Another Ebert Milestone

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 27, 2011 6:40PM

A couple back, Roger Ebert groused that he had never won The New Yorker's weekly cartoon caption contest. "I have done more writing for free for the New Yorker in the last five years than for anybody in the previous 40 years," he joked. For a writer as prolific and witty as Ebert, the weekly snubs must have hit hard and are on the level of Susan Lucci only winning one Daytime Emmy for the role of Erica Kane in more than 20 years of being nominated.

Ebert can finally add "New Yorker cartoon caption contest winner" to his resume, with this entry. The New Yorker's Robert Mankoff also noted that Ebert was exaggerating a little bit when he wrote that he had entered every caption contest since its inception:

Out of a possible two hundred and eighty contests leading up to his win in No. 281, the Bureau of Cartoon Caption Contest Statistics reports that he entered only a hundred and seven, which puts him in five hundred and sixty-ninth place out of 502,416 unique entrants, who have submitted a total of 1,595,506 captions.

Mankoff also shared his other favorite Ebert captions with readers.

upon hearing the news, Ebert was practically giddy with joy, declaring "Victory is mine!" We imagine the winning entry is now being framed and set on Ebert's mantle, next to his Pulitzer Prize.