In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #999 from the issue of July 27, 2026, a couple seated in their living room look up at a giant hole in the wall through which an elephant has just run out. The man speaks. My submission is shown below. The drawing is by Tom Toro.
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| "Enough with the dad jokes." |
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| "Now what do we avoid talking about?" |
August 9, 2026 Update: The Finalists
August 16, 2026 Update: I voted for the caption from Seattle.
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In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #960 from the issue of September 22, 2025, a standing woman—The New Yorker's metadata refers to her as "Human mother with hands on hips"—calls up to an egg (let's call him Humpty Dumpty) scaling a high wall. My entry appears below. The drawing is by Julia Suits.
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| "Get up there or you'll miss all the king's horses." |
These captions were too hard-boiled:
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| "Why can't you just sit in a chair?" "Mother Goose isn't going to like this." "Get down here as fast as you can." "Last one down is a rotten egg." |
October 4, 2025 Update: The Finalists
October 6, 2025 Update: I voted for the caption from Oak View.
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It's time for another round of the CartoonStock Caption Contest. In contest number 181, two identically-dressed eggs stand at the base of Humpty Dumpty's wall. One of them is injured from, apparently, a great fall and it is he who speaks.
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 $130 into the first twenty-six pay-to-play contests and this twenty-seventh challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $135. 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 hard-boiled entries are shown below. The cartoonist is Mick Stevens.
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| "Don't tell Mother Goose it was rough sex." "Apparently I insulted all the king's horses." "Now will you properly dispose of all banana peels?" |
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