How to Write a New Yorker Cartoon Caption: Rhett and Link Edition

(bell softly chimes)

Hey we're Rhett and Link.

We're about to write some captions for some

New Yorker cartoons.

All right let's get into it.

So we've got a-- - Adam and Eve scene.

A biblical creation scenario.

With a pie.

It's a little play on the fact that it was

supposedly an apple.

Okay, you got something, you being secretive about it.

That's cool.

It's a long one.

Uh, do you want me to use that to cover up my junk?

Because it looks pretty hot.

It has a double meaning, actually. - It's piping.

Yeah but also his junk is hot.

Right.

(percussive music)

Okay.

This is an office setting.

We've got some bewildered people in the foreground.

We've got, they call that the stocks, Link.

Stocks can mean the modulating prices

of publicly traded financial assets,

or it can mean that.

Unless it means both.

Therein comedy.

You got something?

Yeah. - Okay, go for it.

'Cause I really don't have anything.

I don't like corporate humor.

This is my favorite part of the series,

the writing and the waiting.

I don't know why they don't cut it out.

All right let's see it.

Here it is.

[Rhett] I heard IT found Pornhub in his search history.

That's good, that's good.

What's Pornhub?

I wouldn't - I don't know.

I just heard people talk about it.

(percussive music)

All right, so, we got a businessman in his bed,

angry. - He's upset at this guy.

He might be getting fired.

Let's go extreme.

Concise, crisp.

No!

I'm not the one who is fully dressed for work

yet still standing in my vertically-oriented bed.

You are the one awkwardly hovering over my bed

like a ghost or something.

Oh, so you're seeing this,

you're seeing this like this.

But he's not!

You're gonna have to request that the magazine

puts it in 90 degrees, and probably we're gonna have to get

the artist to-- - Sign it.

We can probably cut and paste.

(percussive music)

Here we go, different style here.

We got a man in a hamster wheel.

Like a telemarketer. - Oh yeah.

Situation. - Running the rat race.

This is sort of a different style, you know?

Yeah that looks like toenail clippings.

I got something.

I probably shouldn't have worn a tie.

(percussive music)

All right, I got one that's not as good as that.

Okay great, that should go second then.

Hello, could I interest you in some slightly used

toenail clipping carpet?

He's selling it.

[Rhett] I get it.

(percussive music)

Uh-oh, we're in the market for some cat humor.

Now Rhett hates cats.

I'm not a fan of cats.

Looks like an intervention.

What's like an opening, the typical opening line

of an intervention?

You could twist that for the cat.

Well usually something like, Virgil,

there's something we need to talk about.

We called this meeting to address the--

Something very small and cat-like.

Boop, issue. - Yeah.

You got something?

I'm just gonna leave it blank.

Oh really?

In the time it's gonna take me to write all those words,

you'll have the answer. - All right, okay.

[Link] It's a lot of words.

You can read your part.

We've requested the honor of your presence

to address the-- - Fact that your

entire species is an abomination to the planet

and it was a mistake to ever domesticate felines, issue.

Teamwork.

(percussive music)

So we've got, this look like a,

I was gonna say a boy and a dog, but--

[Link] It's a bearded man.

That's a man and a dog.

Two women at the airport.

They're about to depart.

I mean I have something.

It's gonna be so cool later today when my boyfriend

and his dog freeze to death.

I like that, so it's, this is,

she's murdering them.

(Rhett chuckles)

Yeah.

(percussive music)

Oh okay, another situation where we've got--

Torture happening, this is good.

There's a woman not standing in a bucket

of what I presume to be cement.

While two people over here are each bound

and standing in buckets.

I mean I got a simple one.

[Link] Okay.

So you guys aren't drinking tonight?

Just kinda bypassing the whole

what might be happening to them.

You also bypassed the comedy.

(Rhett chuckles)

(percussive music)

Okay so we've got a post-apocalyptic scenario.

[Rhett] So what might he be saying to her?

To his mom?

Uh, I don't think that's his mom.

I would say this is a couple because, I mean,

she's already frustrated with what he's saying.

It's a joke somewhere in the fact that

she's disappointed because what happened is his fault.

Sharpie's in your court.

Okay, I think I got one.

Here we go.

What about, I told you you left the oven on.

Mom.

I like that even better.

Now it works for me.

(percussive music)

The old walk the plank situation.

He's doing it with gusto.

The great Piratini does not simply walk the plank.

I like that, I've kinda got an angle on that.

If I'd have known he could do that,

I wouldn't have killed him.

I think you should have done it in a pirate voice.

Arr, if I had known he could have done that,

I wouldn't have killed him.

That made it funnier.

(percussive music)

I'll tell you, this isn't easy.

I think it helps if you're just sitting alone

in a very lonely apartment with a laptop.

I think that's really the best scenario

for writing great captions.

So you don't want me to be there.

(Rhett chuckles)