Giraffe Card

Title: Giraffe Info Card

Date: Unknown (produced in the 70's and 80's)

Category: "Information"

Current status: Recycled

Does anybody remember these things? I think they were called "Zoo Cards" or something. They used to advertise them on TV where kids could annoy their parents to call the number and become a member of this "club." They would send some cards out every month or so, with diffenernt animals on each and a bunch of facts and other info on the back. If you signed up at the right time, you could get some special gift that was a specially designed plastic box that would hold all of the cards. That way, when you are sitting at your house and an argument comes up about whether or not giraffes are mute or not, you can run to your room, grab your box of animal cards, find the one with the giraffe, and show the moron you were arguing with the correct answer.

While these still have some nostalgia for me (I'm easily nostalgic I guess), they aren't as cool as those ridiculous music stars trading cards. I can easily make the same jokes comparing them to the sports card industry like, "Hey Jimmy! Do you have the aligator rookie card?" or "Ooooohhhhh... this maggot card has an error! It says maggots come from rotting meat!". But these are largley just cards with pictures of animals and a short encyclopedia style entry about them on the back. Just your typical attempt at cashing in on parents who are obsessive about their children learning stuff. These wouldn't fly today though... why get cards sent to you house when you have wikipedia? Of course, you can't alphabetize wikipedia in a plastic box...

I think they also made history cards too...

As to why I saved... well... I guess that part of me that made me go to library school has always felt a need to hold on to "information." Never know when you might need to refernce something. Thankfully, now, I don't need to keep a card in a box. Now I can have fun trying to figure what information about a giraffe online is complete BS.