Prove Your Comedy Chops with Moment’s Cartoon Caption Contest
Welcome to the Moment Magazine Cartoon Caption Contest, founded with the help of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Ben Schwartz.
Do you have a way with words and humor? If so, look at the cartoon below and send us a caption—or two or three! Plus scroll down to vote for your favorite caption. It’s free and fun!
Winners may claim a free Moment subscription for a friend of family member. Contest open to U.S. residents 18 and above.
Plus: Read interviews with some of our most prolific caption contest contributors here.
Submit a caption for this cartoon by October 28 by writing it in as a comment at the bottom of this page!
Vote for your favorite caption by filling out the form immediately below!
“So how much longer before you evolve in to a doctor?”
—Cary Antebi, Brooklyn, NY
“You’re one step away from Shlomo sapiens.”
—Arkady Elterman, Boston, MA
“It’s all about survival of the Yiddish.”
—Stephen Nadler, Princeton, NJ
Vote for your favorite! The winner will receive a free subscription to Moment to give to a friend. Any U.S. resident age 18 or older can enter.
Chuckle at the Spring 2020 winning caption—and see who wrote it!
“I’m gonna make you an offering you can’t refuse.”
—Paul Root Wolpe, Decatur, GA
How to Submit Your Caption(s)
Submit as a comment below by October 28, 2020. Finalists will appear in the upcoming issue. To vote for the winner of the Summer 2020 contest (see finalists above), use the vote form.
Why, yes, I’m going up — how did you know?
Going up — it’s like aliyah!
Of course this is a Sabbath elevator!
I’m glad you brought your lunch, my son. It’s a quite a lift, even if were taking the express elevator instead of the stairway to heaven.
I have coronavirus and need a lift.
Since I am unlucky, I will get off on the 13th floor and pray!
“We’re familiar with all your commandments. What we need this morning is a second opinion.”
All year I have been waiting for a trip. So, up and away then I will trip out.
At the end of my ride, I want God by my side.
“Are you absolutely sure you want to go down?”
“Consider it a pitch, not a commandment.”
“Can you press penthouse please?”
“Where were you on Sunday?”
“I don’t require your praise for the elevator music.”
“I can’t fly you home. You’re thinking of Willy Wonka.”
“I’m feeling creative today.”
“The power to heal the cosmos. And what do you have in yours?”
“I’m Dr Moses. Welcome to Mount Sinai Hospital. “
” I’m Dr Moses and I know a thing or two about plagues. “
I said, do you want to know a secret?
I may be omniscient, but I have no idea whether the Close Door button actually does anything.
“I’m revealing my new Tablets.”
Good, JR!
“For this particular trip, the sky’s not necessarily the limit.”
“It’s a common mistake. Father Time always wears an Apple Watch.”
While not in the great glass elevator, Charlie Bucket escorts Willy Wonka on his final ascension.
“The elevator’s stalled. Shall we study a blatt Gemara?”
“Sorry, but I never interfere in caption contests.”
I usually take the sleigh but I can’t find my boots.
“I’m a Stuffed Dermatologist. What’s your specialty?”
“Did you know I did the first soul transplant?”
“I wrote Ten Commandments of Medicine, published by Burning Bush Press.”
“Behold! Now shall I part the doors as once I parted the Red Sea.”
My name is Fred Claus but most people just call me Santa.
When I mentioned to my boss that this elevator smells like urine, he told me to, “PISS OFF!”
Have you read my Book? I’m Thee best selling Author.
On certain occasions like this, I like to sing, “YOU RAISE ME UP.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it…You should though.”
I once worked with a rod and staff, now I use a brief case and attorney’s
“Without your guiding it, this would be a hell-evator.”
I always try to stay on the right side of God, GOD WILLING!
From a physiology textbook:
“Healthy cells follow a lifecycle of growth, division and death. Like leaves on a tree, old cells die off and are replaced by an equal number of healthy cells. Cancer develops when old cells refuse to die but keep growing, dividing, and building up in one place—creating a tumor.”
Political considerations aside, would you consider a sitting president who refused to accept defeat on election day a cancer cell in the body politic?
Here’s my elevator speech: In the beginning…
Lefties were created for my amusement.
“It may be true. My acts limit your liability, but there is that eternal accountability.”
“Forrest Gump was wrong. He said life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. I say life is more like an elevator. It’s filled with ups and downs.”
Well, JR has happily contributed, so Dinah must be waiting in the wings. Here’s a story you might enjoy, Dinah, courtesy of Anessa Cohen:
It begins with a crowd of people waiting at the bus terminal in Jerusalem after Rosh Hashanah to catch the 402 bus to Bnei Brak after enjoying a beautiful yom tov. By 9 p.m. the line is quite long, but spirits are high after the chag, as people line up with their children and suitcases in tow. A few start looking at their watches, wondering when the bus is finally going to show up to take them home.
As time marches on to 10 p.m. and then 11 p.m., the bus has still not appeared; the lines are getting longer and the people rowdier and more irritated. Children and babies are already tired and acting out and crying, and the parents do not know what to do to calm them down with the bus nowhere in sight.
Finally, at 1 a.m. an empty bus appears with the number 318 on it. A few chassidim enter the bus and ask the driver where the bus is headed. The bus driver answers that his destination is Rechovot. The chassidim look around and see that the bus stays empty and no one is getting on, so they ask him if he could change the bus to the 402 line to Bnei Brak since there does not seem to be anyone going to Rechovot. With so many families waiting, they reasoned, it is more important to go to Bnei Brak than Rechovot.
The driver shakes his head at the chassidim and says, “Do you know how much trouble I will be in if I change my route from the 318 to Rechovot to the 402 to Bnei Brak? My bosses will have my head on a platter when they find out what I did!”
They continue to argue back and forth for a while, until finally the bus driver says, “OK, I will do it!” And he gets up and changes the sign on the bus from 318 to Rechovot to the 402 to Bnei Brak.
People start cheering and board the bus, relieved to be on their way home. Everyone takes a seat, and the chassidim who talked the bus driver into changing his route take a microphone and announce to all the people that they should say thank you to this bus driver, the tzaddik who had pity on us and changed his route so as to be able to get everyone home to Bnei Brak!
Everyone starts clapping and cheering and saying, “What a guy!” and singing the bus driver’s praises all the way to their destination.
When the bus finally arrives in Bnei Brak, people are so grateful to be home that they bless the bus driver over and over again as they exit the bus, thanking him once again for taking pity on them and bringing them in his bus to Bnei Brak!
Everyone gets off the bus except for an old man who tarries a little longer, waiting to speak to the driver before he gets off the bus. The old man says to the bus driver, “How is it that you agreed in the end to bring everyone here to Bnei Brak? Aren’t you afraid you will get in trouble from your employers for not going to Rechovot?”
The bus driver looks from side to side and then directly at the old man and says, “You see, it’s like this. My bosses called up many drivers telling them that they were needed to come in to work and drive the crowds of people home that were lining up at the bus station. Most of us had thought we would have the evening off as a continuation of the chag until tomorrow.
“When I arrived late with the bus at the bus station and saw the angry mob of people waiting for the number 402 bus to Bnei Brak, there was no way I was going to tell them that I was the driver of the 402 to Bnei Brak—–they had been waiting so long, they would have killed me! But when I told them that I was the number 318 to Rechovot and I let them talk me into changing my route, suddenly they loved me and everyone on the bus wanted to be my friend and sing my praises. Hearing them thank me for taking them to Bnei Brak was much better than having them call me names for coming so late!”
Only in Israel, Dinah, second installment. 🙂
By using elevators, we can pray continuously every “step of the way!” Thank you God for allowing this ALMIGHTY approach.
“You know Hippocrates interned for me. “
” Hi, I’m Dr Altacocker.”
Go home early, I got this.
With a soul partner in life, you get a second opinion of how close you are to God!
“The elevator’s stalled. Let’s study a blatt Gemara.”
“I deal mostly with the cosmic. I have no idea why this elevator is stuck.”
Forgive me, but I said, “This elevator operates by a pulley, not by a BULLY!”
So you’re stuck in an elevator and don’t have a prayer? I’m listening.
I don’t sell life insurance, I give life assurance.
Dale, this is the best kind of humor, that which reveals truth underneath. We’re all really looking for assurance underneath the insurance we buy, aren’t we?
And I’ve kept forgetting to congratulate you on your winning biblical archaelogy entry. I really dug it (pun intended).
As a reward you should treat yourself to a screening of “Angel on My Shoulder,” a great film starring my favorite actor, Paul Muni.
Congratulations again!
Dale, actually the best film Paul Muni ever made is “We Are Not Alone” in 1939, an unheralded gem, a complete turnaround from “Scarface” seven years earlier.
Gerald, I saw “Angel on My Shoulder” – it was quite a film, along with Paul Muni and others. It really had the hell-evator! Thank you, Dale
I used to be a “bag man” for Meyer Lansky, then I was a “bag man” for Bernie Madoff, and lastly I was a “bag man” for Michael Cohen. Now, I just bag my lunch.
“Oh, God!” I just figured out how to use the REPLY button. George Burns would have laughed about this while smoking his stogie. Dale, I wanted to add my congratulations to your list of accomplishments. (Now, stop wasting your time reading this, and add more puns to this blog!)
Let’s make like Van Halen and JUMP!
Could you push the emergency button? Someone needs me.
“The elevator’s stalled. Let us pray.”
It’s like “riding” the Stock Market. You are up one moment and down the next while praying you don’t CRASH!
Albert Einstein College of Medicine: Where faith and science meet.
Where does science end and faith begin? In the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, isn’t it all relative?
My wife should be the voice on on this elevator. When you reach your floor she would say, “It’s time to get the HELL out of here!”
“Imagine! I once had to break my back to find and haul two slabs of rock in order to spread my ten commandments, while now I could fit a complete library into this tiny laptop if I chose.”
Truth or Dare?
“You are invited for dinner.In fact,you are dinner.”
“I have a corn bigger than you.”
“You are invited for dinner.In fact, you are dinner.”
From “Presidential Anecdotes” by Paul F. Boller, Jr.:
“Do you ever admit a mistake?” President John F. Kennedy asked Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 in Vienna during foreign policy talks.
“Certainly,” Khrushchev replied. “In a speech before the Twentieth Party Congress, I admitted all of Stalin’s mistakes.”
Here’s a story, I believe, told by that great writer Leo Rosten, about a men’s clothing store in his neighborhood on Roosevelt Road in Chicago in the early 1940’s:
The clothing store was owned by two guys, partners, who, rumor had it, sent eight children through college simply pretending to be deaf.
One partner would wait on a customer, praising the excellence of the wool or the styling of this or that suit.
The customer would then naturally ask, “How much is it?”
“What?” asked the salesman, cupping his ear.
“How—much—does—it—cost?” the customer would repeat, more loudly.
“Huh?”
“How much is the suit?” the customer would shout.
“Ah, the price! I’ll ask the boss.” Whereupon he would turn and shout toward the back of the store. “How much is the beautiful navy blue double-breasted suit?”
The boss would shout back, “Forty dollars!”
The “deaf” clerk would tell the customer, “The boss says twenty dollars.”
Need one describe how quickly so many men, young and old, plunked down their twenty dollars and rushed out of the store, chortling?
The scam was unmatched for simplicity, duplicity and proper punishment of the greedy. The children of the partners, it is needless to say, received a very fine higher education. 🙂
I told my wife that on this elevator I push all the right buttons, but I sometimes can’t get it up. She replied, “Well, in our bedroom you push all my right buttons and sometimes can’t get it up either!”
“I didn’t realize these briefcases were so omnipresent.”
“I got myself a briefcase in the image of yours.”
“Do you think you deserve to be carried up or given the shaft?”
“Well, I say it’s all right to wear white after Labor Day.”
“I’m generally benevolent, but sometimes I let loose and press every button.”
I like it. I think the very definition of omnipresent is “pressing every button”.
I like it, too. Stephen is a pro who never loses his touch.
Although if you think about it, pressing all the keys down at the same time would produce no music, just a cacophany of sounds.
And to throw the ball back to you, Jim, you never make a comment that is not rooted in the deep wisdom of experience.
Thank you, Gerald.
That comment was rooted in experience. 1978 Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, an engineering trade show. I enter a crowded elevator with two of my young co-workers. One holds the door. The other presses all the buttons. They leap out. I am mortified, and ride to my floor with a car load of seething passengers, anyone of which I might meet at one of my professional meetings the next day. Was G_d testing me?
Jim, God WAS testing you, pressuring you in the same way coal is pressured to become diamond. You had to face the seething, impatient faces of those who entered the car after you. What is the expression? If something doesn’t kill us, it makes us stronger?
I also learned the meaning of a saying which had always eluded me. “To push one’s buttons” has always had a negative connotation, doing or saying something to make someone angry or upset or irritated or exasperated. And those kids literally pushed yours that day.
But you survived and got to your floor and are still rising.
@Jim Gorman:
“I pressed all the buttons because I have to be everywhere.”
Look, being all-seeing and all-knowing has its ups and downs.”
“Even if I already AM everywhere, I still enjoy the ride.”
“No, not Santa Claus. Guess again.”
“You have free will. Pick a floor yourself.”
“Don’t you ever worry about banging your head on the top of this elevator?”
When I ride this elevator, I consider it divine intervention.
I told my wife that when God speaks on the elevator, I listen. She answered, “Hallelujah, you finally listen to someone!”
Everyone dies, son. Just don’t die hard with a vengeance.
I thought you were the mechanic.
“I’ve been an MD since BC.”
To William A.,
Your captions are all much more than OK.
I told my Rabbi that in wars people find their God in fox holes, but I found my God on the elevator. My Rabbi said to me, “Moshe, what else is new? In this neighborhood there are gunshots everywhere!”
It’s like the wailing wall but more uplifting.
From riding this elevator I found a solution to the world’s troubles, it’s the EMERGENCY ESCAPE!
It always amazes me how each generation creates authorities, people who are widely looked up to in their fields until they ultimately reveal that they have feet of clay and then fall with a thud. Their trajectory is almost like that of a bell curve. This goes on in politics, religion, finance, literature–any area you can think of. Even in Australia they have kan-gurus (sorry, Dale, I couldn’t resist that).
For example, in the area of investing, a man named Edson Gould could do no wrong in the period after World War II until he crashed; Joe Granville suffered the same fate when he missed the massive bull market that started in the early ’80s: and now Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio seem to be faltering. We have even taken experts in one field and given them authority in other fields, quoting their predictions. I’m going to start something new, spotlighting the words of people whose statements were once taken seriously:
1) “The boy will come to nothing.”
—Jakob Freud, after his eight-year-old son, Sigmund, had relieved himself in his parents’ bedroom in 1864.
2)”I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing, and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi, leader of the movement for Indian independence, in May 1940
3) I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
—Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Board of IBM, 1943.
4) “Video won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
—Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century -Fox Studios, 1946.
It’s casual Friday!
Dear Gerald, Thanks for the accolade. Also since I reenact Albert Einstein, the family maid referred to young Albert as “The Dopey One “. He didn’t speak until he was almost 3 years old.
Thanks very much for your input. Robert Frost went through the same developmental delay as Einstein. But words are two-edged swords, you know, sharpening our perceptions in one sense yet screening out the world in another, acting very much like radar to warn us of danger and categorizing everything we see. So perhaps retaining an untainted vision until one is older opens one up to all kinds of insights and possibilities. I’ve seen children pointing to things in a room and asking what they are only to have the adults around them shrug their shoulders because they have no words for what the children are seeing. In the Garden of Eden, Adam saw the animals and then named them. Today most of us are taught to name the world before experiencing it and so get trapped for the rest of our lives by labels.
That is why the work you are doing is so important. You bring a wordless spirit back into the world in the characters you play, freeing them from the page.
I hope you continue to provide the spiritual nectar that most people are thirsty for but can’t find because there is no word for it.
Meanwhile, thanks for the spirit you continue to bring to this site.
Your people got in on the ground floor.
Up, up and away! I always wanted to say that.
This is the Pikes Peak Express elevator. If the cable breaks, there are two springs below to stop us: Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs.
I got the Goldmine and you got the shaft.
Sorry, I’m not looking for a Senior Partner.
“Egg salad on a roll.What about you?”
“I’m too sexy for my shoes. “
“Its nice to work with a legend.Me”
Questions for God (as younger minds need to learn). Answers are given as sensitive & juvenile.
(Q) Does God sign autographs?
(A) God has his busy hands full of other things.
+++
(Q) What bush did God use to burn so long?
(A) Apparently, God used bushes with hard/dried limbs from the “heavenly petrified forest.”
+++
(Q) Does God like sex?
(A) God would answer: What is there not to like? So, he created Adam & Eve and “watched.”
NOTE: There are many more questions. But, I don’t want to GODSEND too many answers!
“I’m already took a peek inside the briefcase.Just a lot of vouchers and questionnaires.Pulp or no pulp?New York Times or Washington Post?HBO or Showtime?Yo would think they would already know.
“I’m not God.Related? Maybe but waiting for the results of the DNA test.
“While we are at it, maybe we should add a lesson about blasphemy and free speech. We could use that ‘Slippery Slope’ reference.”
For spiritual guidance, shall I use my iPhone and DIAL-A-PRAYER?
“It may seem slow, but everything takes 40 years where I come from.”
“I did not know the tower had an elevator. It must have been lost in translation.”
“We have an agreement.He leaves me alone and I leave him alone.”
Whatever you do, don’t go to “L”.
Why, yes, I have a will. Pray that it be done.
No offense, but I choose to wear Nike Air Jordan Shoes rather than “HOLY SANDALS.”
“You can guess what’s on the 13th floor.”
As we go up, I now answer to a “higher authority!”
Here are a few more words from people who were taken very seriously in their time and looked up to for their wisdom:
1) “The radio craze will die out in time.”
—Thomas Alva Edison (American scientist and inventor), 1922.
2)”I am pessimistic about broadcasting. The truth is that I have anticipated its complete disappearance, confident that the unfortunate people who must now subdue themselves to listening in will soon find a better pastime for their leisure.”
—H. G. Wells(British author and historian), 1928.
2) “While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.”
—Lee DeForest (American radio pioneer and inventor of the audion tube), 1026.
3) “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.”
—Abraham Lincoln (President of the United States, dedicating the national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania), November 19, 1863.
4) There can be no doubt as to the verdict of future generations on his achievement. He is the greatest figure of our age. Mussolini will dominate the 20th Century as Napoleon dominated the early nineteenth.”
—Lord Rothermere, famous British newspaper publisher), March 28, 1928.
5) “Gerald Lebowitz is the most wonderful human being who ever lived.”
—Marvin Sager, September 2, 2020.
(Sorry about the last one. I couldn’t resist sneaking it in, just to make sure you’re really reading this. Please, Marvin, don’t sue.)
Gerald, you are a MENSCH and a SCHOLAR, and I have always “got your back!” (You can’t hide your genial sayings from me even if I am the author.) 🙂
Marvin, I am the prime example of the person who studies and studies and knows more and more about less and less and ends up knowing everything about nothing.
But I do know enough to know that it is your good will that makes the world go around
Thanks for everything.
Gerald, are you trying to make me blush?
P.S. Actually, knowing everything about nothing would not be such a bad idea. Seinfeld’s show was famously about nothing, and it made him very, very, very rich.
P.P.S. Marvin, were you blushing? I thought it was a sunburn from being at the beach too long. (Actually it’s better to be caught red-faced than red-handed.)
Gerald,
No, I am not red-faced from being sunburned at the beach. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been to the beach this year because of the coronavirus. Of course, I like to think that my face is red from being HOT BLOODED. Passionate women have that effect on me, but you probably know more about this as a LOVER OF LITERATURE (among other things)!
Floor seven please.
I told my wife that I found FAITH. She said, “Before that you found that slut HOPE, and before that you found that sleazy CHARITY! So, you have FAITH/HOPE/CHARITY and I have the house, car, and bank accounts!”
Marvin, that’s like the husband who tells a friend, “My wife and I have a fully equal marriage. I decide what political candidates to vote for, how much foreign aid to give other nations, and by what percentage point the Federal Reserve should raise or lower interest rates. She decides where we live, what kind of car we should drive, and how much money we should spend on groceries and clothes.”
Marvin, you would have been treated badly if you had blushed during the Cold War. Remember the slogan then that was very popular in this country?
“Better dead than red.”
Gerald, to paraphrase an old Russian saying:
“Old friends and ‘blush’ wine are best.”
I once had a friend who was contemptuous of any so-called expert. He spelled the word (and you would appreciate this, Dale) “ex-spurt,” or one who still spouted but was too spent to have anything more of value to spurt. Here are more past pearls of wisdom by the former experts of our world:
1) “Women are brought up from the time they’re 6 years old to read books, eat candy and go to dancing class. They can’t compete against men.”
—Gene Scott (American lawyer and ranking tennis player commenting on the upcoming Riggs-King match, July 12, 1973).
2)”We plan absentee ownership. I’ll stick to building ships.”
—George Steinbrenner, President of AmericanShipbuilding Company, commenting on his future role as a member of the syndicate that had just purchased the New York Yankees from CBS, January 3, 1973.
3) “The phonograph is not of any commercial value.”
—Thomas Alva Edison (inventor of the phonograph in a remark to his assistant, Sam Insull, 1880).
4) “Everything that can be invented has been invented,:
—Charles H. Duell (Commissioner of U.S. Office of Patents, urging President William McKinley to abolish his office, 1899).
5) “I have no political ambitions for myself or my children.”
—Joseph P. Kennedy, head of the group “I’m for Roosevelt,” 1936.
6) And last but not least:
“We rule by love and not by the bayonet.”
—Dr. Joseph Paul Goebbels. Minister of Enlightenment for the German National Socialist Party, 1936).
“If you have a 1952 Topps Mantle,I can get you a penthouse.”
Michael,
Who would guess that ephemera like baseball cards and comic books and the like would vastly outperform such investment staples as stocks, gold and currencies as investments? I sometimes think back to a summer day in 1965 when I happened to look into a store window while walking on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City and saw a mint copy of Action Comics #1 selling for the (then) outrageous price of $10.
No, I didn’t buy it. But I sometimes reach back into the past and pay the shopkeeper for the magazine.
I mentioned to my wife that we should have God over some day for dinner. She replied, “I have two dates open on my calendar, APRIL FOOLS DAY & DOOMSDAY.”
“I’ve got some Christmas gigs too.”
” The sandals.This is casual friday. “
“When you meet the big man don’t mention the Yankees.He’s a fan.”
“I’m sorry if we surprised you but c’mon,bleach to cure the virus!”
” You can order anything.Except anchovies.The big guy hates them. “
I’m inspired to dress up as a SAINT for Halloween, but my wife thinks a SINNER costume would be better.
“It was nice meeting you.I’ll be seeing you again in about ten years and well really get acquainted.”
Marvin, it doesn’t matter how you’re dressed as long as she says “halo” to you.
Gerald, does “halo” stand for HAllowed BE THY NAME? That would be perfect!
“It’s nice to work with a legend.Me.”
” You can order anything except anchovies.The big guy hates them. “
“It was nice meeting you.I’ll see you again in about ten years and we’ll really get acquainted.”
If you are who you say you are, why don’t you get us moving again?
Here are some more respected voices from the past whose views look ridiculous in retrospect:
1) “And yet I told Your Holiness that I was no painter.”
—Michelangelo, in a remark to Pope Julius II after the latter complained about the progress of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508.
2) “By 1980 all power (electric, atomic, solar) is likely to be virtually costless.”
—Henry Luce, Founder and Publisher of Time, Life and Fortune magazines, 1956.
3) “What the hell is it good for?”
—Robert Lloyd, engineer in the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, reacting to colleagues who insisted that the microprocessor was the wave of the future, 1968.
4) “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
—Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corporation, at the Convention of the World Future Society in Boston, 1977.
5) “That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”
—Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States, after participating in a trial telephone conversation between Washington and Philadelphia, 1876.
(Bell successfully patented his telephone in 1876, and, a year later, offered to sell it to the Western Union Telegraphic Company for $100,000. Western Union was NOT interested.)”
To echo Stan Lee: “‘Nuff said.”