Thursday, October 18, 2007

You'll Die Laughing...Uh No I Won't

As a child in the seventies, I spent much of my allowance on bubblegum cards. And what could be more appealing to a kid than bubblegum cards with monsters on them? Nothing! Not one damn thing. At least that was the initial thought in my young mind when I picked up a pack of "You'll Die Laughing" monster cards.

However once I opened the waxy paper pack and breathed in the lovely smell of the hard rectangle of pink bubblegum, one thing became readily apparent. The cards were much cooler before I actually looked at them.
It's an awesome classic wolfman photo, hooray!! But what's that say under his photo? Hair restorer?

Even as a kid, I didn't think that was even remotely funny. I'm not sure if it's really just not funny, if it's more a 1950s kind of funny, or if it's because when I was about ten my dad said, "Hey kids, there's this new show that's supposed to be really funny. It's called Monty Pythons Flying Circus." That definitely ruined me for white bread comedy.
This photo still creeps me out. Nothing funny about a skinless guy wondering why a girl has rejected him. In fact, I give Susan a lot of credit for trying to let him down easy, rather than immediately running away, screaming in horror. Susan is so thoughtful.
I can't even think of anything to say about the Creature from the Black Lagoon singing opera.
So the concierge comes into the room, sees the bloody remains of the woman who rented the room last night and politely asks her skeleton to leave. The fact that he is unphased by this type of scene makes me wonder what condition he normally finds the hotel guests in. He scares me.
And as if the lines on the front of the cards weren't bad enough, we get more jokes on the backs of the cards.

Not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, but kids love monsters. So why not give them cool photos without the unfunny lines underneath them. I only bought one pack of these cards because of those damn Vegas jokes under the cool monster photos.

6 comments:

Madpuppy said...

At least they got Jack Davis to do the drawings on the back.

Anonymous said...

Topps was weird about doing stuff like this to their card sets (adding inane quotes in the name of comedy.) For however silly the cards are, the sticker sub-set is pretty nifty...
http://smurfwreck.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=261891

Chris Jart said...

Yes, the Jack Davis drawings are fantastic! But then you read the jokes and groan - and not in that good spooky Halloween way.

I wish they had the stickers in the packs with the cards I bought. The stickers you have are very cool and might have made me consider buying more packs. I loved stickers.

Anonymous said...

The jokes are suppose to be horrible.
Thats the whole point, did you ever read the captions in Famous Monsters?

The stickers were part of the 1980 Creature Features cards, not the Creature Features "You'll die Laughing"set.

Chris Jart said...

Well there you go then. Purposefully alienating their potential audience of children with bad vaudevillian-esque jokes, what next?

While I can deal with bad jokes as captions in a magazine, to have them on bubblegum cards makes the cards less fun.

Tommy! said...

Oh wow! I remember these cards. I used to buy these as a little kid & loved them, ha ha! Thanks for posting these, they bring back fond memories.

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Thanks,
Tommy