In Dan Misdea’s cartoon, a young boy is sitting at the base of a palm tree in a sandbox and addressing an adult woman who’s standing just outside the box.
The desert island trope has inspired many New Yorker cartoons, some of which feature a shipwreck survivor who resorts to desperate means to stay alive. My first two captions contain references to such cartoons and to playdates:
- “You were ten minutes late, so I ate the others.”
- “I ate him. I ATE MY BEST FRIEND!”
I then suggested that the boy is not marooned but is just enjoying himself on the beach:
- “This isn’t recess. It’s retirement.”
- “Can you put one of those little umbrellas in my juice box?”
Now let’s see how you did:
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one making cannibalism jokes:
- “I’ve seen and done things that no sane man would believe. Did you bring me a juice box?”
- “Because you were late picking us up, I had to eat Jimmy.”
- “Johnny? It was snack time, so I ate him.”
- “They’re all dead.”
Here are some less depraved desert island jokes:
- “My Mommy said she’d be right back. That was three years ago.”
- “I need juice boxes, graham crackers, and a flare gun.”
- “Can we have something besides fish tonight?”
- “I would’ve written help, but I can’t spell.”
- “So you saw my flare?”
- “What year is it?”
That fifth caption would be better without the word “so.”
In the next two entries suggest the boy is disappointed:
- “This is not how I envisioned spring break.”
- “Next year can we just go to Florida?”
But in this caption he’s annoyed: “The native is restless.”
Here are captions that are similar—and far superior—to two of my own:
- “It’s called early retirement.”
- “I’ll have a juice box with a tiny umbrella.”
I never saw the TV show “Survivor,” but I’ve heard enough about it to know it inspired these two entries:
- “My teachers voted me onto the island.”
- “Timmy was voted off.”
I don’t usually like meta captions, but since Misdea’s drawing is an obvious reference to the desert island trope that, as I stated above, inspired so many New Yorker cartoons, I’m making an exception this week:
- “When I grow up, I want to be a New Yorker cartoon.”
- “No one wants to play New Yorker cartoon with me.”
- “I’m going to be a cartoonist when I grow up.”
This final entry suggests that the boy just wants to relax when he grows up: “I know what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
This week’s winner is, “I’ll have a juice box with a tiny umbrella.”
Lawrence Wood has won The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting seven times and been a finalist four 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.