“Rapid Fire,” a 1992 action film starring Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon, is not a great movie—the late film critic, Gene Siskel, declared it a disaster—but Powers Booth has one great scene in it. He plays Lieutenant Mace Ryan. While bowling with his colleagues he tries to get a spare and leaves just one pin standing. He then takes his service revolver and blasts the remaining pin to hell. I’d like to think that Robert Leighton’s drawing is an homage to that scene.
My first two captions acknowledge that a bowler armed with a revolver could be very intimidating:
- “You win.”
- “The other team just forfeited.”
In my next caption, the speaker’s not intimated at all: “Nice shot, but your foot was over the line.” (Even though the shooter appears to be well behind the foul line, I’m assuming he stepped back before his companion said anything.)
I next imagined the speaker offering advice, like a Monday morning quarterback, on how to knock down two pins with one shot:
- “You need a shotgun.”
- “Graze it on the side so it slides across the lane and strikes the remaining pin.”
My final two captions rely on a couple of bowling terms: “post a shot” (defined as retaining a balanced position after throwing the ball), and “deadwood” (defined as a pin that is left in the lane and beyond the sweeper’s reach.)
- “That’s not how you post a shot.”
- “That’s dead wood.”
Now let’s see how you did:
This entry is identical to one of my own—“You win”—and one of many captions that allude to the fear an armed bowler would inspire. Here’s a sampling of some of the others:
- “No, no problem.”
- “This is why we can’t get in a league.”
- “We’ll just go ahead and mark it a spare.”
- “I don’t want to keep score any more.”
- “Yes, I heard them threaten you, too.”
- “This could explain why the pinsetters went home.”
The next two entries are similar and superior to my shotgun caption:
- “A 7-10 split needs a shotgun.”
- “You need a shotgun for that split.”
And these are similar to but shorter, and therefore better, than my “over the line” caption:
- “Your foot was over the line.”
- “Your foot was past the foul line.”
- “You crossed the line.”
Here’s an entry that’s similar to one of my captions but misplaces the punchline, which should appear at the end: “I guess the other team forfeits. They just left the building.” The underlying joke is good—the shooter scared the hell out of the other team—but the word “forfeit,” which is the obvious punchline, is buried in the middle of the caption. The second sentence is unnecessary and serves only to undermine the joke’s effectiveness. That’s why my variation on the exact same joke—“The other team just forfeited”—is better.
While I relied on little-known bowling terms for a couple of my captions, one of you dug up an even more obscure term for this entry: “That was a killer shot.” For those who don’t know, a “killer shot” completes a spare. But here’s my issue with that entry. The shooter was hoping for a spare by knocking down the two pins remaining in what appears to be a 7-10 split, but he got only one pin and therefore did not actually make a “killer shot.”
Any drawing that features a gun is bound to elicit some Second Amendment captions, and these were among the best:
- “I’m not sure that’s what the Founding Fathers had in mind.”
- “Well, it’s my First Amendment right to tell you that isn’t how it’s done.”
- “So, Bob says you’re a schoolteacher.”
That last caption might offend those who think it makes light of the horrific school shootings that happen on a regular basis in this country. But I see it as a sharp-witted critique of those who suggest that the best way to prevent such tragedies is not through sensible gun-control but by arming teachers.
Here’s another anti-gun entry: “If you had any balls, you wouldn’t need a gun.”
And here’s a reference to a Winter Olympics sport that combines cross-country skiing and shooting: “I like this biathalon for old, fat guys.”
Although we don’t see any beer bottles in the drawing, it’s safe to assume the bowlers have been drinking so this entry deserves attention: “Another round?”
“He shoots, he scores” is something you expect to hear at a hockey game, not a bowling alley, but it fits the drawing so I’m including it among this week’s better entries.
I’ll end this week’s commentary with five strong entries that don’t fit into any particular category:
- “Still upset about the split?”
- “You shouldn’t bowl when you’re loaded.”
- “I’ll have to check the rule book.”
- “Did you try hitting reset?”
- “You left your ball at the shooting range again, didn’t you?”
As a 57-year-old man who could stand to lose some weight, my choice for the best entry of the week is, “I like this biathalon for old, fat guys.” Bob Mankoff, who is thin, will probably choose something else.