In Amy Kurzweil’s cartoon, a young woman in a bathrobe is showing another woman, who’s fully though casually dressed, her bedroom closet. Inside the closet, neatly arranged on the shelves, are several large jars, each of which contains a human brain floating in some kind of solution and attached to tubes. The woman in the bathrobe is holding up her right index finger and speaking. Kurzsweil’s original caption puts a spin on a common phrase—“Hold on, let me change.”—by suggesting that the woman will be changing not her outfit but her personality.
The next six entries transform other ordinary phrases into fitting captions:
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- “I change my mind a lot.”
- “I prefer brains over brawn.”
- “I got the brains of the family.”
- “My sister got the beauty.”
- “I wish I had your brains.”
- “I’d love to pick your brain.”
One of you took a common line and modified it by changing just the last word: “Let me slip into something a little more thoughtful.”
While someone else changed the last two words: “Let me change into something a little less depressed.”
This entry refers to the color of the preserved organs: “I feel like my wardrobe has too much gray.”
The next two entries reinforce tired sexist stereotypes, but they also made me laugh:
- “I expected to solve anti-gravity, but they’re just interested in sports.”
- “…and I still can’t balance my checkbook.”
Here’s the week’s best pun: “I’m racking my brains.”
Best sex joke: “I do let them keep their testicles.”
Best lawyer joke: “I’ve always had really good divorce attorneys.”
And best reference to “Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg: “I’ve seen the best minds of my generation closeted in jars, destroyed by madness, hysterical to be unplugged.” That was Kurzweil’s favorite entry.
This next entry is brilliant, as it reconciles the drawing’s disparate elements (women’s clothing, especially intimate apparel, and the horror of collecting and preserving human brains) by playing on the punchline’s double-meaning: “Here’s where I keep my unmentionables.”
Here are two decent jokes that would be much stronger without the introductory clause or phrase:
- “It’s a puzzle, Deb. Why do men get so awkward around girls with brains?”
- “I swear—I don’t just want you for your body.”
That last caption was the only entry to suggest a romantic relationship between the two women.
This next caption explains, better than most of the other entries, why the woman in the bathrobe is holding up her index finger: “Now, before I show you my collection, I want you to keep an open mind.”
The next two captions work because they acknowledge the shocking nature of the situation while intentionally ignoring the shocking element:
- “My lack of closet space is horrifying.”
- “Tell no one about these slippers.”
Bob Mankoff is tired of this kind of caption because it’s formulaic. Once you understand the formula—surprise the reader by ignoring the obvious—it’s easy to apply it to any captionless drawing. I understand Bob’s point, and I agree that formulaic captions are less interesting, but “slippers” still made me laugh.
This entry cleverly alludes to an idiom while drawing a distinction between different parts of the human anatomy: “Nope. Not skeletons.”
I don’t care for the next caption, but the other panelists (Bob Mankoff, Trevor Hoey, and Joel Mishon) really like it: “They’re not worth a damn until they’ve had their coffee.” I still don’t get it.
This caption focuses on the method of preservation: “Why stop at pickles?”
The next two entries clarify that the woman in the bathrobe is a cold-blooded murderer:
- “With that brain-snatching serial killer on the loose, I’m glad you’re staying here tonight.”
- “I’m sorry about last night. I don’t know who that person was.”
This entry downplays the horror of the situation by comparing it to a much more common method of preservation: “No one questions the eggs in the fridge.”
Congratulations to ANDREW WELHOUSE, who submitted this month’s winning entry: “Let me slip into something a little more thoughtful.”
Here are the five runners-up:
- “…and I still can’t balance my checkbook.”
- “Here’s where I keep my unmentionables.”
- “No one questions the eggs in the fridge.”
- “I got the brains of the family.”
- “They’re not worth a damn until they’ve had their coffee.”
For those of you who want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and that discussion is posted here.