This cartoon caption can be used in discussing how modern tools in data science have precursors in the Exploratory Data Analysis techniques developed by John Tukey who famously described the interdisciplinary nature of statistics with his quote "The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone's backyard." The cartoon was used in the December 2024 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. (Lesser was then sparked by the Tukey quote to write his song “Backyard” that won 3rd place in the 2025 A-mu-sing contest.) The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
