The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 179

In the CartoonStock Caption Contest #179, a fairy-tale princess and a unicorn share a couch, a TV program, and a dismal life together. The rules of the monthly cash prize contest have not changed (and neither has my description of them): five dollars buys up to three entries. Real cash prizes are $500 for first place and $100 for each of five runners up. As of this writing, I've put $120 into the first twenty-four pay-to-play contests and this twenty-fifth challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $125. Having achieved runner-up status with two previous entries, I've collected $200 from CartoonStock, so I'm still playing with the house's money, thank goodness. In fact, so few contestants enter that the odds are generally favorable even for us less-gifted caption writers. My three entries are shown below. The cartoonist is Glen LeLievre.

"Happily ever after, my ass."
"Don't you despise fairy tale endings?"
"You haven't worked a day since 'Fantasia.'"

May 18, 2024 Update:  The Winner

None of the four judges picked any of my captions in their lists of ten. But the cartoonist, Glen LeLievre, picked only one caption and it was one of mine! The judges had already decided they hated it. Listen from 23:40 for about a minute to find out which caption masterpiece it was.

The Caption Contest Judges Deliberate

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The Lighter Side of Business Travel

In 2005, the National Business Travel Association, or NBTA, commissioned a custom book from the Cartoon Bank, The Lighter Side of Business Travel, a New Yorker cartoon collection. The NBTA did the same again in 2008, publishing another custom cartoon book with the exact same title but a different cover, also designated as a first edition. Presumably, the 2008 book is not merely a reprint of the 2005 book, but it's hard to be certain without examining them side by side. Instead, I examined the eBay listings side by side, surely the next best thing. They are archived below, with the newer collection first, because those photos are the better ones. Incidentally, the NBTA is now the Global Business Travel Association, or GBTA, but there are no new cartoon collections to show for it.

Why on earth are the words first class superimposed on Leo Cullum's cartoon on page 86? This is not at all typical of The New Yorker. Do similar superfluous designations appear elsewhere in the book?

The Lighter Side of Business Travel (2008)
eBay listing accessed February 8, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265535169404?hash=item3dd321237c:g:7-gAAOSwh2Fh~pKG

The Lighter Side of Business Travel (2008)
eBay item description

I'm afraid we don't get nearly as good a look at the 2005 collection:

The Lighter Side of Business Travel (2005)
eBay listing accessed February 9, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193602761743?hash=item2d139fb40f:g:9VsAAOSwIfFhqqh8

The Lighter Side of Business Travel (2005)
eBay item description

Note:  Well, there you have it. An easy way to compare these two books would be to compare their artist indices. The one from 2008 is already included in the first listing, but I would like to be able to also post a scan of the Index of Artists from the 2005 edition, that is, the collection with Pandora's Carry-On by Robert Leighton on the cover. Please help me out, if you can.

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