Prove Your Comedy Chops with Moment’s Cartoon Caption Contest
Welcome to the Moment Magazine Cartoon Caption Contest, founded with the help of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Ben Schwartz.
Do you have a way with words and humor? If so, look at the cartoon below and send us a caption—or two or three! Plus scroll down to vote for your favorite caption. It’s free and fun!
Winners may claim a free Moment subscription for a friend of family member. Contest open to U.S. residents 18 and above.
Submit a caption for this cartoon by April 20th by writing it in as a comment at the bottom of this page!
Vote for your favorite caption by filling out the form immediately below!
“I told you that I got the flu shot two weeks ago.”
Gerald Lebowitz, New York, NY
“So, whatcha readin’?”
Richard Wolf, Westminster, MD
“At least tonight it’s not a headache.”
Stephen Nadler, Princeton, NJ
Chuckle at the November/December 2017 winning caption—and see who wrote it!
“And why Super-man? What was wrong with Schultz-man?” — Adrian Storisteanu, Toronto, ON, Canada
How to Submit Your Caption(s)
Submit as a comment below by April 20, 2017. Finalists will appear in the May/June 2018 issue. To vote for the winner of the January/February 2018 contest (see finalists above), use the “vote form.”
“What do you THINK happens when you plant an Easter egg?”
“You wished for a rabbi? You simply have to learn to speak more clearly!”
I love vegetables from the Koshery Store.
“Trust me Farmer Gabe, you don’t wanna go down this rabbit hole.”
“Sorry, but what’s up?”
“Now before I make myself at home here, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, you know that you’re not allowed to eat me under the laws of kashrut; and, second, your wife has absolutely no plans to make either herself or you a rabbit fur hat.”
To RJ Wolf: Would you run me out of town on a rail if I suggested tinkering just a little with your caption (which, is, I think, better than all of mine so far) to make it read:
“Sorry, but what’s up, Doc … besides me?”
In addition to the wordplay , you’d have, at the very least, created a descendant of Bugs Bunny.
(I promise from now on not to insert my thoughts into any more of your great submissions.)
“My ancestors inhabited this burrow for 3500 years.”
“Were you expecting maybe the Baal Shem Tov?”
“You’re not thinking of raising the rent on my rent-stabilized rabbit hole, are you?”
“Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail will be up soon. They’re making for you a carrot tzimmes dish to die for.”
If Mel Brooks were riffing on the new cartoon, this might be something he’d write. (I really can’t presume to put words into the mouth of a genius, but it’s too tempting not to try.)
“Whatever you do, stay away from Mr. McGregor. He hates Jews. He’s the biggest anti-Semite there is. Beatrix Potter doesn’t tell the whole story in her book. It isn’t rabbits that he hates. It’s rabbis. He’s just a lousy speller. Another terrible speller was Louis Pasteur. He was really looking for a cure for rabbis,
and by mistake he cured rabies. Think about how many things in history happen for the wrong reason. Anyway, don’t go near that garden if you know what’s good for you. You can thank me later. And enjoy the tzimmes when my sisters bring it up.”
“I already have a mezuzah, thank you.”
To Dinah R: VERY funny caption; the arrow of humor goes straight into the heart before one has a chance to resist, freeing an explosive laugh; such an obvious line yet completely unexpected in this context. You’re GOOD. This should CERTAINLY be a finalist! Thanks for puncturing the balloons of pomposity, including and especially my own. That’s what great humor is supposed to do, and you certainly have succeeded, in spades! Thanks again for the wonderful surprise!
“You’re planting potatoes for my carrot kugel?”
Sorry Rabbi, you can’t use me in your magic tricks, because you have the wrong style hat.
“I came up to ask if you’ll be so kind as to officiate at my wedding. My girlfriend just accepted my proposal, and I presented her with a 14-carrot ring.”
“We’re all outta carrots”
“Could you plant an extra patch of carrots. We’re breeding like rabbits down here.”
You’re not Alice!
I hope those aren’t genetically modified carrot seeds your planting.
“Why not have an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there?”
“How come Old MacDonald never wanted borscht?”
“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! … Wait a minute! I’m in the wrong cartoon!”
Or perhaps another Lewis Carrol reference:
“Three questions. One, how can I have another cup of tea if I haven’t had a first? Two, whatever happened to the shiksa from the mix’a? And three, who the hell sat on your hat?”
Congrats btw to you, Stephen and Richard for last month’s entries.
Thank you.
To Jim Gorman: Thanks for your kind thoughts. Your words are gold and so mean a lot. They always indicate a mind combining warmth and scholarship and a marvelous sense of humor. Playing to me means more than winning, seeing how high our idea balloons can fly before they drift down, as they eventually must, and your conceits make beautiful patterns against the sky. Thanks again.
To Jim Gorman, again: Coincidentally, I’m now reading a biography of Sokei-an Sasaki, one of the first teachers of Japanese Rinzai Zen in America, who is quoted in conversation with a disciple: “Have you read Alice in Wonderland?” he asks. The disciple answers: “It is a delightful children’s book.” Sokei-an then replies: “I do not consider it simply a book for children. The author possesses insight like a real man of Zen … I use it with my students. Some of them are beginning to make real progress.”
“Begin at the beginning,” Lewis Carroll’s King says, “and go on till you come to the end; then stop.” (Sort of reminds one of that other Zen teacher, Yogi Berra, who famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
“We’re all mad here,” says the Cheshire cat. “I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” asks Alice. “You must be,” says the cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” Reminding me of a guy who once said to me, very confidently, “I’d never have a wife who cheated on me.” “How could you be so sure?” I asked. “Easy,” he told me. “If she cheated on me, she’d no longer be my wife.” How’s that for a sample of the convoluted logic that’s the property of both sages and madmen? (Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.)
In any case, the poor rabbit in our cartoon koan is clearly out of his element, waiting for us to bail him out. Sorry for this hasty reply, but it gives me the chance to give a really big thank you to Cindy Tebo, whose VERY insightful caption altered the whole path we’re taking. (This site does have a great group of contributors, each one contributing a brick to the house we all try to build every two months.)
“Rabbi?! I was expecting that Alice shiksa.”
“Be fruitful and multiply and all that, but some carrots would be nice right now.”
Variant:
“Be fruitful and multiply and all that, but some carrots would be really nice right now.”
“I don’t do Easter, really.”
“Rabbit, true, but I’m no chicken.”
“I’m not an ordinary rabbit. My mother was once a Playboy bunny.”
Are you Rabbi McGregor?
Don’t forget to say the Ha’Adama when it’s time to harvest!
Ehhh, what’s up doctrine?
Sometimes I think that we all really live in Alice’s world. What other world could Trump be president of? Yesterday I was listening to some PhD on talk radio railing against the inadequacies of the treatments offered patients by practitioners in the mental health field and was startled to suddenly hear him shout, “Anyone who who goes to a psychiatrist or other therapist today should have his head examined!!”
I could swear that I heard Lewis Carroll laughing.
“Am I too early for the seder?”
“Oops, my mistake. I was looking for someone heimish, not Amish.”
Caption: “Don’t bury me! The Lord said keep animals alive,”
I thought I heard a Nor’Easter.
Lettuce pray.
Amen!
Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?
“You mean you really don’t care that it’s rabbit season?”
“Rabbi, you ask me whether or not I’m a rabbit. I think I’m a rabbit. I eat all the foods that rabbits eat. I live in a rabbit burrow. And my parents always called me a rabbit. But, you know, I’ve met some confusing people lately who insist that I’m not a rabbit. Don’t you think that they’re just splitting hares?”
“You know, I once was a rabbi just like you, but at her party, Alice transformed me by offering me some “t,” which I promptly put at the end of my title.
You look surprised. What did you expect – carrots?
“The Easter bunny gets all the publicity, but I’ve been around a lot longer than he has–the Pesadicher bunny, at your service.”
“My father made me promise to ask, before I got too comfortable here, whether Elmer Fudd was anywhere in the vicinity.”
“Mr. Landlord, In the apartment we’ve inhabited,
Well, we haven’t been too inhibited,
And the result, to plead our case,
Is that we need much much more space.”
Speaking of rabbits multiplying, has anyone not heard the story of the French rabbit who takes his young son aside, saying, “My boy, your mother and I have decided that you are old enough to learn the facts of life. In front of you in the field is a long line of female rabbits. What you have to remember is to greet each one as you approach her by saying ‘bonjour,’ and then at the end to part with her by saying ‘merci.’ Do you understand?” The boy nods and goes down the line at first slowly and then more and more quickly: “Bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … ohhhhhh … pardon, Papa!!”
To Stephen Nadler: I’m a little surprised that, given the fact that John Updike is one of your favorite writers, with all this talk of rabbits you haven’t yet surrendered to the temptation of submitting a caption referencing arguably the most influential literary rabbit of all, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, featured in at least four of Updike’s acclaimed novels. I wouldn’t know how to do it, but you might very well be able to in a humorous way to make us all smile, as you usually do with all the captions you submit. Best wishes.
Thanks, Gerald. It never occurred to me to introduce such a decidedly WASPish character from such a decidedly WASPish novelist.
“I hope those are organic…”
“I was once a beautiful princess who was transformed into a rabbit by a wicked witch and can only be changed back by a kiss from a handsome prince and, oy, I can see that I’m in a lot of trouble.”
Hey! You just missed me by a hare!
“To me, organic is better than kosher.”
“We don’t need an introduction
If it’s too much of a bother,
But my name is Harry Angstrom
And John Updike is my father.”
(For Stephen Nadler, no cigar, not even close,
but thought I’d give it a try …)
Run, rabbi, run! . . .
Cigar!
“I just don’t feel as energetic as I normally do.”
“You call it dirt…..I call it “Home Sweet Home”.
This is a community garden, isn’t it?
“Rabbi, there’s no need for you to be wasting your time digging around like that. I’m from TaskRabbit, and our online marketplace can quickly provide Taskers to offer any sort of home assistance to you so that you can more valuably spend your time studying Torah.”
N.B. If anyone bothers to check, you’ll find that there really IS a business called TaskRabbit (www.taskrabbit.com) which connects homeowners and others with qualified Taskers (not real rabbits, though) to help them with almost any task they want done. When I heard about this enterprise, I thought, Why shouldn’t our hardworking cartoon rabbi take advantage of it? Thus the caption.
I do hope that the help he’ll receive will enable him to really devote more time to Torah. Cheers.
No more potatoes. Carrots, just carrots. I’ve put on ten extra pounds already.
[For Gerald Lebowitz:]
“Rabbi Angstrom? Rabbit Angstrom here. I’m afraid neither one of us lives up to John Updike’s conception.”
To SN: Rabbit Angstrom was an Immaculate Conception and worth two Pulitzer Prizes, if my memory serves. Who could live up to that? Updike, by the way, as I’m sure you know, loved art and especially cartooning, and his essays on art are my favorites. When he was an undergraduate at Harvard, he saw art as his future. If he were alive today, I’m sure that he would take an avid interest in all the new forms of graphic storytelling that are appearing, a far cry from the primitive stories in Action Comics #1, which appeared in 1938 and began the Golden Age of Comics.
Thanks for connecting. It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.
To SN again: I just re-read my previous post to you above and came to the last sentence: “It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.” Those words could easily express one’s feeling about G-d, couldn’t they? “Observing even when not commenting” also reminds me a little of Stan Lee’s 1960’s Marvel Comics creation The Watcher, a man who was directed to observe everything but was not supposed to interfere, although he often violated that directive to aid the Fantastic Four and other Marvel heroes, just as you descend from time to time to aid us …. 🙂
Excelsior!
“Dig, man, dig! Save a hand puppeteer!”
To SN: “Excelsior”? Then you must also have been a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Do you know what words often dance around my head at the oddest moments? Not from Gilbert and Sullivan or Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin or even Shakespeare or Keats or Shelley or anyone else you might expect. No, it’s
“When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield”
from that small Marvel promotional record that I once listened to, over and over again.
Underneath all our layers of adult sophistication often lie the more meaningful passions of a child, don’t they?
‘Nuff said.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of rabbits pulled out of hats; why then should you be so surprised when one pops out of your garden?”
“Rabbi, I’d like you to share some of your talmudic wisdom with me. How come so many people consider a rabbit’s foot to be a symbol of good luck when it obviously wasn’t good luck to the rabbit it came from?”
“We’ve had seven litters—what we call mitzvahs!”
To SN, your excellent caption made me curious, so I did some checking (that’s one way to learn). It seems that a single female rabbit (a doe) can have one to fourteen babies per litter and can mate and get pregnant again right after giving birth. You do the math: one litter (say, average six babies) a month equals 72 offspring a year for one rabbit! For your Jewish rabbit, the mitzvahs would quickly turn into nightmares–imagine having to plan and cater 72 bar/bat mitzvahs each year! Would your rabbit be able to file for bankruptcy?
Turning a liability into an asset, however, your rabbit would be very good at poker. He’d always have a full house.
(Ouch! I know that’s bad.)
Oh, by the way, the gestation period (the time from conception to delivery) for a female rabbit is only 30 days, more or less, thus the insulting phrase “they breed like rabbits” used by people like Pope Francis against those who are looked at as contributing to the world’s overpopulation when they could instead be civilized and use birth control. In other words, Dr. Nadler’s rabbit would be the subject of scorn from many quarters, even as it went to synagogue and thanked G-d for all the mitzvahs it received.
[For Gerald Lebowitz]
“Here’s my impression of Bugs Bunny reading Rabbit, Run: ‘Eh… What’s Updike?'”
SN: Your masterpiece. Quit now, take the money, and run. You’ll never do better than this.
There’s money?
The money, figuratively speaking of course, is measured by the good will you always share with all of us through your humor. You’re a rich man in many more ways than one.
I’m out of work because the hats are all sold out!”
Perhaps we could have a two garden solution.
I thought it would be safe to steal your carrots on a Saturday. . . I didn’t realize you were Amish.
“Are you a Jewish Uncle Remus?”
“I don’t care how cute your daises would look, Dave. I don’t invade your home”
“Please tell me that story again about Brer Rabbit playing a trick on the Conservative rabbi!”
“How much might it be worth to you if no one were to disturb your crops through, say, Sukkot?”
*Rabbit Noises*
*Rabbit Noises*
*Rabbi Noises*
“It’s Shabbat, I’ll take care of it.”
SN: It almost looks as if you’ve created a backstory for that great animated/live action movie of the 80’s, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in which the title tune character is accused of murder and fights to be cleared. Now, thanks to you, we learn that he really hadn’t been exactly law-abiding before the murder took place.
Gerald, that never crossed my mind.
A long time ago I took an English course in which I wrote a paper that the professor found all kinds of insights in that I had been unaware of. When I went up to him after class, he said that a writer is allowed to claim credit for anything valuable that a reader finds in his work. So you are entitled to that same credit for your piece on the innocent-looking rabbit engaged in his version of the protection racket that later is somehow linked to the Roger Rabbit movie. (By the way, the teacher of my course was Mark Van Doren, the critic and Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, so his opinion was not just a flash in the pan offered by a teaching assistant.) In any event, I’m confident that your rabbit will beat the rap.