“Tell anyone who calls that he’s out to launch.”

(by Gayden Wren)

My original caption: “If he says ‘I’m going out to launch’ just one more time, I think I’ll scream.”

A hearty congratulations to Gayden Wren on this, your fifth victory. Your last win was not that long ago, in Contest No. 213 (hmmm . . . 213 . . . 231 . . . I hope you won’t have to wait until Contest No. 312 for your next victory, but only time will tell). In the meantime, all the bragging rights are in order and you can once again announce to the world that you are officially one of the FPA (Funniest People Around).

I was very hesitant when I selected this particular cartoon for the Contest. I figured that OUT TO LAUNCH would be everybody’s initial gut reaction to the drawing, and I expected that I would be deluged with a great many OUT TO LAUNCH captions that would just be variations of my original caption. While I did receive quite a few, I kept hoping against hope that you Captioneers could come up with a new, clever and  FUNNY twist to the basic gag. Alas, that was not to be, and the plain vanilla OUT TO LAUNCH gag prevailed in the end. At least Gayden Wren’s caption is shorter than my original one.

Here are the other submissions that I was seriously considering for top honors:

“OK Mildred, you can put the OUT TO LAUNCH sign on the door.” (by Lee Lacewell)

“Where are you going? We don’t launch until Friday.” (by Scott Malcolm)

“You have to buy the boat first!” (by Rich Wolf)

“Stop! That’s women’s work!” (by Pat Foley)

“Who’s he kidding? He works in the shipping DEPARTMENT!” (by Joe Ayella)

Contest No. 232 will be revealed in due course, Captioneers, so be on the lookout for it. Thanks for participating!

Contest No. 231 starts right now.

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. To enter, simply (1) click on “See Comments and Add Your Own”. Then (2) scroll down past any other submitted captions and type your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) click “Save”. There is no charge to submit captions, and the only prize is the honor of being one of the funniest people around.

Your caption (or captions) will be posted after I review your submission. However, no captions at all will be posted for the first few days of each contest. This will give everybody a chance to submit their spontaneous, gut-instinct caption without fear of discovering that it was ripped off by somebody else’s similar spontaneous, gut-instinct caption. Every posted caption has an indication of the date and time it was received. This is an equal opportunity contest!

There is no limit on the number of captions you may enter, but I will only post and consider the first 15 captions from any contestant. Entries will be accepted and posted for one week, after which the winning caption will be announced and printed and I will also reveal my original caption. I am the sole judge and the winning caption will be the one I deem to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

The cut-off time and date for you to send in your captions is midnight Wednesday, October 22, 2025.

Below is the drawing that needs your funny captions. Good luck, Captioneers!

“It’s the bottle we tossed last month. ‘Send help — there’s three of us and we are running out of food’.”

(by Scott Malcolm)

My original caption: “It’s a Chinese take out menu.”

Congratulations on your first victory, Scott Malcolm! You’ve been contributing captions here for quite a spell, so persistence pays! You now join that elite group of successful Captioneers — you are officially One of the Funniest People Around and you are entitled to all the bragging rights that go along with the title.

Speaking of bragging rights, I want to send a shout-out to Captioneer Pat Foley, who won the latest Cartoon Stock Caption Contest, announced just a few days ago. Keep up the funny work, Pat!

Getting back to this Contest, here are the captions that I was seriously considering for top honors:

“It’s for you.” (by Mark S.)

“Would you believe this? I am still receiving past due notices from my creditors.” (by Diane Weisman)

“Says ‘Would like to help, but you omitted your longitude and latitude’.” (by Pat Foley)

“Good News: we found your luggage! Bad News: it’s on another desert isle.” (by Joe Ayella)

“It says, ‘Your order with Amazon will be delivered tomorrow’.” (by Mel Tanenbaum)

“Apparently we still owe property taxes.” (by Sagie)

“Would you like to purchase a time share?” (by Michael Lomazow)

“It’s your turn — Genie.” (by Silvana Lagrotteria)

“You’ve won an all expense paid, two week vacation, at a secluded island paradise.” (by Lee Lacewell)

“A friendly little airbnb has just opened up on a neighboring island.” (by Sharon Groth)

Contest No 231 will be posted in short order, Captioneers, so be on the lookout for it. Thanks for participating!

Contest No. 230 starts right now.

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. To enter, simply (1) click on “See Comments and Add Your Own”. Then (2) scroll down past any other submitted captions and type your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) click “Save”. There is no charge to submit captions, and the only prize is the honor of being one of the funniest people around.

Your caption (or captions) will be posted after I review your submission. However, no captions at all will be posted for the first few days of each contest. This will give everybody a chance to submit their spontaneous, gut-instinct caption without fear of discovering that it was ripped off by somebody else’s similar spontaneous, gut-instinct caption. Every posted caption has an indication of the date and time it was received. This is an equal opportunity contest!

There is no limit on the number of captions you may enter, but I will only post and consider the first 15 captions from any contestant. Entries will be accepted and posted for one week, after which the winning caption will be announced and printed and I will also reveal my original caption. I am the sole judge and the winning caption will be the one I deem to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption).

The cut-off time and date for you to send in your captions is midnight Wednesday, September 24, 2025.

Below is the drawing that needs your funny captions. When in doubt, you can’t go wrong with a good old desert isle gag, I always say. Good luck, Captioneers!

“Explain it to me again — which day of Passover is this?”

(by Marc Eliot Stein)

My original caption: “You’ve caught a virus. There’s a lot of it going around these days.”

Congratulations, Marc Eliot Stein, on this, your fifth victory. And wasn’t it a long time coming? Your last win was way back in June 2021, in Contest No. 174. But persistence pays and once again you are one of the funniest people around, so the bragging rights are all yours.

This time I was able to choose a winning caption that actually made me laugh out loud. Apparently, there was a lot of confusion among you Captioneers as to what was flying around that doctor’s examination room. This was not intentional, by the way. It’s simply that I did this drawing many decades ago, long before the Covid pandemic revealed to the world what a virus actually looked like. So I was forced to use artistic license. I was truly amazed that so many of you concluded that they were “stars”. Anyway, I really appreciated Marc’s caption, which tied them into the ten plagues of the Passover holiday story. That was sheer genius, Marc. I thought the “snow globe” approach, used by two Captioneers, was also pretty clever.

Here are the other captions that “came that close”:

“You seem to have quite a large following.” (by Diane Weisman)

“I’m afraid we’re both seeing them.” (by Joe Ayella)

“Are the spiders in the room with us now?” (by Kelly Nagle)

“It was a lifelong dream to practice medicine inside a snow globe.” (by Sharon Groth)

“Obviously something is bugging you!” (by Lee Lacewell)

“How long have you had this feeling that you’re living in a snow globe?” (also by Lee Lacewell)

“Now comes the Field of Vision test.” (By Michael Lomazow)

“Once you connect the dots, we’ll have the answer.” (also by Michael Lomazow)

“It looks like Hepatitis Bee.” (also by Lee Lacewell)

“Swarm in here, isn’t it?” (by Jasmine)

“Well, it’s an interesting superpower.” (by Rory Steen)

And last, but not least, another big shout-out to Captioneer Joe Ayella. He is again the winner of The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. You can see his winning caption in their September 1, 2025 issue. That’s his second New Yorker victory this year, if my calculations are correct. Wow!

Contest No 230 will be posted here before you know it. Thank you all for participating!