In Tom Chitty’s cartoon, a man is directing a concert pianist’s attention to a gruesome scene. Blood is seeping out of and running down the side of the piano, and pooling on the floor near a shoe that presumably belonged to the unseen victim.
I first came up with captions that include a couple of piano terms: “forte” (play loudly and forcefully ), and “da capo” (from the beginning):
- “Not so forte.”
- “He was da capo-tated.”
I then had the speaker suggesting pieces that might be more appropriate to the morbid circumstances:
- “How about something elegiac?”
- “Well, it’s a requiem now.”
Finally, as someone who dozes off at classical concerts, I came up with this line: “At least no one in the audience fell asleep.”
Now let’s see how you did.
This contest elicited a lot of puns.
Some focused on piano terminology:
- “Not so many sharps this time.”
- “Too sharp.”
- “That crescendo got a little messy at the end.”
- “Less fortissimo.”
- “Murder on the high Cs.”
Others focused on a word’s double meaning:
- “Your execution is a bit sloppy.”
- “That was perfectly executed.”
- “Nice execution.”
- “Might I suggest that any further overtures be made directly to your jury?”
- “You play a mean piano.”
- “No sudden movements.”
- “I see our tuner is finished.”
- “The police want you to accompany them…to the station.”
That last pun may be my favorite, but I also really like, “It’s a baby Grand Guignol.”
These next two entries note that the man who’s addressing the pianist looks like he’s there to direct the performance of a choir or orchestra:
- “Actually, I’m here to conduct an investigation.”
- “Actually, I’m the conductor of an investigation.”
This next joke is sick, sick, sick, but it made me laugh: “I was playing Hide and Seek with my granddaughter.”
I like the way this caption connects some classic film dialogue to a notorious serial killer: “Play it again, Son of Sam.”
Here’s the best of the few entries that address the shoe, and a fine example of a caption that highlights the obliviousness of the speaker: “Who threw that?”
Both of these captions note that the pianist is about to become a likely suspect:
- “Your fingerprints are all over the crime scene.”
- “Careful – you’re leaving a lot of fingerprints.”
As I did, one of you had the speaker suggesting a fitting composition: “Play the Funeral March.”
Here’s one for fans of Fargo, my favorite Coen Brothers’ film: “You sound like a wood chipper.”
And here are the rest of the best:
- “Just don’t let it happen in concert.”
- “Let’s skip the encore.”
- “Again, but softer.”
- “I always heard you could do that with piano wire.”
Every week it’s a struggle to select the best out of so many good captions, and this week is no exception. After much deliberation, I’m going with the deceptively simple, “You play a mean piano.”
ENTER THIS WEEK’S CAPTION CONTEST
Lawrence Wood has won The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting seven times and been a finalist two other times. He has collaborated with New Yorker cartoonists Peter Kuper, Lila Ash, Felipe Galindo Gomez, and Harry Bliss (until Bliss tossed him aside, as anyone would, to collaborate with Steve Martin). Nine of his collaborations have appeared in The New Yorker, and one is included in the New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons.