Sunday, September 14, 2014

Captioning "The Roosevelts"

In order to promote Ken Burns's new seven-part documentary series "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," PBS teamed up with the New Yorker to create--what else?--a cartoon caption contest. As you may be aware, this blogger has been known to dabble in such contests for the last year and a half or so. I have even won, supposedly, a one-year subscription to Moment for my efforts. Now I've never entered a one-off like this before, but the not-inconsiderable prize is a private lunch with Ken Burns himself, and it's become apparent that this groundbreaking blog on its own is not going to get me even coffee with any of our cultural luminaries. Heck, I couldn't even land a simple interview with Thomas Pynchon.

So then, here's another chance to put my fledgling caption-writing skills to the test while promoting what I'm sure will be another excellent Ken Burns documentary. Ken, let's do lunch! Oh, the drawing is by Mort Gerberg.

"Inform Teddy his profile's not worth a dime!"

Only one entry was permitted, so the following two gems went unused:
"Now let's visit the East River Drive."
"Not bad for just two terms."


"The Roosevelts:  An Intimate History" cartoon caption promotion

"The Roosevelts:  An Intimate History" by Ken Burns

Note:  Students of the art of caption-writing will be delighted to learn that I've preserved my entire output of cartoon caption contest efforts on this blog, with the possible exception of one or two truly egregious examples. Feel free to peruse the archives for, among other things, numerous demonstrations of how not to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.

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