I tried to buy a birthday card for a friend of the family. I hate the sappy cards so I always go right to the funny section. Well, I have to assume that greeting are all written by the ding bats that make those “Epic Movie” anti comedies because without exception, they all sucked.
One of the cards literally was just a picture of a guy with a scrunched up face and inside it said, “Happy Birthday. I farted.” (Oh my sides…stop it!). Please, Hallmark, there must be some out of work comedy writers trying to make there way out of the reality show glut on TV. Hire them or at least look up “Joke” in a dictionary (or if that is too much work, watch Star Trek IV and let Spock define it for you).
I suppose I could have posted this in MPSIMS but I am curious if I am just being a comedy snob.
I think I heard something about this on the radio the other day. There’s a theory that all the jokes are deliberately bad. That way everyone groans in the same way. It’s an inclusive thing. If the joke is full of Shakespearean puns, then half the people who might see it smugly enjoy the witticisms , while the rest are left scratching their mullets. The apparently innocent birthday card has now become a cause of conflict.
They can’t all be gems, and they’re marketing to millions of people, so they need a lot of them, most of which won’t hit the mark. Then again, I have to wonder how Slinky survived all these years. (Or SNL, for that matter.)
It’s not just you. A lot of the “humor” cards are just. not. funny. Some of them are funny, but not appropriate for the person you had in mind. Others are not GENERALLY funny, but might be extremely funny for a given giver and recipient. I’d put the Farted card in the latter category…I wouldn’t send it to MOST people, but if a certain person and I had running jokes about farting, the recipient might think it was hilarious.
It’s hard to come close to being funny. Most things are either funny or fail, with very little middle ground.
I almost never by greeting cards anymore. I can’t justify spending $4 or so on something someone glances at, feels briefly warm and fuzzy, then tosses. I go with card stock, clip art, and a personal message and spend the $4 on something more worthwhile.
They suck. For a few years my default card was the pickle. The card is just a photo of a pickle and it’s cut in the shape of one too. The inside flap says, “I bet you didn’t expect a pickle for your birthday.” I like it as a commentary piece on how terrible cards are.
My other method is to buy a totally unrelated card, like a religious and flowery sympathy card, and use a Sharpie to cross off and fill in as much information and language I need to change it into a birthday card. It’s fun to toss in a gift card and strikethrough a phrase like, “We find strength in the Lord” and replace it with “I hope you like Applebee’s.”
My favorite card ever had a picture of a rooster and a '50’s-era clipart lady on the front…the lady was saying, “It’s your birthday today, yes, it is!”; the rooster responded with “Yes, it is!” This was repeated two more times; the inside of the card contained a line lamenting the lack of “funny” birthday cards.
Hallmark has a few cards that have “WHAT IZZIT?” on the front, followed by a strange little drawing. The inside of the card identifies the drawing – a rabbit trying to do sit-ups, or a bug reading a newspaper. They’re unexpected enough to be funny.
Overall, I agree with the OP…most “funny” cards are either stupid or insulting.
Edited to add: drastic_quench, my mother has a stack of the pickle cards! There’s an alternate inside line that says something to the effect of “I got you a pickle card because they were out of kumquat cards.”
Picking out cards is all about considering the audience. You want to put a smile on the face of the recipient. So you pretend you are the recipient (or your mind’s stereotyped cartoon version of the recipient) and read the card. If you smile, then that’s the one.
No, they’re all terrible. When I’m getting someone a card, I buy a card with an interesting picture on the cover and a blank inside, and I make something up on my own. It’s more personal and the results suck less than Hallmark or whoever.
The vast majority of greeting cards—“funny” and otherwise—are lame. They make me say to myself, “They actually expect people to pay for this??? I know it’s hard to keep coming up with things that are appropriate, funny, or pithy, but MY GOD you people are supposed to be professionals! You’re not even trying!”
Every once in a while, though, I run across one that’s genuinely amusing. Even more rarely, I hit the jackpot, and find a card that’s both amusing enough and appropriate enough to the recipient as to produce genuine LOL’ing.
Sometimes they speak to me. Other times, I just find the best one that suits the occasion and go with it.
Recently, I bought a card for my friend that had two poodes with sunglasses on, riding in a convertible. It said, “Let’s celebrate your birthday like the two fabulous bitches we are.”
I really dislike most greeting card messages, so I will opt for a “blank inside” card 90% of the time. Personally, when I get a card that has nothing but a signature inside anyway, it is virtually meaningless. I get the “it’s the thought that counts,” but c’mon, just write a nice personalized message. It doesn’t have to be long, just heartfelt.
I’ve stood there in the card aisle reading funny cards and laughing my ass off. But if I buy one, all of a sudden it loses its humor real fast and I think, “I can’t possibly give this to whoever”. Then I’ll look at the pretty cards , but the message inside is all wrong. Plus they’re up to $4 or more each??? … I buy cards at the dollar store, there are a few that are passable, and a few that are blank, for writing a message. For ‘special’ people or occasions, I have cardstock, in every color, rubber stamp alphabet letters, loads of stickers of all kinds (check the scrapbooking section of any arts n’ crafts section of any store), and I have a computer and printer to run off any kind of picture I want. There are dozens of books on how to make cards, some are real works of art. Hallmark can kiss my ass.
