I bought a funny birthday card for my friend
at the Hallmark store.
But when I got home,
I realised
that the card already had,
‘Happy Birthday’
printed on the inside.
***
Now what, I wondered,
was I supposed to write?
***
The birthday card company never thought about that.
***
Maybe ‘Happy Birthday’
was all I had to say, anyway.
***
And, now, to worsen it,
the Peanuts gang got in there first,
and all that is left for me
to do is to agree.
😃
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Aww, you should add your own on the other side. I do that. Because it’s hard to find cards with blank inside portion.
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Usually I just write “Happy Birthday” under “Happy Birthday” and apologise for having no imagination
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Sad but true. That’s why I rarely send birthday cards.
Hope your next one goes well.
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Well, it wasn’t actually a true story per se, but thank you. I have full assurance from both the Charles Schulz estate and the Hallmark company that the problem is being rectified.
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They’ll save on ink, won’t they?
I just assumed everything I read here is entirely true.
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The person who typed that previous response has been excommunicated! IT’SALLTRUE!
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Reblogged this on davidbruceblog #2.
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Thank you DBb!
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At least the Peanuts adults can’t say it.
Wah wa wahhhh!
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Haha! That would make a funny card!
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On a serious note, I had to recently search for a birthday card that did NOT say Happy Birthday because the recipient has Stage 4 cancer and will probably never see another birthday.
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That is why I always preferred making my own cards. It seems to be a lost art.
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(spits coffee on computer screen) Those plucky knaves! How dare they!
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My sister worked at Fawcett Crest many (many) years ago – directly with Mr. Schultz, and would gift to me a handful of his books quite regularly. —CC
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Wow! Charles Schultz is a big hero of mine. I was devastated to read that his home and many of his items were lost in the Santa Rosa fire. Thanks for sharing, Chagall.
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Jeez, I had not known of his loss in the fire until your reply. What a tremendous heartbreak for his widow and all of his fans. I regret not having those books from back in the day – very early editions. Gone the way of comic book collections and baseball cards. Stay well, Tref. —CC
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I recently talked with my sister and got to talking about this thread and she added some interesting detail to the topic: she worked with Mr. Schulz meticulously on original and reprint contracts. I say meticulously because – based on my understanding of her description – each character was copyrighted anew annually, based on subtle design differences, pen renderings, etc. And royalties were somehow allocated accordingly, etc. So reprints which curated multiple years of multiple characters became quite involved re: Mr. Schulz’s contract. She and he hit it off wonderfully based on her understanding of the characters and their respective copyrights over the years. Peace, trefology. —CC
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Hey Chagall. Wow! That is a terrific story.
I recently began a project: read every single peanuts strip from 1950 to 2000. I am currently on 1952. I had to put the idea on hold for almost two years when the third and fourth volumes went out of print (?!) and the price jumped by 4 or 5 times the cost, but I recently managed to find a ‘cheap’ used and very battered edition.
My grandparents lived near the Lee Mendelson Studios in Burlingame, CA, so I always remember driving past the building with all the peanuts characters adorning it.
My deepest regret is never following through with my plan to hang out at Schulz’s ice skating ring and wait for him to arrive for his usual lunch at the cafe. I would have loved to have met him, or, at least, ate lunch at a table nearby. But, I guess I thought Peanuts and Schulz would just keep going on forever.
As far this particular post: I have re-written it a dozen times or more. It is not one of my favorites, but I liked the concept, and I wanted to honor Schulz on the blog, so it stays.
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I love the project. I remember reading through the volumes tirelessly. Are you reading the Complete Peanuts or rolling your own? I would have had the original ’64 through ’71s – or thereabouts. When I search for the books and see them on sale on eBay, the images of the covers fill me with overwhelming nostalgia. On another note, the Studios, the Rink, Peanuts gang, Schulz, etc., et al, are the makings for a potentially very interesting piece of historical fiction. 🙂 To good health. —CC
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They sell the complete Peanuts in a boxed set of two volumes per (the first one is 1950 to 1954 and then the next set of 1955-1958, etc) My worry is that while the first set was $38 — a fair price, the second was selling for several hundred dollars! I have no idea what happened, but, after a long wait I managed to find a seller willing to part with a damaged set for $80. And then the set after that one is back to $38! Buying over the market price was a one time thing for me, so hopefully that was an anomaly! But it is a worthy goal, like reading the compleat Shakespeare or the complete Trefology (insert wink emoji here).
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