| WEEK | TITLE | SYNOPSIS | INK Types |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1586 | Pun for the Roses | Our annual crazy-popular horse 'breeding' wordplay contest. | H H |
| 1582 | You're Workin' on a Chain, Gang | A classic connection game. | H |
| 1578 | The Pepys Show | Give us a diary entry from anyone in history. | H |
| 1572 | S Is for Smartass | Presenting the Devil's Alphabet Soup | H |
| 1568 | Nextra! Nextra! | Tell us the funny news events from 2024 | H |
| 1534 | Pun for the Roses | Our renowned horse name 'breeding' contest returns! | H H |
| 1530 | Mess With Our Heads | Reinterpret any headline by adding a 'bank head'. | L |
| 1528 | It's Our Birthday. Party Like It's 1993. | As the Invite turns 30, enter your choice of contests from our year of infancy | W |
| 1483 | Pun for the Roses -- our famous foal-'breeding' contest | Breed" any two of the provided names and name the "foal". As in actual thoroughbred racing, a name may not exceed 18 characters including spaces. | H H H |
| 1476 | Matchless humor -- show us some Googlenopes | Find us a Googlenope -- a phrase in quotation marks that generates the message "It looks like there aren't many matches for your search" -- or a Googleyup, a phrase that surprisingly does have hits. | H |
| 1465 | Put your '22 cents in for our annual pre-timeline | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2022. | I H H |
| 1456 | The hunting of the snark | Ask an insulting rhetorical question in the form (or a variation) of "Is that your _______ or _______? | H |
| 1430 | Back to racing speed with the 'foals' | Breed" any two of the provided names of the 100 horses nominated for the 2021 Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to humorously play off both parents' names. | H |
| 1414 | Divining comedy: 2021 predictions | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2021. | H H H |
| 1400 | Back on track with our classic 'foal' contest | Breed" any two of the provided names of the 100 horses nominated for the 2020 Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to humorously reflect the parents' names. | H |
| 1382 | For us, it's still Post Time | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 of the 145 previous Kentucky Derby winners, from 1875 to 2019, and name the foal to humorously reflect the parents' names. | H |
| 1361 | 2020 vision -- the year in preview | Name some humorous news event to happen in 2020. | H H H |
| 1326 | Foaling around | Breed" any two names from the provided list of 100 horses and name the foal to reflect both names. | H |
| 1311 | Nextra! Nextra! The year in preview | Name some humorous event to happen in 2019. | I H H H |
| 1305 | Hits and Googles | Find us either a Googlenope -- a phrase in quotation marks that generates no previous hits -- or a Googleyup, a phrase that surprisingly does have hits. | H |
| 1289 | Fake gnus: bogus animal trivia | Tell us a fictoid -- a humorously false "fact" -- about the nonhuman animal kingdom. | H |
| 1274 | Heading for a foal -- our horse name 'breeding' contest | Your job is to "breed" any two names of the 360 horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and name the "foal" to reflect both names. | H H |
| 1260 | What lies (are) ahead for 2018 | Jokingly predict some news event to happen in 2018. | I |
| 1233 | Not | The Loser Community gets a week off (actually two) from writing contest entries and will have to find something else to do during staff meetings, sermons, romantic breakups, etc. | H |
| 1222 | Foaling around | Breed" any two of the provided racehorses nominated for this year's Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont; and name the foal to reflect both of them. | H H |
| 1132 | You and what army? Military fictoids | Give us some comically bogus trivia about the military, past or present, ours or theirs. | 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 H H |
| 1047 | Bank shots | Quote a headline appearing in The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com or another publication, print or online, dated Nov. 14 to Nov. 25, and supply a humorous "bank" headline that either misinterprets it or comments wryly on it. | H |
| 1016 | Foaling around | Breed any two of the horses nominated for this year's Triple Crown races and give the foal a name humorously reflecting the names of the parents. | H H H |
| 1011 | Top these! | Try your hand at any of the contests mentioned in this look back. | H |
| 947 | Tour de Fours VIII: Neologisms | Come up with a new word or two-word term that includes the letter block N-O-E-L, in any order but with no other letters between them, and define it. | 4 |
| 936 | Hoho contendere | Slightly alter a well-known foreign-language term and define it. | I |
| 926 | Outrageous fortunes | Come up with a fortune cookie line that you'd like to see. | H |
| 924 | Doomed to repeat it | Create "Unreal Facts" about history. | H |
| 921 | Give Us Willies | Write an original Little Willie poem, perhaps reflecting our current era. This is a venerable four-line genre in which Master W. does some nasty thing and doesn't tend to learn to be a Good Boy by poem's end. | I |
| 914 | Foaling around | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H H |
| 910 | Your ad here | Slightly alter an advertising slogan so that someone else could use it. | I 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. | I H |
| 903 | Bill us now | Combine the names of two or more members of Congress as co-sponsors of a bill. | H |
| 898 | Pre-current events | Predict some humorous news event that would happen in 2011. | I |
| 880 | Our greatest hit | Start with a real word or multi-word term or name that begins with Q, R or S; add one letter, subtract one letter, replace one letter with another, or transpose two adjacent letters; and define the new word. | H H |
| 872 | Har Monikers | Combine the first parts of each word in a famous person's or character's name -- in order -- and define it or use it in a sentence that somehow refers to its source. | H |
| 869 | Clue us in | Send us funny, clever clues for any of the words already in this grid. | H |
| 867 | Back in the saddle | Breed any two of the foals in today's results -- OR one foal with one of the actual horses used in today's entries, and name the grandfoal. | 4 |
| 866 | Natalie Portmanteau | Begin with a real name; append to it a word, name or expression so that they overlap; and finally define (humorously, of course) the resulting phrase. | W |
| 863 | It's Post time | Breed any two of 100 of the almost 400 horses eligible for this year's Triple Crown races, and name the foal. | H H |
| 850 | Dead letters | Write a humorous poem about someone who died in 2009. | H |
| 794 | Ripped Off From the Headlines | Send us some Onion-type headlines. | W H |
| 722 | Let's Play Nopardy! | We supply 12 phrases and you get to provide questions they might answer. The phrases were entries in our Week 717 contest, which asked for Googlenopes -- phrases that showed no previous hits from the Google search engine. | I |
| 717 | Pitch Us a No-Hitter | Send us some genuine Googlenopes. A Googlenope is a phrase or very brief sentence that, entered into the Google search engine with quotation marks around it, produces no hits. | W |
| 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. | 5 |
| 520 | I, Object | These items were ordered by well-known people. Who ordered them, and why? | 3 |
| 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 3 |
| 508 | Letter Rip | Take a word from the dictionary, add, change, or delete a single letter, and redefine the word. | 7 |
| 499 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for this year's Triple Crown and tell us the name of their foal. Maximum 18 characters, including spaces. | H H H H H |
| 470 | Czar Har | Take the name of someone famous, rhyme it with a product, and describe the unholy union. | H |
| 378 | Bill Us Now | Come up with a bill sponsored by any of the newly elected U.S. senators and representatives, and explain the purpose of the bill. | H H H |
| 377 | Week MMDCXLIV | Provide a headline (and, if necessary, the first line of the text) for any article that will appear in The Washington Post on this day in the year 2050. | H 3 |
| 352 | A Laff Riot | Take the name of a company and/or its commercial product and provide it a new definition. | H |
| 345 | Picture This | What is going on in these cartoons? | H |
| 344 | What Kind of Foal Am I? | Envision the mating of any two of the 387 horses qualifying for this year's Triple Crown, and propose a name for their foal. The foal's name must be contained in 18 or fewer letters and spaces. | H H H H |
| 324 | A PREQUEL OPPORTUNITY OFFERING | Come up with a "prequel" to some classic film or work of literature. You must produce a title and a brief plot summary, which of course must take place prior to the main action of the original work. | H |
| 320 | WHAT KIND OF FOAL AM I? | Mate any two of the horses qualifying for the Triple Crown races and come up with appropriate names for their foals. Maximum 18 letters and spaces. | 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 2 |
| 310 | IT'S LIKE THIS | Come up with really lame analogies. | H 7 |