New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest

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TheYoungerStatesmen

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Original Transcript:

[open with image of New Yorker cover, with V.O. of narrator]

Narrator: Since its inception, the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest has become one of the most popular features of their weekly magazine. The contest is simple: each week the editors provide a cartoon drawing and asks readers to submit their own captions.

[drawing of a dog at a desk]

For example, upon seeing this cartoon illustration, Jan Claypool of White Plains, NY, sent in: "I've been working like a dog recently!"
Sifting through hundreds of submissions, the editors soon began to notice the captions by one man. Gerald Quimbler, a 56 year old from Danbury, Connecticut, refused to submit his captions traditionally, and instead sent in a new cassette tape every month.

[drawing of man at desk with enormous coffee cup]

Gerald: Ooooh! This coffee cup is really big! That's out of the ordinary!

[drawing of cat on a therapist couch]

Gerald: Oooh! I'm a talking cat, going to a therapist, no less! That's not possible, and therefore out of the ordinary!

[drawing of doctor taking temperature of dinosaur]

Gerald: Oooh! I appear nonchalant about the fact that a dinosaur is in my office, even though dinosaurs aren't alive anymore, nor would dinosaurs have the capacity to communicate their ailments to me, a human doctor! That's out of the ordinary!

Narrator: Now, for the first time ever, Cartoon Bank is offering a special edition six DVD box set of every Gerald Quimbler submission, including alternative takes and interviews.

Gerald: Well, I take a good, hard look at what's going on in these funny pictures. More often than not, it's something I'd have a hard time believing, even if it happened right in front of me. These "cartoonists," always trying to pull a fast one! Not on my watch, mister!

[drawing of a man upside down standing on a ceiling]

Oooh! I'm upside down, standing on this ceiling! That's out of the ordinary!

[drawing of a child holding a shrunken head up to his father]

Oooh! You found a shrunken head! Could it be that we, a white middle-to-upper-class family, happen to somehow live near an aboriginal tribe that still takes part in such rituals? That's out of the ordinary!

[drawing of a man and woman at a candle lit dinner]

Oooh! We... we're having dinner.

Narrator: Order today to add "Gerald Quimbler: the Master Caption Contest Submitter" to your collection! (