Category: Cartoon Caption Contests

Again, just a small number of entries, which makes my job as judge that much easier.

To me, there was one outstanding caption, and here it is:

“I see Hugh Jackman playing me in the mini-series.”

My original caption: “What are you doing after the flood?”

So congratulations again, Kelasher (you were a co-winner in Contest No. 2). It must be great to know that once more you are one of the funniest people around.

I must say that I was sorely tempted by the very first caption submitted (by Caryn) about “buy one, get one free”. Highly imaginative. Likewise, I greatly appreciated Gary's “brontosaurus burger” effort, Jonathan's “God would have given you longer trunks” bid, and even Leftie's reference to the “roofer”.

I wish you all could have been winners.

The next contest will be in a few weeks, and I'm going to make it even easier for you caption writers. It's going to be a good ol' psychiatrist cartoon. If that doesn't get your creative juices flowing, I don't know what will.

Cartoon Caption Contest No. 5 begins right now.

Briefly, here are the details:

I’ll supply a drawing of one of my old cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on ‘Comments’ underneath the current drawing. Then (2) scroll down past all the other comments and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) enter the anti-spam security word that assures me that you’re a human being and not a machine, and (4) click ‘Submit’. There is no limit on the number of captions you can submit for each drawing.

Entries will be accepted and posted for one week for each contest, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also print my original caption.

The cut-off time and date for you to submit your captions is midnight, Tuesday April 20th.

I will be the sole judge. The winning caption will be the one I judge to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

Additional rules and regulations, for those of you who need such things, can be found here. New contests will appear at very irregular intervals in the future.

My cartoon drawing for the last contest apparently left many of you speechless, so I chose a simple, no-nonsense drawing this time, with lots of caption possibilities. Here it is . . . have fun!

Judging by the few responses, I guess this was another difficult drawing for you caption writers. A few people actually told me that they stared long and thoughtfully at the drawing and came up absolutely blank. That surprises me, since there were so many “props' in the drawing to work on.

Anyway, even though there were so few entries, I'm going to cop out again and declare two first place winners. Here they are:

1) “I don't mind the in-box, but I hate it when he asks me to take a letter.”

2) “It started with a three martini lunch, but he's a classic overachiever.”

My original caption: “He comes in every morning at nine sharp, sets those things down and leaves exactly at five.”

So congrats to John Platt (1) and Richie (2) — you're two of the funniest guys around.

Actually, all three of John Platt's captions brought smiles to my face. I also appreciated D. Mancino's attempt to inject the legal Bar into the caption — it almost worked. And I liked Andrew's reference to “the happy hour rate”, and Gary's reference to “beeping laptops and noisy cell phones”.

Nice thinking from all of you who participated — sorry you couldn't all be winners.

I'll be sure to select a simpler, more general drawing for the next contest.

Well, I've been on vacation and away from my home computer for about a month. Hope you didn't notice, as I kept up regular postings to my archives while I was away.

But now that I'm back, I'm definitely ready to tackle another Cartoon Caption Contest. It starts right now.

You can click here for full rules and regulations, but briefly, here they are:

I’ll supply a drawing of one of my old cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on ‘Comments’ underneath the current drawing. Then (2) scroll down past all the other comments and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) enter the anti-spam security word that assures me that you’re a human being and not a machine, and (4) click ‘Submit’. There is no limit on the number of captions you can submit for each drawing.

Entries will be accepted and posted for one week for each contest, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also print my original caption.

I will be the sole judge. The winning caption will be the one I judge to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

New contests will appear at very irregular intervals in the future.

Hope you all have fun with this one!

You think it's easy being a judge? Where are Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres when you really need them?

I know that all of you honestly feel that your particular entry should win, but please remember that, deserving as all of your captions were, there can only be one top dog. Here it is:

“Tuna fish . . . again?”

My original caption:

“Why can't you just open a can of tuna fish, like other wives do?”

So congratulations, Levi! You're the winner of Contest No. 3, which makes you the funniest guy around . . . for now, anyway.

I was delighted that nobody went with the old “I had it for lunch” shtick — that shows that you all have very good taste. I was surprised that nobody brought Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray into the mix, although one caption brought up Julia Child (from Kelasher). I was also impressed by the reference to sweat bands that appeared in another caption (from Keith Brown). Those were supposed to be edible, decorative strips of garnish, Keith, but they do look like sweat bands, don't they?

Thanks to all of you who participated.

Contest No. 4 will start in a few weeks.

Contest No. 3 starts right now. Click here for full rules and regulations, but briefly, here they are:

I’ll supply a drawing of one of my old cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on ‘Comments’ underneath the current drawing. Then (2) scroll down past all the other comments and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) enter the anti-spam security word that assures me that you’re a human being and not a machine, and (4) click ‘Submit’. There is no limit on the number of captions you can submit for each drawing.

Entries will be accepted and posted for one week for each contest, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also print my original caption.

I will be the sole judge. The winning caption will be the one I judge to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

New contests will appear at very irregular intervals in the future.

Hope you all have fun with this one!

Eli's Cartoon Caption Contest No. 3

Was this a tough one for you gagwriters/caption creators? Apparently so.

It was a tough one to judge, also, so I'm going to cop out once again and declare two winners. Here they are:

1) “It stands for Housewives Against Nincompoop Demonstrators.”

2) “What's an acronym?”

My original caption:

“I'm not protesting anything. It stands for Have A Nice Day.”

Congratulations to Ed Smith (1) and Kelasher (2). I thought that both of their captions were imaginative and funny, in different ways. Ed Smith's caption reminded me of another version of this cartoon that I drew a long time ago (that was also never published). The sign, held by an angry man, had just the word “SODA” on it. My caption was, “It stands for Stamp Out Dumb Acronyms.”

It's good to see that one contestant correctly figured out that HAND stood for “Have A Nice Day”. And I also greatly appreciated “Wait, we're not at a name-your-favorite-body-part convention?” (from Rachel).

Aside: Once again, I played along with all of you and tried to think up a brand new caption for my drawing. And again, I think I came up with a pretty good one: “I'll tell you what HAND stands for, if you'll tell me what PRESS stands for.”

Now if anybody had submitted that caption, it clearly would have been a winner!

I promise that Caption Contest No. 3, coming in a few weeks, will be much easier. I have the drawing picked out, and it should be a lot of fun.

Ready for Caption Contest No. 2?

Here it is. For full contest information, click here.

Briefly, these are the basic rules: I'll supply a drawing of one of my cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on 'Comments' below the drawing. Then (2) scroll down past all the other comments and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) enter the anti-spam security word that assures me that you're a human being and not a machine, and (4) click 'Submit'. There is no limit on the number of captions you can submit for each drawing.

Entries will be accepted and posted for a week for each contest, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also print my original caption.

I will be the sole judge. The winning caption will be the one I judge to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

New contests will appear at very irregular intervals in the future.

Eli's Cartoon Caption Contest No.2

Arghhh! This is going to be tougher than I thought. I had a winning caption all picked out when BAM! . . . two people suddenly came up with an almost word-for-word duplicate of my original caption. Uncanny. What can I do? I guess I'm forced to declare the two of them co-winners of Contest No. 1.

Here they are:

(1) "I said medium rare!"

(2) "Dammit Dan, I said Medium Rare!"

My original caption: "Harry! I said medium-rare!"

So congratulations to winners Sharon (1) and PoochyCor (2). You can bask in the glory of being two of the funniest people around.

A great majority of the captions submitted were of the "retribution from God" variety, and the one I wanted to declare the winner was "Izzy, did you forget to buy the kosher hot dogs again?" (from Kelasher). I thought it was particularly inventive and clever, and you have to pay attention to any caption that contains the name "Izzy". In the same vein, I also appreciated "I didn't think that PETA was that powerful." (from Ed Smith).

Great job from all of you who participated and right here I have to say the usual stuff about how sorry I am that you can't all be winners, etc., etc. Maybe you'll do better next time. Contest No. 2 will start about a week from now.

One more thing: After looking at all of your entries, I tried to put myself in your place. That is, I tried to come up with a caption that hadn't already been covered by somebody else. I think I was finally successful. All of you assumed that the two characters in the drawing were husband and wife. I started musing about what if they weren't, and then this caption emerged: "You'd better hide — that's the signal that my husband is on his way home." I kinda liked that slant. Make the woman sexy and voluptuous and you've got a cartoon almost suitable for Playboy magazine.

My point in telling you this is to let you know that it's always possible to "think outside of the box". Even if you feel that all the good captions have already been submitted, you can probably top them with just a little more effort.

Welcome to a new feature on this site. Yes, there have been many “Cartoon Caption Contests” in the past (unfortunately, there have also been many “Kartoon Kaption Kontests”, but I won’t go into that). Of course, the most famous current contest appears on the back page of each issue of The New Yorker.

So, with all due respect to The New Yorker, I’m introducing my own version of this very popular pasttime.

I’ll supply a drawing of one of my cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on “Add New Comment”. Then (2) scroll down past any other submitted captions and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) click “Save”. Your caption or captions will be posted after I review your submission.

There is no limit on the number of captions you can submit for each drawing. Entries will be accepted and posted for a week for each contest, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also print my original caption.

I will be the sole judge. New contests will appear at very irregular intervals in the future — about every two weeks or so.

There are no prizes . . . just the glory of knowing that you’re the funniest person around. Also, there are no age, nationality or other restrictions (even employees of The New Yorker are eligible to participate). I’m still puzzling over why residents of the Canadian province of Quebec are barred from competing in The New Yorker contest. Please note that Quebecoise are welcome here, but captions must be in English.

And finally, you have my word that I will never use your captions for my personal profit.

Eli’s Cartoon Caption Contest No. 1