New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits submitted the drawing for this month’s contest, which features a police officer who’s ordered a dog in a convertible to pull over to the side of the road. Sitting next to the dog is a cat, and in the backseat is a second dog. The police officer is writing a ticket and saying something to the dog behind the steering wheel.
Suits was not able to join our videotaped judging session, but she did send us the entries she liked best. Her favorite was, “Late for a poker game is not an excuse.” She called it “snappy and smart” and loved the reference to Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s famously bad oil painting of dogs playing poker, which has, according to one art critic, been “indelibly burned into…the American collective-schlock subconscious.” Suits also appreciated the way this entry addressed every animal in the car, and not just the driver. But here’s the problem: there’s a cat in the car, and there were no cats in Coolidge’s painting.
Suits also liked, “I’m going to need you to W-A-L-K a straight line.” At the risk of annoying both Suits and whoever submitted that entry, I don’t think it works. I get the joke, which reconciles two disparate frames of reference—drunk drivers, and dog-owners who spell out words that might get their pets over-excited—but the policeman in the cartoon would have no reason to spell out the word “walk.” That’s also the problem with this caption: “Please put the car in P-A-R-K.”
Speaking of drunk drivers, we received a lot of DUI jokes that referred to a particularly disgusting canine habit:
- “Been drinking from the toilet this evening, sir?”
- “Have you been drinking from the toilet?”
The other DUI jokes involved breathalyzer tests:
- “Can I not smell your breath, please?”
- “I think we’ll skip the breath test.”
Here’s another entry (there were many) that addresses the way dog-owners talk to their pets: “I’m gonna let you off with a gentle scolding in baby talk.” I like that caption but not nearly as much as Suits did, in part because I could do without colloquialisms like “gonna.”
This next entry, a punny reference to the star of “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and the underrated “Bad Influence,” made Suits laugh out loud: “James Spayed? Your name is James Spayed?”
Both Suits and I liked, “Hey, don’t get cute with me.” It’s a punchier version of another good caption: “Your blatant disregard for the law was adorable.”
Suits also liked this reference to a common canine activity: “I’ll let you go this time, but you have to stop chasing cars.” That’s similar and superior to, “What was your plan if you had caught that other car?”
The last caption Suits highlighted was a clever variation on the many “bad dog” jokes we received and yet another reference to the way some dog-owners talk to their pets: “Who’s a bad driver? You’re a bad driver.”
As many of you know, I hate puns, but this month we received two that were great:
- “Turning tricks at rest stops doesn’t make you service animals.”
- “You left the scene of an accident.”
That first caption doubles as the month’s best and most disturbing sex joke. I love not just the way it plays on the double-meaning of the word “service”—clever and depraved—but the way it uses “rest stops” to connect the caption to driving. Coming across an entry like that makes me very happy.
This pun is just OK: “Don’t worry, it’s the car that’s being impounded.”
My fellow judges appreciated the word play in this entry—“It means you have to come to a complete stay.”—but I did not.
Like the entries that alluded to dogs who drink water out of toilet bowls, this caption addresses another strange canine habit: “I caught you driving too close to the rear ends of other cars.”
Here’s the best of the many jokes we received about dogs being color-blind: “No, the light was not gray.”
And while I’m on the subject of common jokes, here are the best examples of the many captions that relied on the fact that both drivers and dogs have licenses, registration forms, and tags:
- “Your other license and registration.”
- “No, I mean your driver’s license.”
This next caption sounds good—“You can pee on them, but you can’t park in front of them.”—but it doesn’t actually make sense because parking in a prohibited space is not a moving violation.
The next two captions refer to the sudden bursts of frenetic energy that make dogs and cats run wild:
- “Looks like someone’s got the zoomies.”
- “Yes, I know what zoomies are.”
Unlike the police officer in the cartoon I had no idea what zoomies were, so I initially didn’t understand those captions.
“The dog ate my homework” is a common excuse that lazy schoolchildren offer to explain missing assignments, and it’s based, as is the next caption, on the idea that dogs eat anything: “You ate your license?”
This next entry refers to the fact that dogs can be easily trained: “You know another good trick? Learning to use the turn signal.”
They also love treats—“To ease the pain, I’ll wrap the ticket in cheddar cheese.”—and chasing squirrels:
- “So tell me again about this so-called squirrel.”
- “I don’t care how fast the squirrel was going.”
This entry is both funny and sad: “I hate this job. Even my own dog isn’t happy to see me.”
And this one came out of left field and delighted all of us judges: “Know anything about a break-in at the tennis ball factory?”
Congratulations to frequent finalist KATHY WROBEL, who submitted the winning caption: “You left the scene of an accident.”
The five runners-up are:
- “Turning tricks at rest stops doesn’t make you service animals.”
- “You know another good trick? Learning to use the turn signal.”
- “Know anything about a break-in at the tennis ball factory?”
- “Who’s a bad driver? You’re a bad driver.”
- “Hey, don’t get cute with me.”
The “Who’s a bad driver? You’re a bad driver.” runner-up was submitted by New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein. He’s not the only New Yorker cartoonist who’s entered our contest, but he’s the first to win some money.
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and posted it on our Youtube Channel.
As I’ve done for most of the past year, I’ll end my commentary with a plug for my book on The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. It’s been out now for more than nine months, so you should already have a copy. If you don’t, please buy one or more today.