| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1378 | It's (emergency) Parody Time | Write a song about life in the Age of Corona, set to a familiar tune (or even one of your own, if you perform it on video). | H H |
| 1125 | The song remains the sa | Supply a real song title that has the end or beginning -- or, what the heck, both -- chopped off and describe it. | H |
| 937 | Staake it to him | Write a caption for any of the five pages or details pictured from some of Bob's more than 50 picture books. | H |
| 680 | Rendered Speechless | Provide dialogue to fill the balloons in any of these cartoons. | 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 |
| 548 | Inklings | Tell us about certain people's childhood experiences and behaviors that hint at their destinies. | L |
| 473 | Offensive Line | Find what's offensive in any of the provided cartoons, and explain. | H |
| 418 | Xtreme Invitational | Come up with signs you are overdoing it any in any of the provided categories. | H |
| 367 | Future Schlock | Come up with a line that will surely not appear in an upcoming work. | 2 |
| 362 | Something Missing | Tell us what is missing in each of the provided cartoons. | 1 |
| 341 | What's In a Name? | Write something about any famous person that uses only the letters in his or her name. | U |
| 323 | THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD INVITATIONAL | Come up with not-quite-ready inventions, past or present. | H |
| 321 | INTERPRET THIS | Take any of the provided cartoons and come up with a matched pair of interpretations for what is happening. | H |
| 316 | CALLING THE TOON | What are these things? | H |
| 301 | PICTURE THIS | What is happening in these cartoons? | H |
| 300 | A BRAND NEW CONTEST | Come up with celebrity-brand products. | H |
| 293 | THE VERSE OF AMERICA | Take any story in today's Washington Post and create a poem or song by stringing together various phrases from that story. Each phrase must be a least two words long. | H |
| 291 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE | Take any story in today's paper, find a word that breaks with a hyphen at the end of a line, and combine it with the second half of different hyphenated word in the same story. Then supply a definition for the new hybrid word. | H |
| 277 | LIFE IN THE BLURBS | Come up a simple plot summary to help attract the modern audience to any classic work of fiction. It must be literally true and defensible. | H |
| 271 | YOGI BEARER | Come up with new Yogi-isms, which seem to make sense, but collapse like a soufflé when you poke it a little | H |
| 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 |
| 247 | BLACK AND WHITE AND WED ALL OVER | Propose the marriage of any two people, and the song they should not play at their wedding. The people must be a man and a woman. | I |
| 244 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE | Coin new words, and provide a definition, by combining the first half of a hyphenated word for any story in today's Post with the second half of another hyphenated word in the same story. | H 5 |
| 231 | GIVING QUARTER | Suggest a motto for the "tails" side of any of the state-themed quarters. | H H |
| 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. | 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. | 1 |
| 212 | DUMB AS THE POST | Come up with even stupider crimes than those committed by Montgomery County's "gentleman burglars. | H |
| 208 | SEND IN THE CLONES | Suggest questions a commission to investigate the moral, legal and practical question raised by cloning might consider. | H |
| 207 | TIED TO BE FIT | Each of the eight provided items is related, in some fashion, to one or more of the provided individuals. You make the connections. | H |
| 206 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE II | Create a new word by combining the first half of any hyphenated word in today's newspaper with the second half of any other hyphenated word elsewhere in the same story, and supply a definition. | H |
| 204 | DOUBLE EXPRESSO | Take any well-known colorful expression, and modernize it. | H H H |
| 200 | CAPTION CRUNCH IV | Supply a new caption to any photograph appearing anywhere in today's Post, to make it funnier. | W |
| 195 | THE MARTHIAN CHRONICLES | Come up with items for Martha Stewart's December-January calendar of projects. | 3 |
| 191 | GOING THROUGH A PHRASE | Come up with phrase for an American English phrasebook that would provide no practical help whatsoever to a foreigner trying to get along in the United States. | H |
| 184 | ED ANGUISH | Create an argument on some social issue, in 75 words or fewer, taking an extreme liberal view. | H |
| 181 | YOU CAN TAKE IT TO DEBUNK | Take a common slogan or saying and prove it wrong with at least one example. | H |
| 167 | CRAPSEY | Resurrect the "cinquain," a long-deceased poetic form, poems so ickily precocious and pretentious they make haiku look like Kipling. There are five lines, the first containing two syllables, the second containing four syllables, the third six, the fourth eight and the last, with grave finality and thunderous drama, only two. Your subject matter must be suitable for the 1990s. | 2 |
| 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 W |
| 165 | WHEEL OF TORTURE | Complete any of the provided "Wheel of Fortune" phrases. | H H H H |
| 163 | WHAT KIND OF FOAL AM I? | Take the list of all 1996 Triple Crown nominees, couple up any two of them, and propose an appropriate name for their hypothetical foal. The foal's name must fit in no more than 18 characters, including spaces. | H 1 |
| 161 | CAPITOL MISTAKES | Come up with very, very bad advice for first-time visitors to Washington. | H |
| 160 | SEEKING WISE GUYS | Come up with cool new bad-guy terms. | H |
| 159 | ODDBALLS | Which item in each series does not belong? Explain your answer. | H |
| 156 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE | Create new word by combining the first half of a hyphenated word with the second half of a hyphenated word. Both words must appear in the same story anywhere in today's Washington Post. Each entry must provide a definition for the newly created word. | H H |
| 148 | RORSCHACH OF THE CROWD IV | Interpret these ink blots. | H |
| 146 | IT'S LIKE THIS | Produce an A and B to complete the expression "A makes about as much sense as B. | 3 |
| 132 | GIVE US THE BACKS OFF OUR SHIRTS. | What should our loser's T-shirt say on the back? Your goal is to somehow capture the spirit of the contest. | H |
| 131 | DROODLEYSQUAT | Come up with "droodles," simple geometric drawings with funny explanations. | I |
| 118 | WEAK 118 | Take any photo caption or headline appearing anywhere in today's Post and alter its meaning by adding, deleting, or changing one letter. | H |
| 112 | POOP FICTION | Come up with the opening lines of a book so bad it will compel you to stop reading immediately; maximum 50 words. | I |
| 108 | NEAR MISSES | Come up with the first drafts of great lines in history, entertainment or literature. | H |
| 104 | HERE, DOGGEREL | Create poems so bad they thud. The first line must be a name. The second line can be as long or as short as you wish. The third line must sound the same as the first line, using the name as a verb or some other part of speech. | W |
| 94 | WEEKS 1-93 | Come up with a great answer to any previous Style Invitational contest, an answer you may have thought of after the contest was over. | I |
| 82 | PICTURE THIS | Who are these people, and what are they doing? | H 1 |
| 80 | NICK KNACKS | Come up with a great nickname for any contemporary celebrity. | H |
| 78 | SEEKING SMART MORONS | Come up with an oxymoron for our times, an expression made bogus by the fact that it combines incompatible, contradictory ideas. | W |
| 74 | SHIRT HAPPENS | In 10 words or fewer, what should the back of the "Year 2" T-shirt say? | H 4 |