| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1515 | Munich-ipals -- European "sister cities | Choose any two or more towns from the 51 countries in Europe/Eurasia and come up with a joint endeavor the “sister cities” would undertake. | H |
| 1444 | It's a whole new all-game | Slightly change the name of a sport, sports event or similar pastime to create a new one, and briefly describe it. | H |
| 1340 | Not-ables -- slightly alter a famous name | Slightly alter the name (make sure the original is obvious) of a famous personage -- past or present, real or fictional -- and describe the resulting nonpersonage, or offer a quote from that person, or both. | H |
| 1336 | Two ways about it | What's something (printable) you could say in two -- or more -- of the provided situations. | H |
| 1142 | Two-faced tweets | Combine two well-known names into a Twitter handle, and write a tweet (no more than 140 characters and spaces) that that portmanteau person might write. | H |
| 1127 | From the creators of . . . | Think up a spinoff of a real TV series, past or present, and furnish a description or bit of dialogue. | H |
| 1119 | We want hue so bad | Invent a name for a color and describe it. | H |
| 1085 | Eww-venirs: Ideas for gift shops | Suggest a humorous--but NOT horribly tasteless--tchotchke, T-shirt, etc., from a real or imagined gift shop at a particular tourist site. | H |
| 994 | Stick it to us | Suggest a slogan for one of our two new honorable-mention Loser Magnets for 2012-2013. | H |
| 992 | Mittsterpiece Theatre | Suppose public-TV shows, past or present, were turned out onto the open market to make a living on commercial TV. Tell us what would happen. | H |
| 972 | Trends and neighbors | Choose any two items on the provided list and explain how they are alike or different. | H |
| 946 | Another round of Bierce | Write a clever definition of a word, name or multi-word term. | H |
| 939 | MASH 2: The Retread | Combine two movie titles and describe the result. | H |
| 928 | Play feature | Use the title of a movie as the answer to a riddle or other question. | H |
| 830 | Mess With Our Heads | Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Aug. 14 through Aug. 24 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle. | H |
| 815 | Wittecisms | Create an original word containing -- in any order -- at least a W, an I, two T's and an E. | H |
| 776 | An Act of Sunny Side | Note the silver lining in some otherwise disappointing turn of events. | H |
| 773 | Always Looking for Sects | Coin a religion or belief system and tell us its basic tenet or distinguishing characteristic. | H |
| 751 | Strike Gold | Slightly change the name of an existing or former TV show to create a program that can scab the writers' strike. | 4 |
| 737 | No River, No Woods | Send us a funny parody of a well-known song, with lyrics that commemorate an occasion other than Christmas or Hanukkah. | H |
| 559 | Your Slogan Here | Come up with a clever slogan or sign for a business. | I |
| 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 |
| 491 | Hirschfeld Follies | Try to figure out which celebrities Bob Staake is trying to draw in imitation of Al Hirschfeld. | H |
| 480 | In No Uncertain Terminations | Come up with a way to stop any unwanted overture in its tracks. | H |
| 474 | Alphabettering | Create a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet at least once but that would never be heard on the politically correct, genteel, rarified air of NPR. | H |
| 462 | Cast Away | Come up with a terrible bit of miscasting in a movie or TV show, past or present, real or imagined. | H |
| 451 | Make Your Pix | Which two of the provided cartoons are related, and how? | H |
| 448 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for the Triple Crown races this year and propose a name for their foal. No name may exceed 18 characters, including spaces. | 3 |
| 422 | Taught Language | Come up with lessons learned from (1) the movies, (2) popular songs, (3) romance novels or (4) the comics page. | H H |
| 404 | Balloonacy | Create a comic strip of one to four panels. For your dialogue or thought balloons, you may choose from the provided menu. You may invent one line of your own. | H |
| 387 | By Jingo | Come up with a joke that could be written and understood only by a Washingtonian. | H |
| 381 | Idiom Savant | Take any well-known idiom, or expression, and invent an interesting derivation for it. | H |
| 336 | THE "STY"LE INVITATIONAL | Choose any word and emphasize a single part of it, as though you were saying the word out loud with "air quotes" around the key part. Then redefine the word. You cannot alter the spelling of the word. | H |
| 316 | CALLING THE TOON | What are these things? | 4 |
| 305 | ASK BACKWARDS CMXVI2 | You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? | 7 |
| 301 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these cartoons? | H |
| 299 | ANOTHER LEFTIST RAG | Write the day's tabloid headlines with your left hand only. (This means you can use no keys to the right of 6, T, G and B.) | H |
| 298 | THE RIGHT STUFF | Write a sentence, or phrase, or entire passage, using only your right hand on the keyboard. This means you may use no keys to the left of N, H, Y and 7. | H |
| 286 | CLINTOONS | Make your own Clintoon, a comic strip consisting of any or all of the provided drawings. | H |
| 264 | ASK BACKWARDS | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the answers. What are the questions? | 2 |
| 259 | SPARE EXCHANGE, BUDDY? | Take any phone number of any business or government office in the Washington area, translate the first two digits into their constituent letters and propose any appropriate one-word exchange. | H |
| 256 | THE PYLE INVITATIONAL | Come up with hip, contemporary riddles and answers. The punch line must contain a painful pun. | W |
| 251 | QUOTH THE MAVEN | Take any famous line, change it by one letter only (add, subtract or change a single letter), and reattribute it. | H |
| 249 | BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS | Supply a silver lining for any scourge or social ill facing America or the world. | H |
| 246 | OUR OWN DEVICES | What do these contraptions do? Tell us in 50 words or fewer. | 3 |
| 245 | LIKE FUN | Complete any of the provided "A is like B because" sentences. | W |
| 227 | WILD PITCHES | Come up worthy successors to Joe Camel. Name the product, and describe the totally inappropriate cartoon character that would be created to represent it. | W H |
| 223 | ATTEMPTING REENTRY | Submit entries to any past contest, so long as you never submitted them before. | H |
| 221 | SONG SUNG BROWN | Pick any song, pick a well-known line, and give us the discarded first draft. If it is part of a rhyme, you must maintain the rhyme. | H 2 |
| 217 | NO QUESTION ABOUT IT | Come up with truly stupid questions. | 2 |
| 213 | A SIN OF THE TIMES | Submit campaign or other political practices that would be illegal and/or unethical. | H |
| 211 | GIVE US THE BACKS OFF YOUR SHIRTS | Design the back of the fourth Style Invitational T-shirt, with anything that captures the transcendent indignity of this contest. | 3 |
| 210 | RANDOM MEMO | Supply embarrassing "While You Were Out" phone messages that might be left for famous people, in plain sight, while they are away from their desks. | 3 |
| 204 | DOUBLE EXPRESSO | Take any well-known colorful expression, and modernize it. | H |
| 201 | THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE | Come up with a new element and its symbol, and provide a brief description of its chemical or physical properties. | H |
| 197 | DAVE'S WORLD | Make David Twenhafel laugh. Any sort of delightful drollery or amusing witticism will do, so long as it is not the sort of lowbrow fare we usually favor. | H |
| 193 | ASK BACKWARDS VIII | You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are the answers. What are the questions? | H H 2 |
| 185 | WONDERLUST | Come up with replacements for the Seven Wonders of the World. To qualify, an object must really exist, and be manmade and, in some way, awesome. | I |
| 175 | FOSSIL FOOLS | What would aliens mistakenly conclude about us from any of the provided items? | H H |
| 166 | DOO WAH DOODY | We are looking for really bad lyrics to real rock songs. Your lyrics must be from a reasonably popular song, and you must include the name of the singer or songwriter. | W |
| 165 | WHEEL OF TORTURE | Complete any of the provided "Wheel of Fortune" phrases. | 3 |
| 149 | O, NO! | Come up with a palindrome, a line that reads the same backward and forward, and then use it as a punchline to a joke. | W |
| 137 | VELVIS LIVES | Come up with a title and/or art gallery blurb for this velvet Elvis painting. | L |
| 68 | GIVE US A SIGN | Come up with new astrological signs for the 1990s, together with one day's horoscope. | H |
| 39 | WAY OUTSIDE THE LINES | Name a new crayon color for the 1990s, with a description. | 6 |
| 28 | MOTHERS-IN-LAW OF INVENTION | Propose some drastic change in government to help the economy or otherwise improve the quality of life in America. | 3 |
| 18 | PUNCH US IN THE EAR | Give us a motto for The Washington Post. | 7 |