Joe Toplyn

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
    • “Monk”
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page

Tag Archives: humorous picture caption

How to Write a Funny Caption

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Joe Toplyn

Say you want to write a funny caption for this cartoon, which was the subject of Caption Contest #447 in The New Yorker.

New Yorker contest

You write funny captions for uncaptioned cartoons the same way you’d write jokes about a Found Photo, which is an unaltered photo that wasn’t originally intended to be funny. Examples of Found Photos are the animal photos on the website I Can Has Cheezburger?…

I Can Has Cheezburger? photo of puppy

…and the athletes’ headshots in the comedy piece “Superlatives” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Athlete headshot from "Superlatives" on "Tonight Show"

Follow these steps to write a funny caption for a cartoon, photo, or other picture:

A) Briefly describe the scene in the picture using its handles. The handles are the one or two most distinctive people or things in the picture and the action that those people or things are performing. This descriptive sentence will bridge the visual picture and a verbal punch line, i.e., the funny caption.

In the case of the New Yorker contest cartoon, the descriptive sentence would be something like, “A guy’s pets have psychotherapy.”

B) Use that descriptive sentence and the Punch Line Makers to create a funny caption. The Punch Line Makers are the six proven techniques for creating punch lines that I cover in my book Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV.

In the case of the New Yorker contest cartoon, the winning writer, Alonso Cisneros, apparently used Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. Here’s how he went about it.

The topic—the descriptive sentence—is “A guy’s pets have psychotherapy.”

New Yorker contestBrainstorming on the handle “pets” produces associations like “hair on the furniture,” “shelter animal,” “adoption,” “cat food,” “veterinarian,” “do tricks,” and “leash laws.”

Brainstorming on the handle “psychotherapy” yields associations like “depression,” “fifty-minute hour,” “my parents hate me,” “childhood trauma,” “I was adopted,” “couch,” and “Freud.”

At least one association, the one involving adoption, appears in similar form on both lists. Linking those two associations results in the winning caption:

“My pets found out they were adopted.”

C) Edit the caption using the Joke Maximizers. The Joke Maximizers are twelve tools for editing jokes to make them as funny as possible; I list them in my book. The writer of the winning caption used these Punch Line Makers:

Punch Line Maker #1: Shorten as much as possible. The caption doesn’t have any unnecessary words or syllables.

Punch Line Maker #2: End on the laugh trigger. The most surprising word in the caption—“adopted”—is at the very end.

Punch Line Maker #4: Make everything clear. Every word in the caption is simple. Not only that, the words “my pets” make it clear that the man on the couch is talking. That’s important because it’s not immediately clear from the drawing itself which human or animal is talking, if any.

For more tips on how to write Found Comedy, jokes, and other short-form comedy, get my book Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV.The book "Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV"

Posted in Writing Tips | Tags: caption contest, found comedy, funny caption, funny captions, funny photo caption, funny photos, funny picture caption, how to do funny captions, how to make funny captions, how to win a caption contest, how to write funny captions, how to write witty captions, humorous caption, humorous picture caption, I Can Has Cheezburger, Jimmy Fallon, Superlatives, The New Yorker, Tonight Show | Leave a comment |

Sign up to get more tips and offers from Joe.

Joe’s Tweets

Joe Toplyn 15 hours ago

Amazon offered to help President Biden distribute coronavirus vaccines. To be fair, Amazon Prime offered Donald Trump complimentary ad-free streaming of his impeachment trial.

Joe Toplyn 2 days ago

President Biden got right to work today. He's promising 100 million in his first 100 days. 100 million in his first 100 days. Not Covid vaccinations...overturned Trump policies.

Joe Toplyn 3 days ago

People are desperate. They want to know if they're eligible. They're trying to get on the list, waiting in long lines, sleeping in their cars. They all want to get one before the supply runs out. Yes, I'm talking about Presidential pardons.

Joe Toplyn 4 days ago

He's okay, but a man in Germany was hospitalized after a camel bit him in the face. Which answers the question, "Do German camels like jokes about 'Hump Day'?"

Categories

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Recent Posts

  • Joke About Biden’s Inauguration January 18, 2021
  • Joke About Trump’s Twitter Account January 11, 2021
  • Joke About Hilaria Baldwin January 4, 2021
  • Joke About Michael Jackson’s Ranch December 28, 2020
  • Joke About a Fight at Walmart December 21, 2020

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • February 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014

Categories

  • Joke Writing Workshop (283)
  • Late-Night Writing (13)
  • Writing Tips (12)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© 2014 Joe Toplyn. All Rights Reserved.