Joke-Cards Wild

Back in the early '90s, I would read Beckett Baseball Card Monthly, to check up on my wise investments. Which of the mass-produced sports cards I purchased in the highly over-saturated market are worth big money? Which are mere common cards, which I can toss in a box and not look at again until my mom wants to clean out her storage space?

One issue of Beckett showed me how to take a sports card and make it hilarious. So I did! I did. I turned some of my cards into jokes, which I'm sure were only seen by myself and my brother and possibly a disinterested cousin. UNTIL NOW! I cleaned out a box in the basement, and can now share the hilarity.

[Note - images are poor because I scanned them to pdf and then took a screenshot, because we're not exactly dealing with fine art so I didn't fuss over dpi and whatnot.]

This bunch is classic. You take the player's photo and you make it hilarious by adding some speech bubbles, or some artwork. A+ work, tween me!

Okay, okay. This batch it a little confusing. Just marking on cards with highlighters isn't really funny. Why use a Randy Johnson card in the first place? The man is wasn't a LEGEND yet, but he was still really good at that point in time, and I defaced the card. It could be worth like $1.30 in mint condition! Wade Taylor and Kevin Brown replaced with comically mismatched heads? That's pretty funny.

Whoa, I bought some football cards? Gosh, this is funny. His mouth is open and he looks so goofy! This joke definitely holds up.

Basketball cards! These are all perfect. Dwayne Schintzius (R.I.P.) was actually from Florida and not a California surfer dude, but hey! He's got a mullet and a funny look on his face, so this joke is perfect! Joe Wolf DOES look like he could be the Statue of Liberty! Rick Mahorn and Larry Bird do seem to be enjoying a funny joke together! And Bill Hanzlik, 1986 All-Defense Second Teamer, does look like an ACME brand "safe" safe is falling on his head!

Huh. I guess Darrell May's swing follow-through does look a bit like Barry Bonds', but it also looks like almost every left-handed hitter's. And, uh...

Look, as a grown man, I can see that Oil Can Boyd does not look much like Hollywood director Spike Lee. To a kid whose only exposure to Spike Lee was Nike commercials, and whose only other exposure to black men was through The Cosby Show, A Different World, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, it's another story. Any black man wearing oversized frames looked like Spike Lee to me. 

Okay. Okay, okay. Uh. Okay. So,

Yeah, maybe Bucks guard Lester Conner doesn't look exactly like Magic Johnson. Maybe these past two cards give the impression I was a racist kid. But does he look ENTIRELY unlike Magic? Definitely not.

And yeah, you're probably wondering if my speech bubble for Rockets guard Dave Jamerson is an HIV joke. Look at the racist kid, making fun of the black guy with HIV.

Well, I honestly don't know if it's an HIV joke. It was a long time ago. Does Jamerson saying, "OH NO! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" fit his expression in the photo? Yes, it does. Would it still be applicable if the Lakers legend had not contracted HIV? Yes, it would. Even the ref has a funny look on his face in this photo, so let's not let what may or may not be a slap in the face of the HIV-positive community affect how we view this very funny joke. Very funny!

Last, here's my favorite:

Jack Clark was a four-time All Star with nearly 350 career dingers. So why did I put a thought bubble that reads, "I STINK" on his card? Why did I ETCH it into the cardboard, rather than simply write it on a piece of paper and glue it to the card, like I did with all the rest?

I like to think that I saw the look on Jack's face, and determined that it was one of existential dread or self-doubt. Sorry, Jack Clark! You stink!