'Where did that Fokker come from?': The Age's Adventures of Naked Man cartoon caption competition

The Adventures of Naked Man is a cartoon series that features one naked man in a drawn setting where, because of some convenient object or body position, his penis is obscured from sight. Entrants to the competition submit a caption to complete the drawn setting and, with the obscured penis as their implicit focus, many entrants construct a penis joke. In this article, we show that the apparently simple humour of Naked Man disguises considerable complexity. As well as the traditional gender and power analysis, we note some interesting aspects of contemporary newspaper media, including the appeal of reader engagement in the construction of humorous word play and the incorporation of mildly sexual content.