The Invitational Week 121: It's Parody Time
Send us your songs about what's going on these days. Plus the results of our vaguest contest ever.
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Apr 24, 2025


Above, Sandy Riccardi updates the lyrics to the song she wrote in 2016.

Hello.

Last week we posted our annual horse-“breeding” wordplay contest, one that many otherwise sane people come back to The Invitational to enter every year, along with our hundred or so Usual Suspects who enter almost every week (you still have time to enter!). And this week we have another one for the specialists:

For Invitational Week 121: Write a humorous song about current events, set to any familiar tune (or even your own tune, if you’ll sing it to our readers, as nine-time Loser Sandy Riccardi does above). Tell us which song your lyrics are parodying, preferably including a link to the original tune, one we can sing along to. Videos are welcome as well; on the entry form, tell us that you’ve made a video, and include a public link (e.g., YouTube) to your performance along with your lyrics.

Even with videos: Unless it’s compellingly watchable — like “Stand by Your Sham,” our Week 74 winner by Dave Scheiber, in which his wife lip-syncs to an old video of Tammy Wynette, amid a sprightly slide show of graphics — your song shouldn’t run much over two minutes.

Please see further instructions here (along with links to some classic Invite parodies).

And the One-Man Loser Band and Assorted Singers might even be able to perform your song at the Flushies, the Loser Community’s annual awards “banquet” (potluck), Sunday afternoon, May 25, at the Empress’s palace, Mount Vermin. (RSVP here if you’d like to come.)

It takes us time to listen to and sing along with hundreds of entries, but we’ll give you an extra day (plus, if you read last week’s Invite, you were rewarded with being tipped off a whole week early): Deadline is Sunday, May 4, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. Unlike most weeks, if you send them earlier, we’ll try to look at them earlier. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, May 8.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-121. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Type up your lyrics just as you’d like to see them in print.

This week’s winner receives the fabulous Stain-by-Numbers Mona Lisa: It’s a cotton dish towel imprinted with a paint-by-number diagram of The Enigmatic One, but the numbers correspond to various suggested food stains: No. 7 is Mustard/ Papaya/ Turmeric; 16 is Chocolate Sauce/ Black Beans; and for No. 13 you can use BBQ Sauce, Chili, or Blood. Donated — unfortunately not in time for our recent food art contest — by Dave Prevar.


Wipe up stains very, very selectively: This week’s prize.
Blanky Panky: The results of Week 119

The above empty square was the only “instruction” we gave you for Week 119 of The Invitational, other than telling you where to send your entries. Thank you for not telling us where to go, in return. As you will see, the people who got ink were those who most cleverly thought, well, outside the box.

What got no consideration were all those entries that defined nothingness as cliched null sets, like “a full list of Donald Trump’s good qualities,” or “an X-ray of Marco Rubio’s spine.” A lot of people went there, and their entries wound up in a wholly different all-white destination:


Third runner-up: Democrats plan to express their fury by waving dozens of these flags at next year’s State of the Union. (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)

Second runner-up: Health Secrets Doctors Don’t Want You to Know! (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park, Md.)

First runner-up: What you don’t want to be seeing when the optometrist asks you, “Better or worse?” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

And the winner of the big plush french-fry box hat:
There was a shakeup at the Etch-a-Sketch company board meeting, as reflected in the minutes. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Now, the Gene Pool Gene Poll

POLL
Which of the entries above is funniest?
3rd runner-up: Democrats' SOTU flag
18%
2nd RU: "Health secrets"
7%
1st RU: Optometrist's question
12%
Winner: Etch-a-Sketch Co. minutes
63%
355 VOTES · POLL CLOSED
(As always, if you find entries you prefer in the honorable mentions (below), feel free to air your differences in the Comments section.)

Leave a comment

Nothing Flat: Honorable mentions
Trump’s sweeping tariffs were so devastating that the penguins on Heard and McDonald islands can no longer afford jackets for their tuxedos. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

Van Gogh’s lesser-known “Snowy Night.” (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

This is what God looked like before He created faces and three dimensions. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

Another brick in the wall of an igloo. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

BEFORE (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

Complications arose when the IRS tried to issue its new 1040 forms, since DOGE had cut the entire printer toner budget. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Annual meeting of Former Wheelchair Users Who Can Now Walk Thanks to Prayers from Televangelists. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

“Honey, I think the new meds are working! I’m not seeing things anymore!” (Judy Freed)

Snowman orgy. (Roy Ashley)

A movie still from “Attack of the Blancmange.” (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

The Bodie, Calif., White Pages (Stu Segal, Southeast U.S.)

Jack in the box. (Tom Witte)

The perfect Mother’s Day gift, this frame allows Mom to imagine what you would have become if you’d only listened to her. (Steve Smith)

Trump’s physique, drawn by a Cubist. (Neil Kurland)

And Last:
Between the headlines and “Hello.” there is just a big abyss.
Didn’t know what else to do, so I filled it in with this.
Nothing witty, cute, or clever. Nothing wonderful or wise.
If it inks, it’s just ’cause nothing now can come as a surprise.
(Judy Freed)

And Even Laster:
A tariff on imported pixels led to a crisis on Gene Pool publication day. (Duncan Stevens)

The headline “Blanky Panky” is by Jesse Frankovich; Jesse also wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, April 26: It’s our most popular contest of the year, the pun-filled horse name “breeding” contest. Click on the box below.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Sandy Riccardi; Dave Scheiber)
Judging: ()
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Jesse Frankovich)
Prize: (Dave Prevar)
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!