Oh no, now you have to SING for your cartoon caption?

This is New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's assistant, known as Marc Philippe Eskenaz (short for Marc Philippe Eskenazi), singing the first of two hypothetical songs, "This Cartoon Ain't Got No Caption," with lyrics by Goings On About Town editor Ben Greenman.

by Ken

With just one Wednesday left in 2012, meaning just one last call for an e-newsletter-slash-blogpost for the year, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff has declared himself "All Thunked Out, Almost," a state he visualizes thusly:

But, at the point of giving up, Bob focused in on the left side of that gauge and the almostness of his thunked-outness (onsite you can see a detail of this left-side focusing and of the almost-thunked-outness). "I wasn't going to post anything at all," he writes, "but, on closer inspection, I saw there was a little bit left in the tank." ("And besides," he writes, "I really liked the way my hair looked." There's an onsite detail of that too.) The result is that, depending on your perspective, he either pulled it out or went a little bit nuts. Okay, maybe more than a little bit nuts.

With the collaboration -- as noted in the caption above -- of his assistant, "Marc Philippe Eskenazi, who we call Marc Philippe Eskenaz for short," and New Yorker Goings on About Town editor Ben Greenman, he has supplied "two theme songs to get you started."

Started on what, you ask? On writing your own song, of course. Just send it to cartoondepartment@gmail.com, and we’ll post the winning entry on YouTube, with Marc handling the song styling.

I've thought long and hard about this, and the only thing I can think of to say is: Huh??? A cartoon-caption song???


And here, sure enough, "to get you started," is Marc Philippe singing the second song: "Imagine There's No Caption." Don't get me started.

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