A novice cartoonist, Bob Mankoff, has drawn a married couple on a couch floating down a river, seemingly unaware that they’re headed toward the edge of a waterfall. The wife is calmly addressing her husband, who’s reading the paper.
I initially thought this couple, just seconds before their untimely end, might be oblivious enough to be discussing another couple who died unexpectedly: “Shame about the Johnsons. They never saw it coming.”
Then I imagined some person, just out of frame, desperately trying to warn the blissfully unaware couple about the coming disaster:
- “I could have sworn I heard someone yell, ‘Look out!’”
- “Well, someone yelled, “Look out!’”
- “If it wasn’t you, who did yell, ‘Look out?’”
I then imagined the oblivious couple struggling to hear each other over the thunderous roar of the crashing water: “You’ll have to speak up.”
I then went in the other direction and imagined that the couple knows exactly what is happening. Maybe they’re resigned to their fate: “We’re not oblivious. We’re accepting.” Perhaps they’re concerned: “Well, maybe we shouldn’t just go with the flow.”
They should be panicking, so I tried to imagine why they look so serene:
- “Don’t you find the sound of rushing water soothing?”
- “Soaking our feet is so relaxing.”
- “I love soaking my feet and letting all my worries just float away.”
I then focused on the fact that the man is reading a newspaper (something people used to actually do) but unaware of the impending disaster: “Just because you read the paper doesn’t mean you’re informed.”
Although this couple has every reason to be anxious, the woman might be attributing her husband’s anxiety to the news reports he’s reading in the paper. That possibility led to, “You’d be less anxious if you stopped reading the paper.”
Finally, I took a morbid and politically-incorrect approach. I imagined the couple experiencing a variation on the long disbanded Eskimo practice (the last reported case was in 1939) of putting elders on ice floes to die:
- “I hear the Eskimos use ice floes.”
- “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the Eskimo custom.”
Senilicide (the murder of old people) seems like a fitting note on which to end my section of this commentary, so let’s see what you came up with.
Like I did, several of you focused on the fact that the husband is reading the paper. The best of these captions included:
- “What’s our horoscope say?”
- “By all means, finish your puzzle.”
- “Anyone we know in the obituaries?”
- “I’ve got some news for you.”
Many of you used a standard comment that took on an entirely new meaning in the context of the drawing. I especially liked,
- “Don’t you wish this moment would last forever?”
- “There’s something we need to go over.”
- “I don’t think this is going to go over well.”
- “I don’t like where this relationship is headed.”
- “Isn’t this better than just sitting at home?”
There were many entries premised on the idea that the husband hears the crashing water but can’t identify its source. Here are the best two:
- “Maybe it’s just your tinnitus.”
- “OK, have it your way. You hear a waterfall.”
That last caption works not only for Mankoff’s drawing but as an allusion to this classic New Yorker cartoon by James Thurber:
A couple of you used an alternate meaning of the word “falls” to reference a common fear for older people:
- “And here I was concerned about falls in the house.”
- “This article claims that the leading cause of injury for people our age is falls.”
The second caption is clever but doesn’t work because it presumes the husband is speaking, which he’s not. It highlights, therefore, one of the most common captioning errors: failing to properly identify the character who’s speaking.
There were many references to Niagara Falls. Here are the best two (and I did not include any of the countless Viagra jokes):
- “It is more comfortable than the barrel.”
- “And if that wasn’t enough, we’ll be on the American side.”
As someone who attended law school at SUNY Buffalo—the Harvard of Western New York, just seventeen miles from the Falls—I especially liked that last caption. And yes, the Canadian side is better.
Many captions focused on the couch, and these were especially good:
- “Don’t worry. The seat cushion is also a floatation device.”
- “This is why I keep plastic on the sofa.”
- “The salesman did say it’s the last couch we’ll ever buy.”
- “I liked the couch better where it was.”
Several of you imagined that the couch was not the only, but just the next, living room fixture to go over the falls:
- “Have you seen our coffee table?’
- “Our TV was there a minute ago.”
A clever variation on this concept imagines that other couples have, like the one on the couch, been swept away in the current and will soon go over the edge of the waterfall: “Look, the Joneses are trying to keep up.”
Similar to but better than my “look out” captions, which assume someone just out of frame is trying to warn the couple about the waterfall, was this entry: “They’re still waving their arms.”
One of the best captions highlighting the couple’s obliviousness has the woman noticing one thing while ignoring something far more important: “Didn’t there used to be a wall behind the couch?”
Another fine entry goes in the opposite direction, crediting the woman with recognizing the impending disaster while criticizing the man for minimizing her concerns: “No, I don’t think I am overreacting.”
The last caption deserving special recognition takes aim at people who ignore crises (e.g., climate change) because they assume there’s nothing to worry about if the current administration is unconcerned: “Dear, if it was serious the government would do something about it.” I especially like this entry because, as opposed to most political captions, it’s incisive without being heavy-handed. Still, it’s not my favorite of this week’s entries. The one I like best actually made me laugh out loud: “I liked the couch better where it was.”