Leonardo6/ny_cartoon_1k huggingface dataset:
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I knew they were smart. I didn't know they were sarcastic. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The dolphins are sarcastically reveling in the stranded doom of the two people on the island. Instead of trying to help the pair of people, they are making fun of them by replicating the island, tree, and people with an elaborate pose. This pose requires a lot of smarts to do, but, the people didn't realize that dolphins were smart enough to be sarcastic.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Well, at least somebody remembered about casual Good Friday. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A playful combination of the phrases "Good Friday" and "casual Friday". "Good Friday" is a christian holiday that takes place close to Easter, as represented by the Easter bunny costume. Casual Friday is a common office policy that encourages people to wear less formal clothes to the office, which the Easter bunny costume would be. So, on casual Good Friday, an Easter bunny outfit being worn to work would be appropriate.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: It was a very hostile takeover. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A hostile takeover in the business world happens when a company attempts to acquire another against the boards wishes. But here, the hostility of the takeover is literal and exaggerated: the old board members are put in the pillory as a form of public humiliation, in addition to having their company taken over.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Better make that a large pizza. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The nonchalance of the man is funny: he's aware that a monster is about to break into his apartment, but he continues to calmly sip wine and only reacts by casually upgrading his pizza order to accommodate the monster's appetite.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: So a doctor walks into a bar—this is not a joke by the way. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: "So a doctor walks into a bar" is often the beginning of a bar joke --- but here, the doctor is physically injured and telling his patient about it. We can deduce that the doctor must have walked into a literal physical bar of some kind, and experienced these injuries as a result.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I can't believe my eye! Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A person doing a fancy dive off the end of a plank is unusual, because this is usually used as a method of execution; so pirate on the ship is surprised, but instead of saying "I can't believe my eyes," a normal expression indicating surprise, he says "my eye" because he's a pirate wearing a traditional pirate eyepatch, which causes him to only be able to see out of one eye.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Free will is overrated. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: This couple looks normal, except for the fact that they are controllable like marionettes using the lines attached to them. They seem happy: they enjoy being controlled (by an unknown puppeteer) and having no free will. This joke plays on the idea that free will has downsides: making decisions can be difficult.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: So you're the infamous Sudsy Malone. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on "Bugsy Malone", which is the name of a fictional gangster. "Sudsy" sounds like "Bugsy", but refers to the suds associated with taking a soapy bath. So: the person in the bottom bunk/bath is "Sudsy Malone".
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: We've been struggling to enlist millenials. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The sailors are trying to recruit millennials using these new flags. Millennials are broadly tech savy because they grew up with the internet, and so the sailors think the best way to communicate with them is using emojis.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I wish I could help you, but I'm a real-estate lawyer. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A re-framing of a zoo as a prison. Zoos have lions in cages, but in this universe, lions also can be patrons of the zoo, including this lion in a suit who is apparently a real-estate lawyer. To get the imprisoned lion out, he might be seeking a criminal lion lawyer.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Listen, Satan, can I call you back? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Adam and eve, when they were kicked out of the garden of eden, sided with satan's temptation; in this case, adam is literally talking on a cell phone to satan, which unusual/humorous for the literal beginning of time.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Your availability comes off as desperation. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A joke about the distractions of the modern world. A common complaint is that people can't sit down and have a conversation without doing something else like being on a phone or reading. In this world, the only one being present is chastised: if you don't have a distraction in this world, you're too desperate and socially available/needy.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I don't know how to tell him it's not his. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Usually, when a couple discusses a child "not being his," it refers to a woman's infidelity, which is a hard topic to discuss. Here, however, it's not a partner cheating, it's a man nesting on a giant egg: the egg obviously isn't his child because humans don't lay eggs, and so the usual expression takes on a humorous new meaning: the woman can't seem to convince the man that the egg isn't his child, despite the fact that it's obvious it couldn't be.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: This may burn a little. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A doctor's treatments may sometimes cause a burning sensation, e.g., a vaccine might cause a localized burning sensation, so this is a phrase a doctor might say. However, the treatment here, while it may cause a burning sensation, is not usual. Magnifying glasses focus light, sometimes so much so that they can light things on fire at their focal point, which may cause a burn. It's funny because it's not clear why the doctor is treating his patient with a magnifying glass that will burn him.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: It deployed when her carriage rear-ended an ox cart. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The woman's oversized ruff collar is juxtaposed against the modern invention of an air bag. Air bags deploy during car crashes --- and here, the collar inflated during a collision between a carriage she was riding in and an ox cart as a safety mechanism. It's funny in part because, while it explains the oversized collar, collars are cosmetic rather than functional.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Beware the hidden service charge. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A reference to the trojan horse, which enabled soldiers to sneak into a fort undetected. Much like sneaking soldiers into a fort, hotels might sneak hidden charges into room service: the soldiers have seen this trick before, and are referring to how room service can similarly be a trap.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: No, no! We don't test on animals. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Usually, when a company (e.g., a shampoo or cosmetics company) says they don't test their products on animals, they don't conduct cruel tests at all. But here, the company, while technically not experimenting on animals, instead does the much worse thing of experimenting cruelly on humans --- as evidenced by the man running in a hamster wheel in a cage.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Strangely enough, you are the first person to ask about the clock. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The most interesting thing in this person's living room is clearly the unicorn bust: the implication is that this man found and hunted a mythical creature. However, his house guests instead are focusing on the much more benign clock --- they are the first people he's shown his house to that attend to the clock instead of the unicorn.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Come on! Do you have any idea how long it took to get through the turnstiles? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The shepherd is trying very hard to get his sheep onto the subway, even going so far as to painstakingly get each sheep through the ticketing turnstiles at the station entrance. Now he's encountered another difficulty: the overcrowded subway car he can't fit on, and he's quite exacerbated at this point. It's funny, in part, because despite his drive to get the sheep on the subway, it's unclear why he has the sheep there in the first place.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: The instructions should have mentioned that you need a body of water. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A joke about an incompetent pair of mobsters attempting to kill the man on the roof via cement shoes; they are incompetent because they are following a step-by-step instruction manual to do this, and have overlooked the obvious: you need a body of water to throw the person with cement shoes to kill them, and now they are driving around frantically trying to find one. It's funny in part because they are not being discrete: the incompetent pair has simply put the victim on the roof for everyone to see/try to intervene.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Easy for you to say, you're cured! Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on the word "cured". People go to therapy to have their mental problems remedied or cured. But "cured" can also refer to a meat preparation technique --- here the therapist is cured bacon, and the patient is an egg  (which is not cured). The egg is saying that the therapist doesn't understand his problems because he's "cured" in both senses.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: My sister’s coming over. You could at least throw on a slipcover. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: People often clean up the house and put on better clothes when guests are coming over. Here --- the joke is that the woman sees her husband (who is a couch) as completely naked, which would be inappropriate for her sister to see. So --- instead of encouraging him to put on clothing (a more usual case, if he were just a normal naked person), because he is a couch, clothing for a couch would be a slipcover, i.e., a couch-shaped cloth covering that people sometimes install to maintain their furniture's quality.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Great, now they all want a scarf. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The woman knitted a single scarf (which probably took a long time) for one snowman; that snowman apparently told all of their snowman friends about it and they all want one. However, it's unlikely she'll be able to make so many before they melt in spring because kitting as a hobby isn't fast enough to produce at a mass scale. The caption is her regret about the kind act of making one snowman one scarf.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: If you're so civilized, why don't you use a coaster? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The woman from modern times is looking at the primitive caveman: the caveman doesn't want to be looked down upon, and so argues that the modern woman is actually not so modern for a benign reason: that she's not using a coaster for her mug (which is seen as a civilized/polite thing to do).
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: When you don't want one, they're everywhere. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A joke about the difficulty of finding a cab when you need one, and the ease of finding one when you're not looking for one. This joke takes the idea to an extreme: here, the men are not seeking a cab, and are even inside of a building, and cabs are so comically abundant that one is coming up the stairs.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: It's down the hall, but don't fall in. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Because the furnature in this house is bizarrely large, the toilet presumably would be as well. The person is giving them directions to the restroom down the hall, but if they sat on the toilet to use it, they would be in danger of falling in the bowl due to its size.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: There goes my novel. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A joke about Moby Dick; in the famous novel, the main character Ahab (represented by the seated man) is on an obsessive quest to kill a whale named Moby Dick who bit his leg off. The novel is written from the perspective of the sailor Ishmael, who is in the background talking. But here, Ahab gets a cat, and plays with it instead of obsessing over the whale. Ishmael's laments about how his plan to write the novel Moby Dick has been derailed by the cat, Ahab's new hobby.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: And make mine a decaf. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: This joke is about how thankless internships can be. Interns are often tasked with thankless, difficult jobs. In this case, the intern is not only getting specific coffee orders for the business, but also (in an exaggerated fashion) doing the extremely dangerous tightrope walk.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: The window cleaner brings a pastry. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A surreal joke about a wise old man who lives on the side of a building --- the rock climber didn't expect to encounter him, but, without missing a beat, the old man says that the window cleaners (who also spend time on the side of the building) treat him well by bringing him pastries (implying that the rock climber should also have brought him a pastry).
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I thought you said the cloud was secure. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on words: companies often invest in cloud computing technologies to increase security --- but here, the company has invested in a literal cloud to host their meeting. But, this literal cloud is insecure: the man on the beanstalk has inadvertently infiltrated the meeting by climbing up.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I think it's just a phase. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on the term "phase" --- the moon (depicted here with a winking emoji) experiences phases in the form of the light patterns from the sun that are, e.g., waxing or waning. But here "phase" means an emotional phase --- a person (particularly a teenage) might be "going through a phase" if they are acting strangely. The moon is going through an emotional phase by acting strangely, i.e., by having a winky face.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I smell a horse. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on the phrase "I smell a rat" --- a "rat" in the figurative mobster context refers to a police informant that has infiltrated the group. Instead of a figurative rat, here, the mob boss smells a literal horse, which is behind him. Humorously, the horse (whose disguise is only a pair of sunglasses) is indeed a figurative rat, because it's affiliated with the police --- there's a cop overtly riding on it, and it's wearing a police outfit.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Mind if I cut through? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Golfers sometimes cut through difficult to cross places to hit their ball as it lies, to save strokes. But here, the golfer is cutting through a very inappropriate place: an operating room. Furthermore, his "cut through" statement takes on a second meaning: it's as if he is asking if he can "cut through" the patient, as in: participate as a surgeon during the operation.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I bet the bride of Frankenstein gets to cuddle. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A joke about a vampire getting romantically rejected after requesting to cuddle with the woman. The "bride of frankenstein" is a famous film about a scientist creating a bride for a monster. The dejected vampire is jealous of the monster from the movie, claiming that the monster's bride from the movie at least let the creature cuddle with her.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I just don't care that much about Medicare anymore. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: US politicians constantly argue about whether or not the government should provide healthcare (medicare) or not --- the debate has been going on for decades, so long, that the utility of the debate for this politician is no longer. He has literally died and gone to heaven, and while he's still doing political campaigns, the issue isn't as pressing post-death because healthcare isn't needed for those who have already died.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: He's not as bad as the last manager. That one was abominable. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A play on the term "abominable snowman", which refers to the Yeti, a popular fictional snow monster from the Himalayan mountain range. The current boss is a normal snowman, whereas, the previous boss was apparently not only abominable (i.e., very bad), but was also possibly literally the Yeti. The employees of this clothing store have a hard job, but it humorously used to be worse when the Yeti was their boss previously.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: So, you're saying you didn't miss your last two appointments? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: The therapist thinks that his patient, the chameleon, missed his last two appointments because chameleons blend in with their environments. The chameleon was actually at the appointment, but blended in with the couch, so the therapist didn't see him.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I wouldn't say ‘favorite’ animal... Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Noah only takes two of each animal on the ark. Here, the defensive Noah took many more than 2 giraffes, and is being interrogated for that decision.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Can't wait to see the look on his face when we put these back on the tree. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Aliens are often portrayed as all-powerful beings who have technology far beyond human capacity. These aliens have the capacity to beam up leaves to their spaceship, and even to put them back onto the tree as if they never fell. While they have amazing technology, they still indulge in the low-class activity of pranks, which is surprising.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: That was the wakeup call from Hell. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Wakeup calls in hotels are often jarring because they are often made from the front desk quite early (e.g., 4-5AM). But here, the wakeup call is even more extreme ("from Hell" = extremely bad version): it explodes the phone to make sure the person gets up. A funny over-exaggeration.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: You're voting with your pacemaker again, Hargrove! Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Criticizing someone "voting with your heart" means that they are not acting logically, and instead following their emotions. The boss is instead criticizing the man for "voting with his pacemaker"; a pacemaker is an artificial, robotic heart. This is an ironic criticism, because the man is voting in-line with the robots, and instead of his heart representing voting emotionally, his pacemaker represents voting with the interests of the robots.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: He could have just written his name on his yogurt. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: Roommates sometimes eat each-others food in a shared fridge, which causes tensions if people wanted to keep food for themselves. Writing one's name on food items is a common system roommates use with a shared fridge to make sure people don't eat what they shouldn't. But here, one of the roommates has gone over the top with a new system to prevent people from eating his yogurt: locking up the fridge/kitchen and putting traps everywhere it so it's inaccessible.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: Is that a new outfit? Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: This is an oddly nonchalant thing to say if one's partner was dressed in a hazmat suit. Usually: this is the sort of comment one would make if someone had a new shirt or a new pair of shoes, not a hazmat suit. Given that the woman is probably wearing the suit for a good reason, it's partly funny because the man's nonchalance/ignorance might be putting him in literal danger.
user: Given a cartoon image and a caption. Caption: I wish you'd come in when it was just a chip on your shoulder. Question: Generating an explanation of why this image/caption combination is funny. Answer: 

assistant: A "weight on your chest" and a "chip on your shoulder" are both figurative expressions that refer to problems or stresses that people silently bear. While not usually directly compared, a literal "weight on your chest" (pictured) is apparently more difficult to deal with because its heaver, and the "chip" can become the "weight" if left unaddressed.