The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 206

In the CartoonStock Caption Contest number 206, a man with an apple obscuring his face right out of a René Magritte painting is being wed in church to a woman with a fruit basket on her head à la Carmen Miranda. The cartoonist is Felipe Galindo, but his proper married name is Feggo.

Dearly beloved, this time around the rules of the monthly cash prize contest have changed: Five dollars will still buy up to three entries but now three additional dollars can optionally buy a fourth entry, and so forth ad infinitum. Real cash prizes are fifty percent of the total prize pool (previously $500) for first place and ten percent of the prize pool (previously $100) for each of five runners up. As of this writing, I've put $255 into the first fifty-one pay-to-play contests and this fifty-second challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $260. Having achieved runner-up status with three previous entries, I've collected $300 from CartoonStock, so I'm still playing with the house's money, thank you very much. The contest, though, is no longer subsidized by cash from the vast coffers of CartoonStock, making the contest's odds less favorable, I would think. To be sure, the odds may still be generally considered favorable if enough people feel inclined to pay $3 for additional entries, especially ill-considered ones, or if an entrant is generally superior at this captioning game than the average contestant.

Here's how the prize pool accumulated over time:

The prize pool as of May 11, 2026

The Prize Pool as of May 24, 2026

The Prize Pool as of May 25, 2026 before I purchased my entries

To my surprise, the full $5 entry fee was credited to the prize pool, not a percentage with fees removed. Therefore, I have no idea where the odd pennies in the pool are coming from. I would think the pool would be a sum of $5 and $3 entry fees, with no pennies. 

The Prize Pool as of May 25, 2026 after I purchased my entries

If the prize pool comes to exceed $1,000, the potential take would then be greater than in previous contests.

 

My three entries this round are unveiled below:

"They found true love at a farmers' market."
"May you kiss the bride?"
"And do you promise to avoid food fights?"

June 7, 2026 Update:  The Winner

Magritte's painting Le fils de l'homme (1964) is known as The Son of Man in the English-speaking world.

The Judges Deliberate

Of the judges, only the cartoonist Feggo had the good sense to choose one of my captions for his top ten. He listed it at no. 9. I'll take it. Lawrence Wood still wouldn't deign to mention it in his commentary:

Image added June 9, 2026

https://www.cartoonstock.com/blog/fruity-wedding-caption-contest-commentary-with-lawrence-wood/

As noted by Victor in the comments below, the final prize pool came to $933.22, not too far down from the old $1,000 prize before CartoonStock complicated everything with its cost-cutting. At the beginning of the video, Trevor Hoey confirms that the odd 22 cents came about as a result of foreign exchange rates. 

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