These Vintage Birthday Cakes Are Awesomely Bad
October 2, 2014 Were the good ol' days of cake decorating REALLY better?
And more importantly, can Jen find an excuse to post some of the rad vintage birthday cakes you guys have been sending in?
Let's find out, with...
EPIC CAKE BATTLES OF HISTORY!!
THEN:
;)
I pity the fool who doesn't recognize Hulk Hogan & Mr. T.
VS
NOW:
;)
THEN:
;)
VS
NOW:
;)
THEN:
;)
VS
NOW:
;)
"I stopped listening after 'cabbage'."
(Yup, it's cake. Cabbagey, cabbagey cake.)
THEN:
;)
VS
NOW:
;)
THEN:
;)
VS
NOW:
;)
Who WON? Who LOST?
YOU decide!!
And keep sending in those vintage birthday cakes, because seriously, these things are amazing.
Thanks to Robert T., Elizabeth B., Jason R., Tiki C., Jason R., Kristi C., Lindsay S., Karen H., Susan M., & Brittany J. - and a hat tip to Epic Rap Battles of History for all the lolz.
*****
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Reader Comments (73)
@Lois Groat: Wow! Thanks! I've been really flat lately, AND I'm driving car pool when Cake Wrecks goes up (whimper,) and things haven't been clicking as well as I'd like. I've just been glad all our fantastic commenters -- you all know who you are -- have been so brilliant. Today's song just worked, and I really appreciate your kind words.
@Linda Jay: you are so welcome...I appreciate your laughter.... :-)
@jackwire: my pleasure...!
@Sharyn: *standing ovation*
@Debbi - It doesn't say "Happy Birthday Crud" because if we're talking about the band Creed, both words work.
@SuBee - You and Sharyn should start a band.
@Joan - What I saw when I read your post and followed that link will haunt me until the day I die. You may pat yourself on the back for that one. (I would've.)
@Al - WE NEED PICS.
@Stephanie Bittner - I'll tell you who lost. I was dumb enough to click a link heading to this while eating.
@Tachybaptus - OK, THAT was funny.
Sure, there have always been cake wrecks, but "back in the day" bakers put some effort into them. They at least TRIED to pipe figures on the cakes. Nowadays bakers are much lazier and just use plastic flotsam and wads of imitation buttercream frosting.
When it comes right down to it, we have cakes that took a lot of effort but still looked bad, and cakes that take no effort AND AS A RESULT, look bad. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.
I think poor Hulk Hogan needs to take a water pill. Those legs sure are swollen!!!
Dear God, who would name their child "Crud"?
On the off chance that the 'name' was supposed to be "Creed," please put me down in favor of an official Board of Acceptable Child Names, which would overrule such horsepuckey in favor of real names for real kids.
You want to make a stupid fashion statement with a name? CHANGE YOUR OWN, IN COURT, WITH YOUR OWN MONEY. Don't handicap your child with your idiotic fad-of-the-moment.
The last one appears to be possessed by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix....
I really need to find that wonder woman cake that was made for me when I was 5. I know my parents have it somewhere lol. It is definately vintage but it looked so pretty to me and still does. At least it wasn't plastic lol.
kherva: amen. A friend and I (we both work at newspapers) regularly trade "name game" winners (actually losers), which are real names gleaned from birth announcements, honor rolls, etc. They're getting worse, folks. I, too, wondered who would name their kid "Crud." In general, my vote for best of the wrecks goes to the "then" cakes, although the "then" Cookie Monster looks a little like one of those robotic vacuum cleaners. Maybe he's vacuuming cookies.
Wouldn't it be creepy if they started peeling away the cabbage leaves only to discover an actual smiling beheaded cabbage patch doll head?
The cabbage cake being made of chocolate is less horrifying than my original thought, that someone took a cake and put real cabbages on top of it. (shudder)
I've been reduced to mostly lurking and not commenting much on this site since my new job has changed my morning around. But I'm still lurking, enjoying the oh-so-clever and funny comments (so much more funny and clever than anything I can contribute) at the end of the day rather than the beginning. CakeWrecks twice a day -- yes, that's what that means! Come for the cakes and narration, stay for the cakes and narration..... and comments.
Well done everyone!
MSTeacher3K: BEST. USERNAME. EVER. !!! I will bet that a LOT of CW people...well, the main ones, you KNOW who you are...loved that show. It was so smart, the references were for true nerds/ geeks...I don't remember the difference between the two, I just know that's who I fit in with. Also, I agree with your assessment, they at least TRIED, and as Cathy pointed out, they ARE all spelled correctly, which, in my book awards them another point. Today people don't even try to use spell check, I mean seriously, put it as a text into your phone...see what it flags...most phones know how to spell better than people, and I think that may very well be part of the problem. We rely on tech to do half the job that our MEMORY used to. I mean seriously, EVERYONE should know how to speel kaake...right?
Sharyn: OMG, the new lyrics fit perfectly....I bow to your genuine lyrical genius!!!
SuBee: Love the Limerick! Limericks are such an awesome form of poetry, too few appreciate the rhythm of the limerick, I think because most limericks come from people who want everyone to think Ireland is full of dirty old men.......was Benny Hill Irish????
mel elm lem...I just noticed, I am part mel, elm and lem with a pal, lap, and male thrown in for good measure, I tried the ROTFLMAO diet/ exercise plan, I didn't lose anything except my breath, and some water weight from the tear leakage. Flying Brazilian...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! And oh my gosh, you are right the balloons look like...BALLOONS!!! I haven't seen a "balloon" on a cake for YEARS!!!
BTW all...about Tuesday's post... Cake number two is actually an homage to a famous J Geils Band tune...you see, the word charity IS synonymous with the word Love...ergo....wait for it.....hah!!! there it is! Y'all didn't see that?
Oh, there are too many excellent comments here today, and I cannot write well these days, I have a rotator cuff injury that is curbing my literary pursuits that I love so much. I am supposed to keep it immobile, and did you know that you can't keep your shoulder/ arm immobile when you are writing/ typing on a computer keyboard? And my voice recognition soft ware is super pitiful. I would LOVE to comment on all the ones I found funny, amusing, thought provoking, disturbing as well as comforting, alas, my arm is protesting already. Suffice to say, I do LOVE CW and may not say much for the next few weeks, but I will be here...lurking, watching, reading and most of all, laughing and appreciating all the genius that makes up the CW commenter section!
Love to all of you! alemap, lameap, melapa, paa lem, apelma, and ME...
The Justice League cake was too adorable for words. It must have taken some painstaking effort on the part of a very loving parent.
@VaBeach alemaP: I am so sorry to hear about your injury! Maybe we can all just take turns and come over and type for you, and bring you hot meals and cake. Or, we could set up a phone tree and take turns calling you and then write up what you say and post it for you until our rotor cuffs became unbuttoned, or stop rotating, or fall off, or whatever it is they do that they shouldn’t. But, more likely, we’ll send you good thoughts and wishes and sympathy and virtual hugs and eagerly await your triumphant return to commenting, knowing that you’re lurking out there and, hopefully, laughing, though not enough to negatively affect the aforementioned part.
You do have an assortment of name variations to use! I am somewhat envious, as I only have the three I used this week, while you have not only those but also so many additional ones! Your folks were sure thinking ahead! I’m sorry the ROTFLMAO diet/exercise plan did not work. Please feel free to take the unused portion back to where you got it for a full refund (minus shipping, handling, and an exorbitant restocking fee). Some additional money from you may be necessary to complete the refund.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. It was a rather weird week for me – I posted as mel on Monday and then added another post as lem, and then @SuBee said she was waiting to hear from elm, so I posted as elm. Then I just continued with that mash-up all week. Hopefully, I’ll settle down by next week, Must be the influence of upcoming Halloween….
I hope you’re back with us soon. In the meantime, sending you, as promised, good thoughts and wishes, sympathy, and virtual hugs. Rest, be well, lurk and laugh….
The best part of these wrecks were the names Hayward & Creed. Holy crap. Plus, the Flaming Bacon of Doom on the "new" Superman cake was pretty epic.
Aw, I had one of those Cookie Monster cakes for my 5th birthday!
Off-and-on visitor, first comment.
There are most likely issues with sampling bias, but today's cake wrecks seem so much lazier to me than the sample cake wrecks of yesteryear. I will grant that in some cases, copyright law or at least the fear of copyright law can be blamed for preventing a decorator from doing their job. But I've seen plenty of cakes on this blog where public domain characters, creatures, and symbols are done with tangentally related plastic inserts. The ability to print pictures on cakes certainly doesn't encourage effort, but there seems to be no shortage of wreckerators who will use it to just print the reference image instead of finding or producing an appropriate clean image to print. As badly as the yesteryear characters were drawn, they're at least recognizable. A lot of today's cake wrecks seem like they were hammered out while in a state of distraction.
I'm sure there have always been lazy cake decorators but not an internet to spread the word about them so widely. However, laziness seems to be almost encouraged by today's corporate culture and circumstance. Managers probably look at the printing technology solely as an easy means of speeding up production like they were producing identical machine parts, rather than a custom artistic request. It seems like they feel compelled to use plastic inserts over the desires of customers to avoid time-consuming creative thought. And then there's the race to the bottom, leaving customers with less middle ground between cake wrecks and expensive Sunday Sweet Treats.
Cookie Monster :( RIP lol
I have actually made a cabbage cake like that, though mine was not quite as elaborate. The center is two half-rounds baked in bowls and frosted together to make a ball. The leaves (which don't pick up any cabbage flavor) are basically plain chocolate and mostly used for effect, though they can be broken up and eaten if the cake isn't sufficient. The design was featured in a cookbook of chocolate recipes published in the '80s.
Now! I mean, a now cake had a doll (er... action figure) on it!
I cried laughing at the last one😂 for 5 minutes!
The contest idea is great. When I compare my first cakes with my current cakes, I think they might rival some of those above. Lots of fun.