Weird 1970's Greetings Cards | Ashens 

I like to imagine that, whenever there is a reason for Stuart to send a card of some sort, he goes to the 1970s card vault to select the perfect one that will be most traumatising to the friend in question.

These cards have preserved their color a lot better than photographs do.

"10 Today" has a very strong "last confirmed sighting of this individual" energy

I've got to say, though: Impressive print-quality on the cards. Maybe they're a tenth of a femto-meter thick, but 50 years later the... horrifically bad photography... has been stunningly preserved. (for better or for worse)

The videos where Ashen's ends up laughing hysterically over the ridiculous shit he's reviewing are always my favorite. It isn't really common but it's always a treat.

As a 60s-70s style enthusiast, these cards made me horrified like everyone else but also swoon a bit over the clothes, especially the one with the 3 girls and their amazing pants!

For the sister card, remove the birthday text put a title, maybe a quote, a author name and a blue/grey filter. You have the cover to a thriller/mystery novel.

Seeing this I'm beginning to understand why "Make your own greeting card" software was so popular 30 years ago. Thank goodness such cards have generally improved these days.

That "10 Today" card with the kid fishing looks like one of those pictures that shows up in a Bigfoot documentary. Probably followed by the voiceover saying "This child would be 10 today if Bigfoot hadn't appeared out of the reeds and carted him off" without even considering how weird it was that someone was taking pictures of the kid right then and there.

As an American: "I'm a comin' for ya mama!" was just perfect. Bravo. XD

The final one looks like a child holding on to the shoes and memories of a deceased parent. Happy birthtday indeed

I can attest that the 1970's were the Brownest and Yellowest decade. However, along with Earth Tone counterparts Rust and Avocado, there was a brief period from 1973-1974 where everything else was Lime Green and/or Lemon Yellow.

My parents bought their house in the late 70's and never updated the downstairs rumpus room. It stayed the same until the divorce and then we moved in 2000. Fake wood panelling on the wall, couch with huge palm leaf print, carpet squares, macrame owl, rotary phone and rabbit ear aerial TV. Everything was a different shade of brown. It was amazing because my mother was picky about the state of the rest of the house but this room was my father's.

Not many people watched this video, but I REALLY hope Ashens does another. Laughed so hard I was crying, absolutely lost it at the the gunbelt/rifle daughter one.

Nothing says Happy Birthday like a bad painting of Bjork in a shoe shop.

The 3rd daughter dreams of being the Queen. She just has to shoot her way through the line of succession.

The stamp collector card isn't realistic enough. The rabbit needs to be standing on top of the folder because it refuses to sit on the slightly cold table

Regardless of everything else, that sheepdog has a fabulous hairstyle.

Look at the demon kangaroo in greyscale and you will see exactly why they had such colours. Affordable colour photography was still a recent thing and studios would probably still have all their backgrounds and props kicking around from when they were doing exclusivley black and white work. Horrible bright yellow looks whiter than actual white. Was the same with tv at the time - if you had to record in both black and white and colour, careful choices had to be made so that both pictures looked acceptable. In the case of this photo, they chose poorly...

Therapist: "Hillbilly ashens isn't real, he cant hurt you" Hillbilly ashens: 12:13

Such generic photos, they can be used for anything. Catalogs, inspirational posters, religious works, grade school textbooks, travel brochures... you name it.

15:49 made me think of an inspirational quote: "Shoes." -- Jon Pertwee, Doctor Who 1970

To be honest, that one girls' patchwork pants were absolutely awesome and I'd totally wear those.

I absolutely died laughing at the "I'mma put a hole in your head and then you'll be with Jesus!" line. 🤣🤣🥯

I feel like printing out the cartoon child one and writing "Birthday", then just sending it off to family...... See which one gets paranoid

The cards my parents exchanged in the 60s were huge, elaborate, and adorned with bows, lace & cellophane. Their 70s cards were printed on thin paper with some very bizarre pictures. The 80s card got more elaborate again.

I can't explain why but the poodle picture brings me immense joy. It's almost anti humour and I absolutely love it.

I shouldn't have watched this just before bed, I'm going to be having 70's themed nightmares now.

His voice for the girl with the gun was hilarious

Nothing says the 70's more than block-foiled embossed cards with crinkle-cut edges. If you don't know why the poodle is sat next to a romany cartwheel, then you probably didn't live through 70's home decor trends! I'm only surprised it wasn't the raffia donkey they brought back from Spain.

Thanks Stuart, I grew up in the 70's and after watching this video I'm having flashbacks to brown furniture, platform shoes, flared trousers, horrible patterned carpets and equally nasty wallpaper. Thankfully I didn't receive anything as horrific as those birthday cards :-)

12:13 - I'm amazed at Stuart's spot-on American accent. You could give Hugh Laurie a run for his money.

I was born in 1974 so it's a wonder we never had a house fire from one of those highly flammable cheap stuffed animals that I'm sure I had back then. Also everyone smoked, it's a wonder that didn't start a fire as well.

The birthday mandate kangaroo reminds me of a dream while falling asleep on an edible watching doctor who.

I feel like, rather than a hula hoop, that freakish kangaroo is inside a summoning circle to prevent it eating all of our souls! Hehehe awesome video, as always. Thanks for all the awesome content. Your vids always brighten my day.

I'll say this much, those cards were still better than the soulless modern cards, especially those rancid "adult" cartoon ones.

As someone born in the 70s watching this on my birthday is making me far too happy. Love the videos.

I kept my composure until "I'm-a comin' for ya, Mama!" and then I lost it. 🤣

Blimey. I can't stop watching Ashens. I've seen him on recommendations for years. Never watched a video till a few days ago. Mans got content.

_"Honking my chuff"_ is now my new favourite phrase.

Based on my birthday cards from the same era, Mom scrape booked them, these are really atypical even for the 70s. Most all of the under 5 cards were just brightly colored numbers, sometimes with glitter. Never saw so much photography from the 1970s greeting cards.

Apparently, David Lynch used to design greeting cards in the 70s, and I wasn't even aware of it.

4:20 That Kangaroo looks like it’s been summoned from the seventh circle of Hell.

The little girl is bringing her father's slippers to him. It use to be a thing that when daddy got home, someone would get to bring his slippers to him after a long day at work. And the incentive was when daddy would thank them, getting the attention from daddy, because he was always out working so kids hardly spent time with him.

“Also here is a poodle and a lot of negative space” really got me.

Athens, awesome video as usual!! I thought I would recommend looking at a book from about 1968 called “Counting Rhyme: Ten Little Indians”, and this is a children’s book and the illustrations are all photos on miniature tableaux - and the characters are all RUBBER PUPPETS. It’s very disturbing and capable of inducing nightmares,

It almost seems like photographers sold their random photographs to greeting card companies in order to be able to afford more film (it was expensive), and the greeting card companies have tried to use as many images as possible in order to get their money's worth. And also show off their photographic greeting card capabilities? I was born at the end of the 80s, and the only photographs I've seen on cards were either from make-your-own cards, or the ones where there was a cut-out to insert your Santa photo to make it a Christmas card.

that final birthday wishes one makes me think like. "Girl in apocalypse dreams of fictional non-apocalpytic life."

Up until my Grandmother’s death in 2006, her kitchen was straight out of the 60’s, complete with avocado green appliances, goldenrod yellow and cream patterned wallpaper and ceramic canisters where she kept her flower and sugar. The only “upgrades” she had were a dishwasher and a microwave from the late 70’s and the microwave was put into the wall above the kitchen table. You could see it from behind the wall, going down the stairs on a shelf my grandpa built. There was also an old rotary landline phone on the kitchen wall for a while, but it was replaced to a digital one when it broke.

It was my birthday this week. I'm taking this video as my birthday card from Ashens.

"Hand it over, that thing... your dark soul, for my lady's get well greeting" - Card Knight Gael

just when I had sat down to watch that video you uploaded and it's gone. Hope it's back up soon and whatever issue there was can be resolved easily! Also- looking forward to this fondu collab, in case the suggestions weren't seen there, Scotch Egg. I could have chose a worse egg you have to admit

The sister in the woods card should be a bereavement card.

The wife birthday card is especially awkward considering that's the exact same breed of dog as Precious from Silence Of The Lambs. Oh yes, Buffalo Bill will indeed show you all the love in his heart.

This has to become a series, its one of your best!

12:14 - 12:23 absolutely killed me. I think that's one of the funniest slightly tangential jokes in Ashens history

I'm amazed, especially with those 'thought bubble' cards that there was no reference to the number of drugs consumed in the 70's!

The photos of strangers: inherently creepy

I honestly thought the girl on the rock was actually sitting on a cliff contemplating killing herself.

I was born in 1967 and grew up with paper thin cards like this! Now feeling vaguely nostalgic...

Could be worse. At least none of them are disco themed.

3:51 I love this part so much

Such a surreal collection of cards. Though I will confess I have a weakness for the weird patterned carpets they had in the 70's. Remember the carpets from the Overlook Hotel?

I've actually never heard Stuart laugh this hard

With all the crazy shit going on in the world. A new Ashens video is a very welcome respite. Maximum comfiness.

These cards were deemed to be quite luxurious in the 70's. You can tell because the title on the front of the card is embossed. Or rather, in relief, with the lettering in a bold metallic, or glittered colour. The normal, bog-standard cards were no thicker than newspaper, (positively translucent), and were bought in packs of 20 from a mail order company called Studio Cards, (yes, there was a company you could buy cards from in bulk), out of a catalogue. These cards are the kind you would get from your grandparents who wanted to give the impression that you were, 'special', as they cost a bit more than a few pence to make, and had to be bough individually, usually from the local newsagent. I may have received that, '10 today', one, myself. Although, it's hard to say, as they were pretty generic, having some kind of, 'special', activity on them. That mini Björk holding the giant slippers was atypical of the cards given to girls under the age of 5. I'm sure there's some kind of symbolism going on with it. Either the child is exceedingly diminutive or her mother suffers from giantism and has massive feet. Or maybe even both. I wonder if that's a thing in Iceland?

Top tier Ashens quote: “wHy Is ThE pOoDlE nExT tO a WaGoN wHeEl?!?!”

12:00 Okay, so the daughter with the shotgun and bandolier is some sort of colonial settler or something and she's dreaming of a life of luxury as a wealthy socialite.

Ashens videos bring me so much comfort. Watching a few videos is part of my nightly routine, its almost like ASMR to me

My interpretation I think the daughter on the rock card is supposed to be her dreaming of being grown up and hanging out with her hunky fishing boyfriend, whilst wearing the latest in fashion trends. The red pants daughter design possibly a girl fed up of being seen as childish in her matching red colours and clogs, dreams of being taken seriously in her monochromatic, serious business outfit and holds up balloons atop a mountain in an act of defiance. As if to say 'I need no balloons for I am a woman today!'. The last daughter card design of hillbilly style on a log, is a wild girl (bit of a ruffian) who wonders if her life will be improved by one day becoming a lady instead. She contemplates if she should give into societal norms and don hot pink, or stick with her wild side with a rootin tootin gun for security and comfort.

10.00 The girl on the card with the bright red pants and ribbons on her curly pigtails makes her look like Nellie Olson to me, off of that show Little House on the prairie. It was a show back in the 1970s based off of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books she wrote back in the 1800s. I still watch that show when i can catch it on some tv network that plays re-runs on Sunday sometimes, or watch them on RU-vid. Still a very good wholesome family friendly show! Love it!

My favorite thing about this channel is that any video you watch could be from yesterday or 9 YEARS AGO.

5:50 "Here's wishing you a birthday". Not a happy one. Just a birthday. I don't know why I find that so funny. I think it's because I've literally never seen someone just wishing someone else "a birthday" before. It's always a happy birthday. Or maybe it's because it could be interpreted as saying "I wish you had a birthday and we didn't have to guess".

“You’re going to Rand McNally.” This killed me! 😂 When I was school, my friends and I often rode our bicycles near Rand McNally.

The hillbilly one doubled me over out of the chair. (I live in the south. You have no idea how accurate you were...)

The weird photography, especially of girls, is pretty much right on for what little I've seen of "professional" artist photography in the 70's. One of my aunts had a boyfriend at some point who considered himself such an artist, and the photos were pretty weird, with a lot of odd placement of close-up and far-away objects, bizarre cropping/framing choices, and my aunt was smiling in exactly zero of the pictures featuring her. Sure, you don't have to smile in pics, but her stoneface looked really overdone and I remember it being explained to me that that was how the self-professed photographer thought it should be done. Edit: The hillbilly card (and that whole series) appears to be the birthday girl dreaming of being a different person. So she's not wanting to shoot her mother, she's wishing she were a proper lady... or some crap.

The 70's, the cursed era of photography.

Best video of Ashens' in a while. There must be more of these!

Words cannot explain the joy i feel when i see a new ashens video in my notifications.

Never seen this one before! I love these kind of videos where Stuart looks at weird shit and laughs :D

I've imagined a whole backstory for Stamp Boy. He's letting his rabbit eat some of the stamps so that his other stamps will be rarer and therefore more valuable. It's the only reason the rabbit is on the table- anyone who knows rabbits knows they eat paper with an alarming speed.

I'd be a bit worried if they were keeping a dog next to a giant CHOCOLATE wagon wheel 😂

Bloody love this channel Hilarity, and infectious laughter for over a decade ❤️

Probably my 1st time watching Ashens laughing maniacally while reviewing greeting cards. Makes me grinning nonstop throughout the video. 😁😁

My Grandma specilises in giving out cards this bad. She probably bought a bulk lot back in the 70's.

I absolutely love that these cards broke Ashens. He is such joy.

I think the shotgun is for suicide, that's why the shoes are off. But you are right, that ammo belt has enough to "take care" of dear mama.

1:12 every single TV show, movie, sitcom in the 70's had an English Sheepdog in it. All the time. I have no idea why it was a fad like that. Then all of a sudden they all disappeared and you hardly ever see anyone with an English Sheepdog anymore.

9:30 Ashens thought it was just a fisherman? I thought it was her dreaming of being able to spend time with her father. "Sorry my Dear Daughter, you get a card in the mail again instead, Happy Birthday"

Just LOVE your quick wit ! Hilarious 😀

"So now it just looks like where in the world he's going to mail the rabbit off to..." 🎵 _Abu Dhabi, that's where you'll stay!_ 🎵

OK, 'honking my chuff' is now my quote of the decade XD

Re: #2: Looks like they're trying to parody the 1970's TV show One Day at a Time. The whole thing is a good example of why you should NOT try to write birthday greetings while stoned out of your mind.

The kangaroo toy reminds of the really really cheaply made toys you would win and the county fair or carnival. They would have styrofoam beads in them with the outer fur so thin that you could actually see the beads and have them pop out of the pores of the fur. Guessing it was 10 total thread count for the fur to be able to have the beads pop out. Sometimes you can still win those prizes today. I won a red penguin when I was a little kid maybe 8 yrs old and it tore up before I even got it home. It was the throwing a dart at a balloon game. Do they still have those today? Seems with everyone being safety conscious today, the darts would pose a safety concern of children poking their eyes out or throwing them and poking someone else's eye out. Cause little kids have the worse throwing skills, under 10 yrs old it seems. Can't believe I actually popped a balloon with one, seeing I missed twice and was on the last dart.

Thanks Stewart. You made me spit my cereal all over the room “complimentary mints” 😂😂

I haven't watched this video yet, but it's certain to be one of my favorites. Ashens on old print media is always a delight.

For that second card, when I saw the girl on the right I said out loud "Oh my god I love her hair." The "Birthday Wishes Dear Daughter" cards look like a cellophane burn blend. A cheap but ultimately destructive way of mixing two traditional film reels back in the day. Though I've never seen it used outside of movies... I think the third one was supposed to be a "country bumpkin" type girl dreaming of being a proper city lady when she grew up. The final image is, I think, supposed to be endearing? Those slippers were a very popular design of women's house slippers in the mid to late '70s. So she's bringing her mother her slippers for the morning or something. Although her mother must be seven and a half feet tall with the size of the things. Also this entire thing is a treat to me, considering I have this weird genuine appreciation and affection for '70s design, decor, and fashion.

Most of these cards seemed quite normal to me, that explains a lot.

I found an old Christmas card months ago and while it may be so clearly 70s it had kittens in a mini sleigh and frankly looks like it could be a shitpost from today

The girl in the woods is like a scene from 'The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water'.