WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
---|---|---|---|
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 |
882 | Limerixicon VII | Supply a humorous limerick prominently featuring any English word, name or term beginning with the letters dr-. | P |
532 | Short Pans | Come up with a terse review (four words or fewer) of any work of art. | H |
524 | Around Things Moving | Take the title of any book or movie, rearrange the words, and explain what the new book or movie is about. | 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 |
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. | I |
465 | Hyphen the Terrible | Take the first half of any word or word combination in today's Post that is broken by a hyphen at the end of a line, and combine it with the second half of any other hyphenated word from the same story, and define the new word that is formed. | H |
459 | Stock Humor | Look at any of the abbreviated company names in the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange listings in any newspaper's business section and suggest what business the companies might be in. | H H |
451 | Make Your Pix | Which two of the provided cartoons are related, and how? | H H |
447 | Acronimble | Take any of the provided witty statements and use the first letters in each of the words to create a brand-new, unrelated funny statement. | H |
429 | Shark Instruments | Tell us what would be a sign that any current institution--TV show, newspaper feature, magazine, business, etc.--has jumped the shark. | 2 |
427 | Skinned | Come up with events that have a smaller chance of happening than the Redskins winning the Super Bowl. | H |
425 | Hyphen the Terrible | Take the first half of any hyphenated word from any story in today's newspaper and combine it with the second half of any other hyphenated word in the same story, and propose a definition of the new word you've created. | H H H |
422 | Taught Language | Come up with lessons learned from (1) the movies, (2) popular songs, (3) romance novels or (4) the comics page. | H |
416 | Diff'rent Jokes | Describe how things might have been different if a famous person, living or dead, had had one of the provided conditions. | H |
415 | Sentence Us to Death | Take any sentence appearing anywhere in today's Washington Post, and invent a question that it answers. | H |
412 | Painful Climaxes | Come up with statements that start really dramatically, but leave you sorta flat at the end. | H |
393 | Things Could Be Verse | Take any story in today's Washington Post and rewrite it into a rhyming poem of no more than eight lines. | H |
391 | Spinning Out of Control | Take a headline in today's Washington Post and create a subhead that spins the story in an opposite or unexpected direction. | H |
390 | Canine Fashion | Write: 1. A caption for the provided image explaining what is happening; 2. An explanation of why the image is not photography but art; 3. A description of what additional items might be needed to make the image complete. Sex and potty jokes will be disqualified. | W |
379 | Rather Unusual | Come up with lines that could be uttered by Dan Rather, with his unbearably folksy excesses. | H |
373 | An Extra Large Challenge | What should we put on the back of the new Style Invitational T-shirt? | H |
370 | No End in Sight | Write the beginnings of sentences you don't want to hear the end of. | H |
369 | Punch Us | Complete any of the provided jokes. | U |
358 | Finish the Fire | Finish "We Didn't Start the Fire," to summarize 1990 to the present. | H |
357 | Coming to a Bad End | Take some immortal line from literature or film and ruin it by adding a short phrase or sentence. | H |
352 | A Laff Riot | Take the name of a company and/or its commercial product and provide it a new definition. | H |
349 | Orienting Oneself | Produce a haiku using only words found in today's Washington Post. Your entry must have three lines, the first containing exactly five syllables, the second containing exactly seven syllables, the third containing exactly five. | I |
339 | Campaignful Developments | Come up with signs that a presidential campaign might be in trouble. | W H |
318 | HYPHEN THE TERRIBLE | Combine the first half of any hyphenated word in a story in today's paper with the second part of a different hyphenated word from the same story, and provide a new definition. | H H |
314 | IT'S THE LIST YOU CAN DO | Start with the name of a famous person, living or dead, real or fictional, either a full name or partial name. Progress through a series of other names or phrases. Each name or phrase must be related to the prior item either by being a homophone or a definition. Eventually, arrive at a name or a phrase that is an appropriate pairing with the original name. | H |
303 | BOOM TIMES | Come up with old and new concerns for the baby boom generation. | H |
297 | FREE FOR OIL | Take any article in today's paper, and write an outraged letter to the editor about it that totally misses the point, either by misreading a word or misunderstanding the topic. | H |
294 | PRODUCT LIARBILITY | Take the name of any commercial product and redefine it. | H 7 |
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. | I |
270 | PALINODE--HAVE PUN, WILL TRAVEL | Write a "palinode", retracting something said in an earlier poem. Your poem must be four lines long and contain at least one rhyme. | H |
252 | MAKE YOUR MOVIE | Propose people who were the secret inspiration for famous movies. | 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 |
246 | OUR OWN DEVICES | What do these contraptions do? Tell us in 50 words or fewer. | H |
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 H |