April 27th, 2011
03:52 PM ET
Roger Ebert wins New Yorker caption contestA big thumbs up to Roger Ebert—the film critic has finally won the cartoon-caption contest in the New Yorker. "I have entered the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest almost weekly virtually since it began and have never even been a finalist," Ebert noted on his Chicago Sun-Times blog two years ago. "It's not that I think my cartoon captions are better than anyone else's, although some weeks, understandably, I do," the film critic said. "It's that just once I want to see one of my damn captions in the magazine that publishes the best cartoons in the world. Is that too much to ask?" No, it's not. "To the delight of film fans, film criticism fans, caption contest fans, and Roger Ebert fans—and count me among all of the above—Mr. Ebert has finally fulfilled his quest to win the New Yorker caption contest," editor Robert Mankoff wrote in this week's issue. The cartoon depicts a man and a woman who have been trekking through the desert with shopping bags, trying to find where they parked their car. The woman appears to be speaking to the man as they stand under a sign with a letter "F" on top. "I'm not going to say the word I'm thinking of," Ebert wrote as her caption. After congratulating Ebert, Mankoff clarified that he actually entered the contest 107 times before finally winning for cartoon No. 281. But, Mankoff added, "I see he has entered contest No. 282, so stay tuned."
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Another New Yorker comic showed a man cutting down every tree on every hillside with a chainsaw for miles, with a few more to go, and Ebert's entry caption was (paraphrasing) "I just hate you." HAHAHAHAHAHA! I thought he won for that one! I hope he does, You do have to have a wry sense of humor to understand their comics.
Eat it Vincent Gallo!!!!
I give that lame attempt 2 thumbs WAY down. The other entries must have really sucked.
"I know...I just farted too."
Hi. Bob DiPasquale, self proclaimed caption contest expert here. While I've won Dave Lettermen's online Top 10 contest three times, my continued cracks at the New Yorker always seem to fall short too. I'm an application developer by day, and I approached the New Yorker years ago on how to run a better caption contest. I think it may have been Mr Mankoff himself that agreed my idea had some merit Alas, he passed though, so I built a web site where members both judge and submit. Every caption gets ranked, and you truly learn how funny you are. I don't have the resources yet to reach the quality found at the New Yorker's contest, but I could at least tell Roger what his HumorQ is. You'll have to be clever to find the site I guess. No spamming here in the comments section.
A disaster of a website.
It would be a disaster if lots of rude people joined, but while it's true our coding could use some tweaking, our mission is on target, and we have the beginnings of something great.
That is 1% creative,1% witty and 98% not funny. No way that was the best submission. Wait..are they supposed to be funny?
Really? That's funny? Lame.
Honey,can you get off the marquee blog & help our dear baby!!Please get off that computer so I can take you to the crazy docter!!CNN does replace your family!!
"Best cartoons in the world?" I'll have to agree. I never picked an issue off the rack without chuckling at
a killer toon. They're in a class by themselves. Congrats Rog, funny (witty) caption.
his wife's name is Chaz and she is a Judge in Illinois. I think that she has her own money, and more importantly, she loves him. She took "for better or worse" literally...more of us should do that. Congrats Roger!
Thank you, but you didn't need to answer the idiot who thought that money is the only thing a woman wants.
He has a blog, too. It's generally great, and at times incredible. Even the comments are worth reading! HIGHLY recommended.
please let producers know the last book of the Bible is Revelation not Revelations it would be nice if they would educate themselves on bibilical history also
Yes! Don't want to get the name of the fairy-tale wrong!!
plz let supernatural producers know the last book of the Bible is REvelation notRevelations thank you
I have been a fan of his for many years now.
Roger is a Great Great Movie Critic.
Long overdue in comming, we are big fans.
A wonderful man and talent, we are proud of this honor.
he is most deserving of this accolade.
Who's the black chick? Is that who married him for his money?
You have a knack for showing stupidity on so many levels.
And you, my friend, have a knack for taking the lowest level bait.
He bought her at the Dollar Tree.
Sorry, but I don't think the caption is funny. Maybe the judges were just being kind because Ebert is so sick.
I have to agree-I like Ebert as a film critic, but that line is completely hacky and I am sure there had to be many other hacks who submitted something similar. This had to be a pity vote.
I'll bet at least 100 people sent in that painfully obvious, and not terribly funny, caption. He was either selected from a draw or by a sympathetic editor who wanted to get some good publicity...
I'll take that bet - $100?
the New Yorker is for stuffy, snobby people who want to look down their noses at us and pretend they are better because they're "sophisticated".
Let's see: most New Yorker readers know more than you or I, do more to improve society than you or I, dress better, look better (cancer notwithstanding), are less likely to attend weekly mass hysteria and brainwashing sessions in tax-dodging churches, are less likely to be birthers, racists, or resort to physical violence and guns to settle arguments with strangers or exert control over a spouse.... uhh, yeah..., with equal parts admiration and envy, I think that qualifies as "better".
No, most readers "think" they know more than the rest of us. Typical d0uchebag intelligentsia. Obviously, you're one.
Yeah, just like those high & mighty People & Us & TV Guide readers - they think they're so smart 'cause they're fillin' their heads with all thet pointy-head innelleckshual stuff. Huh. I'll just take my Economist and ol' fashioned ol' counry dark beer a comfy chair an' you kin keep all that other, heah?
Give 'em a break. The cartoons are the most important part of the New Yorker. Better than others? No, but how many people get to read cartoons anymore? You don't get the funnies on T.V., whether you watch news or soaps... right, those are disappearing too. All we'll have left is "reality" shows: and those people truly do pretend to be "better" than everybody else. Sure the ads are irritating, but the rest of the New Yorker pokes fun at wealth and privilege.
"Bite Me" and "Knievel" are two sad, angry losers who recognize their, ahem, shortcomings but will never admit them. Instead they lash out at their "betters" in education, achievement, and contributions to society at every opportunity and yet adoringly worship the right wing gazillionaires like Bush, Cheney, and Trump who manipulate and exploit them. BM, Evel, and the teabaggers deride "LBRLS" for advocating and drfending the freedoms of speech and from state religion that were the Founders' Gift and warning to America. Sucker born every minute and it would be funny if they were all not so dangerous. They hve the same mob mentality that burned innocent young schoolgirls as witches in the 1690s and 250 years later destroyed and exiled innocent screenwriters and porofessors... what Evel, Joe McCarthy, Hitler and Mussolini called "the intelligentsia... ironically always the first massacred in communist takeovers as well.
It looks like someone did some movie special effects on his face.
You sound like a dufus.
@E-K: You are either incredibly ignorant or outrageously hateful.
Better to be part of the "d0uchebag intelligentsia" than be a d0uchebag ignoramous like you.
I read recently that someone made him a prosthesis for his chin for TV appearances, which he may be wearing in this photo. (He still can't speak while using the prosthesis; he still uses the computerized-voice tool.) So by calling this "movie special effects," Evel may not be making such a leap here.
Here is Ebert's own blog entry about his prosthetic chin: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/after_surgery_i_studiously_avo.html
Evel, too bad special effects werent around during your lousy motorbike jumping escapades.
Hey, when I won that contest, it didn't make national news!! Anyway, welcome to the club, Roger!
It should have been "uck."
Ha! Brilliant 🙂
And step in the muck?
Elizabeth: The caption would have been better if the frustrated couple standing under the "F" was simply "uck."
If you don't get it, that's okay.
Just goes to show you the old saying 'If at first you dont succeed, try, try again' can come true. His perserverance finally paid off. He has more courage/self respect/dignaty and determination, than anyone Ive seen in quite a long time. It took him 281 times to get it right, and hes already entered again. Good for him! And to all of you who have something nasty to say about the man...he has more redeeming qualities than any of you could ever dream of.
But his caption isn't particularly funny. It's just a fairly obvious mild witticism paired with an incongruous image - oh, wait. It's for the "New Yorker." Makes perfect sense now.
Got a good joke you'd like to share with us?
I see you are quite familiar with the New Yorker's get dry sense of humor LOL
Good for him, I suppose. But, that was the winning entry? Really. What did the losing entries look like.
Congrats, Mr. Ebert! I'm damned jealous!!
I don't get it.
Look at the free publicity New Yorker magazine gets and the boost to circulation. I mean this is like a 30 million dollar ad campaign for totally free. They should pick a celebrity entry every few months or so because this is pure icing on the cake, and its totally and completely free.
Good for him!
Roger finally won because he stopped sending in clever entries and just sent in the obvious one. Regardless, congrats.
Its funny to see that a man who thinks no video game could ever be art somehow sees the cartoons in the New Yorker to be some kind of Americana. All irony aside – good for him. Tenacity is to be applauded.
That's because every time Roger's looked at a video game, it's always been someone absurd like RESIDENT EVIL or GRAND THEFT AUTO. If he'd take the time to look at something cinematic, like HARD RAIN, he'd see just what a video game can do.
Irony is not defined as when someones taste is different from yours.
He stole that from Ziggy. Just ask J. Peterman.
winner
This is a male. "Ebert wrote as her caption"
Her caption, as in, the lady in the cartoon's caption.
I think we've all learned a valuable lesson today about ambiguous antecedents.
I had no difficulty understanding it, but Duke you are funny.
I never would have recognized him from that photo.
He can't speak due to his cancer but that hasn't kept him down.
Google any or par of this Roger Ebert: Remaking my voice and/or TED.
A truly amazing man.
He had to have jaw reconstruction after salivary gland cancer.
Wally was just saying he didn't recognize him. Guess what neither did I. I don't live under any rock I just don't really watch pointless celebrities and listen to their idiotic gossip like you do.
Meh.
I'm so happy to see that we live in an age where people feel the need to post something, even if they have nothing to post at all
psh
Good news. Happy for you.
Congrats!
This is your typical Donald Trump supporter!
http://youtu.be/35qxfxAj1mY