the answers. Send us the questions. | H |
| 572 | The Limerixicon | Supply a limerick based on any word in the dictionary (except proper nouns) beginning with ai- through ar-. | H |
| 570 | Timeline Rhyme Lines | Produce colorful chronological couplets about some historical event. They must rhyme and be in good meter. | L H |
| 566 | Get Whack | Type a two-word phrase into the Google search engine that produces exactly one result. | T H H H |
| 563 | Take Two | Take any two of the provided items and explain how they resemble or differ from each other. | H |
| 558 | Set Us Right | Send us conservative-leaning humor in any of the provided genres. | W |
| 556 | So Zoo Us | Combine any two kinds of animals, give its name and describe it. | H |
| 554 | Love the Tiny Tail Stain | Write an anagram based on a name or event that's been in the news recently. | H |
| 547 | Give Us a Bad Name | Take an existing product or business name and pair it with an incompatible one. | H |
| 540 | Revisionist History, or Badenov for You? | State any news event (or old event) in the style of the Rocky-and-Bullwinkle teasers about the next show. | H |
| 538 | Try, Try Again | Enter any previous Invitational. Your entry must be substantially different from the original winners. | H H |
| 537 | The New York Post | Liven up any article appearing in The Washington Post or its Web site over the next eight days by giving it an irresponsibly sensationalistic headline. | H |
| 532 | Short Pans | Come up with a terse review (four words or fewer) of any work of art. | H H |
| 526 | Conventional Wisdumb | Answer any of the provided questions. | H |
| 525 | It Won't Belong Now | Tell us which of three cartoons provided does not belong, and why. | H |
| 523 | Hard to Overstate | Propose ways to make modern life just a little bit harder than it needs to be. | W H |
| 522 | Being There | Set the agenda for a flash mob, one of those existential, Web-arranged, sudden, pointless, instantaneous but brief gatherings of people at odd places, to do odd things. | H |
| 513 | It's Delete We Can Do | Come up with very bad subject lines for spam e-mail--lines that will guarantee instant deletion, sight unseen. | H |
| 512 | Live On, Sweet, Earnest Reader | Take the name of any person--living, dead, fictional--and use the letters of his name, in succession, to form the first letters of an expression appropriate to that person. | H H |
| 501 | Questionable Sentences | Take any sentence appearing anywhere in today's Washington Post and make it the answer to a question. | H |
| 498 | Unamazing But True! | Submit a true fact that is of absolutely no use, but interesting in a weirdly Invitationalist way. | H H |
| 491 | Hirschfeld Follies | Try to figure out which celebrities Bob Staake is trying to draw in imitation of Al Hirschfeld. | H H 3 |
| 486 | A Word From Our Co-Sponsors | Come up with bills the new members of Congress might sponsor. Each bill must have at least two sponsors. | H H |
| 478 | Do You Mindset? | Anticipate items for the Mindset List for the freshman class of the year 2020. | H H |
| 477 | A Load of Bulwer | Give us the beginning of incompetently written novel. | H |
| 471 | Excuses, Excuses | Come up with creative new excuses for not turning in homework, not filing your taxes on time, missing church or forgetting your spouse's birthday. | H H |