WK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK TYPES |
288 |
PICTURE THIS |
What is happening in these pictures? |
H H |
284 |
ASK BACKWARDS MCLXVII |
You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? |
H |
283 |
UH-OH |
Come up with "uh-oh" lines, statements that occur in the middle of a seemingly benign speech or conversation, suddenly alerting the listener that he is about to hear some bad news. |
H |
278 |
THE STALE INVITATIONAL |
Begin with a word. Add, subtract or change a single letter only, and then provide a new definition. |
H |
239 |
NAME THAT TOON |
Send us the captions for cartoons not provided. |
H |
225 |
WE RESPECTfully decline to publish any dumb entries by YOU. |
Come up with signs for a T-shirt or a bumper sticker that hide the real message in tiny type. |
H |
222 |
TRIP DEUCES |
Take the two subject listings at the top of any page of the Yellow Pages and create a dictionary definition for the compound word they form. |
5 |
219 |
VERBOSITY |
Come up with new, obnoxious, self-conscious faux verbs and use them in sentences. |
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. |
H |
209 |
WE NEED SOME SEASONING |
Come up with the first signs of spring in Washington. |
H H |
208 |
SEND IN THE CLONES |
Suggest questions a commission to investigate the moral, legal and practical question raised by cloning might consider. |
H |
174 |
THE EDGE OF MIGHT |
Complete any of the four provided "you might" phrases. |
H |
170 |
THE ELEMENTS OF SMILE |
Why are these people smiling? |
H |
164 |
MEAN MEANINGS |
Translate things politicians say into what they really mean. |
H H |
150 |
TRIAL BALLOONS |
What are the people saying? |
H |
123 |
WHY IS POOP FUNNY? |
Come up with creative answers to any of the five questions above that might be asked by a 5-year-old. |
H |
98 |
YOUR CHEATIN' ART |
Come up with titles for country music songs featuring any one or more of the following themes: cheatin', thievin', drinkin', truckin', lovin' or dogs. |
H |
91 |
ASK BACKWARD IV |
You are on "Jeopardy!" These are the answers. What are the questions? |
H |
88 |
GIVE US SOME GOOD NEWS |
Come up with ways things are going to be different now that Republicans have ascended to power. |
2 H |
80 |
NICK KNACKS |
Come up with a great nickname for any contemporary celebrity. |
3 |
22 |
STUMP US |
Come up with slogans for the 1996 presidential campaign. |
H |
14 |
COLLECTIVE INSANITY |
Modernize collective nouns (as in a "pride" of lions or an "exaltation" of larks), inventing snide new names for groups of things. |
H |
|
MOST OF YOUR INK
Here is, I hope, most of your ink to be found in the All Invitational Text list. I have to find these with what are called regular expressions, which is a method used in a lot of programming languages to find and modify certain text strings in larger corpora. Basically I look for something like this: "Report From Week 758" or "And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . ." and then some text, your name, and your town, arranged in this familiar way: "GlaxoSmithKline: I have six kids named Chesterfield, Winston, Lark, BensonHedges, Doral and Kool. If I name my new baby Nicorette, can I get a free coupon for your products? (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)"I don't catch everything, but I believe I find 90%.Unlike in the table to the left, I've arranged these in chronological order, so you can see how your humor matured, like a forgotten cheese deep in the walls of an old house. You started out, perhaps in Year 1, sending in riddles you sort of remembered from grade school, and now look at ya, ain't you Dorothy Parker.
[still working on this ...]
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