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frog and drum
August 09, 2006
i bought this birthday card for a friend. i'm not entirely sure why. for one thing, i suppose, i hate buying cards for people. i rarely want someone else speaking for me. they often say too much, in which case i just wish they would shut the hell up. so i often default to something incredibly stupid, like "Hey, There Buddy! You're Seven! Spongebob Says Have SPONGY Birthday!"
when i saw this card, i picked it up only so i could be disgusted with whatever inanity i was sure to find inscribed in it. yet, inside, it said only "Have A Great Day!"
i thought at least there would be a joke, albeit a horribly painful one, to pull the whole thing together. i mean, it's a frog with a drum. why? why, god, why? i do understand that the frog is clearly playing the drum to pay some sort of rhythmic tribute to the celebration of the anniversary of the cardee's birth.
that much i get.
but we're still left wondering, why this frog? or perhaps better yet, why a frog at all? and why would a frog play a drum?
"Have a great day!" clears nothing up. i was hoping for something like, "Hey! you're a tad(p)older!", thought even that would fail to explain the frog's choice of a percussion instrument. OK, more correctly, the artist's choice of a percussion instrument.
unless, of course, the artist really did see a frog playing a drum, and merely rendered an accurate depiction of the event, in which case the artist was most likely hallucinating.
a hallucination would explain a lot, including the artist's choice to mate said image of drum-playing frog with a birthday greeting.
but then one can't help but ask, why would a greeting card company go along with such a strange theme? surely they would ask question, sit back and ponder the card, maybe run it past their spouses, parents, and/or gerbils for some sort of approval. at least they might have changed the message to something that would, as i said, pull it all together - perhaps, "I toad you I'd drum up a birthday party!"
do you see? was that so hard?
of course, this all begs the question of why i would choose to look at, buy, and deliver this card to someone, thus continuing a chain of questionable decision-making that began with an imaginary hallucinatory amphibian picking up a drum, which an artist then painted, and chose to portray in a birthday card, which some company decided to market, and some store decided to stock because someone would buy it regardless of how little sense it makes.
clearly, i am just one in a chain of patsies in a scheme with no immediately clear aim, which frightens me all the more...
Posted by Rob at August 9, 2006 12:47 AM
Comments
And why did Geico decide on a British talking gecko?
Posted by: Jori at August 9, 2006 02:53 PM
how cool...
a drum playing frog!
Posted by: Mike at August 9, 2006 03:26 PM
see Mike, clearly, you and I are the target audience. but why? WHY?
and Jori, you may not recall, but the Geico ad campaign started with the premise of someone mistaking "Geico" for a gecko, which, much like a frog playing a drum, is patently absurd.
on the other hand, the name Geico itself is a shortening of the more unwiedly and decidedly more ominous-sounding "General Electric Insurance Company." I think the whole gecko thing was intended to distract from that.
kudos to Geico and their gecko, however, for trying to explain the question of why they're using a talking gecko - they have an ad addressing that. apparently, people are more likely to trust friendly British lizards than human actors fronting for grossly reptilian insurance companies.
i personally want to see a cage match between the AFLAC duck and the Gecko.
Posted by: rob at August 9, 2006 03:35 PM
You're right. That is so random. It would totally make sense if her were playing an accordion. But a drum?! Go figure...
Posted by: Ami at August 9, 2006 11:46 PM
I love my card and plan to keep it.
Posted by: Kammi at August 17, 2006 09:42 AM