The nineteenth century actor Edmund King is credited with the famous last words, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” This is a fairly accurate summation of writing humor. My philosophy around humor in the marketplace is to keep it inclusive. The source of the laughter should be around a shared and universal experience or self-depreciating without being esoteric. Exclusive humor, when the source of the laughter is someone else, (i.e. a person of a different weight, region, economic background, gender, education, race, creed, etc…) while funny, can be interpreted as cruel or judgmental and can do damage to a company’s reputation. This was my concern when I created this card:

I implemented a simple and stupid pun to drive the humor of the card but have always regretted that the pun was a subversion of the word “Abomination”. It sold well but probably for all the wrong reasons.

Here are some examples selected from over 500 humor cards I’ve written and directed that have resonated with consumers for, in my opinion, all the right reasons:

 (inside) Here’s to another year of making it work.

 (inside) …and leave a little behind.