My Entries in Danny Shanahan's Caption Contest for October 2013

Back in April of 2013, Danny Shanahan's Cartoon Caption Contest was my introduction to writing cartoon captions. That's right, you can blame him. The contest made another appearance in October of that year but it has been in a state of suspended animation ever since with no winning caption declared. I submitted eight captions to this contest, but I'm still not sure I've come up with just the right one. I mean, when you find yourself writing a caption about chafing, it's a good idea to take a step back and rethink it all.

"Fool me once, shame on you...."
"Um, just between us, what's your mother's name?"
"Ah, yes, I knew your mother."
"Actually, I go more for legs."
"Why, as a matter of fact, I have been to the henhouse."
"The chafing must be awful."
"Are you available for babysitting?"
"Got eggs?"

Note:  Danny Shanahan's website can be enjoyed here. Take a look around. I'm the only one to enter the caption contest since 2013, but, hey, you can feel free to join me. While you're there, consider buying some great original artwork.

My entries in his swinish April caption contest are documented here.

Danny Shanahan figures prominently here in my essential blog post on New Yorker Cartoons at Auction.

My string of unsuccessful entries in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest has been exhaustively documented for posterity. You can see the disheartening results here. If you have a calculator handy and are good with numbers, you'll see that the number of my successful entries to date is zero.

My captions may never be up to The New Yorker's standards, but I have just been named a finalist again in Moment magazine's Cartoon Caption Contest. See the blog posts about my only captioning contest triumphs here. 

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A Year of Captioning

Today, April 4, marks the first anniversary of my entering a cartoon caption contest. It all began rather inauspiciously with Danny Shanahan's drawing of a pig sommelier, a cartoon to be captioned on his brand new blog.

I had always felt overwhelmed by the absurdities of caption contest cartoons and in the past I hadn't considered myself up to the task of writing a line clever enough for any such competition. I don't consider myself much of a humorist although I may have written a funny line once or twice, if only for the sake of this blog. When Roger Ebert died, there was a lot of publicity about his own inspired entries in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. That, for me, was the key. I didn't have to think of myself as a funny man, just a writer. So I wrote.

One year after the fact, I present to you my very first cartoon caption contest entry. I submitted a total of ten unsuccessful captions, and when I summarized the contest on my blog, I chose to mention only two of the better ones. I did not include this one, and it is not worthy of note. It shows just how literal I can be. The first sentence is pretty much an exact description of the drawing. Danny Shanahan would never write a caption like that. Neither would Roger Ebert. It would take me a while to learn what to do instead.

The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest is the big leagues in this game. I started entering almost immediately. I encountered my first pitfall almost immediately. This Victoria Roberts cartoon appeared in Contest #375. Why is this egg smiling? I wrote a tortured caption to explain it.

"I really appreciate all your empathy, Doc. My last
analyst was an egg beater."

It's awful, I know. The finalists for this contest wrote excellent captions, and you know what? Every one of them ignored the smile on the egg's face. Once again, being too literal was something I was going to have to try to overcome.

It would also help if my captions didn't try to explain the gag's situation. The problem for me is that I like this kind of caption. A Michael Maslin pirate cartoon was featured in Contest #378. Here's the explanatory caption I submitted:

"She was my second choice. The only parrot in the shop
called me a damn buffoon."

Here's a better one, also explanatory, that I didn't submit. It's new to the blog:

"We'll have to make do.  Polly belongs to the casino now."

What I like about this second one is not that it's outrageously funny, but rather that it's an illustration of human foibles. Nothing like this is ever going to win a caption contest. It isn't clever enough. The question is, should I be trying to please myself or to win the contest? The point is moot. I'm trying to create an entertaining blog, first and foremost. The more mistakes I make, the more mistakes I can write about. If I misread the gag, so be it. If I have the wrong character speak, there's a story in that too. Just last week I forgot to submit my entry. There's no end to the ways one can go wrong. I receive some secondary gain from all this anyway. In general, my caption contest post is the most popular post in a given week. Why? I liken it to watching someone else fall on his face from the comfort and safety of your own living room. It's the captioning equivalent of "America's Funniest Home Videos."

Meanwhile, it's just possible I may be improving my game. Six months before I entered my first caption contest, I had occasion to write about an original cartoon by Claude Smith that had come down to us lacking its original caption. I took the liberty of creating one:

"But how on earth could they know you had 

the idea way before Jacques Cousteau?"

There's the germ of an idea there, but it doesn't quite work. Now, to celebrate a full year of caption-writing, I went back and tried my hand at it again. This time I think I nailed it:

"For heaven's sake, Arnold, you have no case
against Jacques Cousteau."

Not surprisingly, I prefer some of my captions to those of the finalists. That's not so much a reflection on the finalists, but it is a reflection on me and my taste. To give an example, here's my caption for Mike Twohy's Contest #409:

"Right off, I can think of three good reasons not to
mention this to the boss."

Similarly, here's Tom Cheney's cartoon in Contest #412:

"I'll show you my act if you'll show me yours."

Now just compare that with where I started out:

Just what is it about blogging that so often strikes me as hilarious?

Note:  All my cartoon caption contest entries this past year have one thing in common:  they are all losers, at least so far. Well, four of the Moment captions became finalists. See all the captions in all the contests here.

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My Entries in Danny Shanahan's Caption Contest for April 2013

The very first cartoon caption contest I ever entered was back in April of this year and it was that of cartoonist Danny Shanahan. His new website hosts a caption contest where the grand prize is the original artwork. Gadzooks! That is by far the best prize in any of the caption contests I've seen. The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest does offer a lot of prestige, but the actual prize for the winning caption is a signed print of the cartoon. Moment, a bimonthly magazine of Jewish culture and thought, has a caption contest created and judged by Bob Mankoff which offers a gift subscription to the magazine as its top prize.

Mr. Shanahan's caption contest is different from The New Yorker's in that one is permitted multiple entries. This little detail allowed me to get over my initial hesitancy to enter when I could not immediately conjure up a world-class caption. I believe The New Yorker's contest has well over 5,000 weekly entries, whereas this contest, which thank goodness is now going to be monthly, had a total of only 29 the first time out, and ten of them--yes, ten!--were by me. They were all visible on the blog post immediately as comments.

Now ten entries is excessive by anyone's standards, but I was learning the ropes and having a really good time in the bargain. The point is not that my captions were any good, but that I got over my longstanding belief that I couldn't write captions at all. That led directly to my entering The New Yorker's challenging caption contest and now Moment's. The rest is history. I believe the caption below is one of my better ones, although in retrospect it may be better suited to Moment magazine.

"Yes, the wine is kosher.  Why do you ask?"

I'm very fond of the caption below too. I can't think why.

"He also writes an informative wine blog."

But enough about me! The winning caption chosen by Danny Shanahan from among the entries is truly outstanding:

“It’s a lovely light summer pinot noir with notes of bing cherry, blackberry, and barnyard.”

--Debby Alexander 

And then there's one honorable mention:

“He’ll be back a little later--pulled and barbequed.”

--Tintin

Finally, Danny Shanahan reveals his own original caption for this cartoon rough, and writes, "Can you believe The New Yorker rejected that? Twice??" Nope.

“We try to use every part of the pig.”

October 2, 2016 Update: Danny Shanahan's website has been removed.


Note:  Danny Shanahan's website is looking better than ever here. Take a look around, enter the October caption contest, and maybe buy some great original artwork.

Danny Shanahan appears here in my essential blog post on New Yorker Cartoons at Auction.

My unsuccessful entries in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest are a matter of public record now because I've made them so. You can see how I'm doing so far here. I'm no math wizard, but I believe the count of successful entries to date is zero.

My captions may not be up to The New Yorker's standards, but I am currently a finalist in Moment magazine's Cartoon Caption Contest. See my post all about it here. Best of all, you can still vote for your favorite entry. But hurry! Time is running out.

I do not have the time or energy to blog about my outrage at America's dysfunctional House of Representatives. Instead, I'm posting a link each day to an earlier post about sequestration with an obscure rough by Mischa Richter. It's here. Now don't get me started.

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