The Invitational Week 35: Doody and Muldoon
Plus 'Jeopardy!' — the winning questions for our wacko answers
PAT MYERS AND GENE WEINGARTEN
AUG 31, 2023

Week 35: A Brand New Contest!
I open my eyes —
Las Vegas! How nice!
But I’m missing a kidney
And packed in ice.

—

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes.”
That’s how the kiddy ditty goes.
(In Jersey, Mob tots end with this take:
“Now cut ’em off and throw ’em in the lake.”)

For Invitational Week 35: Write a Muldoon, a four-line poem that features at least two body parts and a place name, and at least one rhyme.

We officially declare this a new contest. We actually did run it once before, during the first George W. Bush administration, but that was so long ago we declare that one deceased and erased from the records.

Muldoons were invented many years ago by the wonderfully alliterative Pulitzer Prizewinning Princeton Poet Paul Muldoon. As in the two examples above (the first by Jennifer Hart in 2003, the second by the Czar twenty years later) each poem must be a single quatrain with at least one rhyme. It must contain references to at least two body parts and one geographical location. The meter can be scattershot.

Click here for this week’s entry form. Or go to bit.ly/inv-form-35. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form.

Deadline is Saturday, Sept. 9, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Sept. 14.

The winner gets this nifty pen with a poop emoji that pops off into the air at the push of a button. If you happen to see the photo of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, look closely and you’ll see that this pen was exactly like the one he used that day. Donated by six-time Loser Cheryl White.

No description available.
Until the invention of the typewriter, Invitational entries were written with one of these.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of ten nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a sweet email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for those who’ve just lost their Invite virginity.

Q It Yourself: Ask Backwards winners from Week 33
In Week 33, as we are wont to do, we offered a list of oddball “answers” and you supplied the questions — more than 700 of them — Jeopardy-ish style. For “No-Hit Wonder,” too many Losers to credit asked, “What did they call Stevie in Little League?” while a slew of entrants predicted that the 2024 Pantone Color of the Year would be something like Jumpsuit/Skin Orange.

Third runner-up:
A. Only black licorice.
Q. Is it true Florida wants to ban licorice at Disney World? (John McCooey, Rehoboth Beach, Del.)

Second runner-up:
A. Florida Dog.
Q. What dog got bitten by its owner? (Dan Helming, Whitemarsh, Pa.; Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

First runner-up:
A. The Dirty Baker’s Dozen:
Q, Which pastries are filled with dulce de lech? (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

And the winner of the cute sloth tea infuser:
A. Donald Trump, PhD:
Q. What’s more plausible than “Donald Trump, 6-foot-3, 215 pounds”? (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Blowing an Ask-It: Honorable mentions
A. Florida Dog:
Q. Between Florida Man and Florida Dog, who is better able to resist licking his crotch in public? (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.)

Q. Who is now protected, by law, from groomers? (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)

Q. Who chases cars head-on? (Kevin Dopart)

Q, Who is not allowed to sniff another dog’s butt if it’s the same gender? (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Q. What’s another name for the yoga position Head Up Your Ass? (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

Q. Who’s a dumb boy? (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore; Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.) 

A. 100 cats in a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment:
Q. What’s the best remedy for Covid smell loss? (Pam Shermeyer)

Q. What smells like Steve Bannon looks? (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Q. What listing can you find on Hairbnb? (Diana Oertel, San Francisco; Steve Smith)

Q. What would allow a Proud Boy to honestly say, “I’m getting a lot of pussy”? (Mark Raffman)

A. Arguably, they’re the same:
Q. What’s the difference between a satirical article about the Trump administration and a descriptive article about the Trump administration? (Neal Starkman, Seattle)

Q. What’s the difference between bathtub caulk and American cheese? (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)

A. Barbie, Ken, and Kamala:
Q. On which pronunciation quiz did Tucker Carlson score 66.67? (Mark Raffman)

Q. What are more valuable when kept boxed up? (Kevin Dopart)

A. Donald Trump, PhD:
Q. Who is the only recipient of a doctorate in phoniness? (Mark Asquino, Santa Fe, N.M.)

Q. Who received the first honorary degree bestowed by the Clorox School of Medicine? (Perry Beider, Silver Spring, Md.)

Q. Who hired a team of lawyers to defend his thesis, and then stiffed them on the tab? (Mark Raffman)

Q. Whose dissertation had footnotes citing the source “A lot of people are saying”? (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.; Duncan Stevens)

Q. Who uses the abbreviation for “Phenomenal Dictator”? (Rob Cohen)

Q. Who got his doctorate in uncivil engineering? (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

A. Heirloom Twinkies:
Q. What can you find in the snack aisle next to the locally grown Ding Dongs? (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

Q. What did Elon Musk pay $2 billion for? (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

A. No-Hit Wonder:
Q. What would we have called the Baha Men if the dogs had stayed in? (Duncan Stevens)

Q. What’s simultaneously an appropriate and inappropriate nickname for Shohei Ohtani? (Duncan Stevens)

Q. What do you call someone who can get high just walking past the dispensary? (Gary Crockett)

A. Only black licorice:
Q. What is the candy equivalent of well-done steak with ketchup? (Dan Helming)

Q. Is there a food that will not work as rat bait? (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

Q. What is worse than the day when your wife leaves, your business partner takes all of the money that your wife didn’t, and your dog dies? (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)

(Note: Both the Czar and the Empress actually like black licorice. Please send all your unwanted black jelly beans to the E.)

A. Ploppenheimer:
Q. Who is most likely to create a weapon of ass destruction? (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

A. Oppenhopper:
Q. What did they name the first atomic-powered pogo stick? (Mark Raffman)

Q. Who stars with Bugs Bunny in the 1945 short “Gone Fission”? (Mike Gips)

Q. What do Los Alamos residents call a five-legged frog? (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

Q. What was Kermit’s role in “The Muppets Take Manhattan Project”? (Jeff Contompasis)

The 2024 Pantone Color of the Year:
Q. What is Freshly Picked Cotton? — R. DeSantis (Steve Smith)

Q. What will be Whatta Maroon? (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

Q. What is Cell-a-Don? (Barbara Turner)

Q. What announcement sparked an “All Colors Matter” protest? (Judy Freed)

A. A bad idea for an Invitational contest:
Q. What is “Come up with funny twelve-digit numbers”? (Duncan Stevens)

Q. What is “Tell us some funny Holocaust ‘equivalencies’”? (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

Q. What is add “buttfuck” to a movie title and describe the new movie’s plot? (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

Q. What is an annual contest to write a poem about somebody born the preceding year? (Jesse Rifkin)

Q. What is “Make up funny limericks using the names and addresses of the Georgia grand jurors”? (Mark Raffman)

Q. What are insulting Pakistani names for Indian food? (Kevin Dopart)

The headline “Q It Yourself” is by Jesse Frankovich; Beverley Sharp wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, Sept. 2: Our Week 34 contest to link two people who share a birthday. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-34.


InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Jennifer Hart)
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Beverly Sharp)
Prize: (Cheryl White)
VisibleInk!