My first real job out of college was as a greeting card writer for Hallmark.
I wrote the one above in the Humor Portfolio (an application workbook type thing) the night before my interview (because I’ve always been like this) while I was watching Letterman. This copy appeared on so many designs it probably paid at least a few years of my salary. (The original is on the left).
I’ve never worked with writers who care as much about their craft and the impact their words have on people and relationships. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to start a career than Hallmark.
I mostly wrote funny cards, conversational stuff, and structured prose. A sweet elderly gentleman wrote Hallmark to say he liked the one on the left.
LEFT: What to do on a rainy day? (What to do…what to do…) Think of you on a rainy day! (Think of you…think of you…)
RIGHT: Cover—How can such a small creature make the world sem so much bigger? Inside—Wishing you every happiness as you discover all the wonder a baby can bring into your world.
In high school, I bought a ton of cards in the Hallmark Lite collection (the precursor to Shoebox). Teenage me would have been proud of these two.
Speaking of high school, I got to interview H. Ross Perot for our student paper when he was trying to wreak havoc on fine arts programs in Texas. I felt very comfortable putting words in his mouth.
As an improviser, of course I occasionally dreamed about working for Saturday Night Live.
These cards were the closest I’d get to writing for some of my heroes.
(And also Rob Schneider.)
COPY:
Tell me, Birthday Fox,
when are you going to let me
grab a handful of
your big American cake?
There is certainly no difficulty
for you to see the
bulging package
I have brought for you.
Have a wild and crazy birthday!
INSIDE: When I, Roseanne Roseanna Danna, was a teeny-tiny little girl, I went to see Santa Claus. And I’m sittin’ there all cute as a button on his knee, and I notice this BIG CHUNK OF FOOD stuck in his fancy-schmancy curly white beard. So he’s “ho-ho-ho-ing” like there’s no tomorrow, and I can’t stop looking at this half-chewed piece of I don’t know what! I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE.
It’s like the poem my daddy always told me when he tucked me in on Christmas Eve: “You’d better not cry. You’d better not pout. Even when Santa Claus trie to gross you out.” Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
INSIDE: It’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. If it’s not a long, disgusting, curly dark hair in your caramel corn, it’s a little, tiny, gross piece of phlegm right on the airhole of your friend’s costume, blowing in and out, in and out, until you want to grab him and say, “Hey! What are you trying to do—make me SICK?” HAPPY HALLOWEEN
And a little bit of writing for another childhood hero and role model.
TRISH BERRONG 