Fugdale’s Funhouse

The Housewives Tarot

Theme

From the entire packaging of this deck, you will immediately notice a 50’s-60’s retro style of domestication. The entire deck comes in a nicely sized recipe box, which includes actual recipes and tabs for the Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and the instruction booklet. The card backs have a picnic table cloth pattern and don’t reveal the orientation of the cards. The theme celebrates the housewives of the past. But celebrates them in an empowering way. Just at the time when women were breaking out of society norms and expectations, this kitschy style of artwork was spattered about the pages of Life Magazine and on billboards.

Of course, this is a modern look back at the era and the style of the deck is quite tongue in cheek. The deck was said to be created by a domestic goddess Marlene Louise Wetherbee in the early 50’s. At a bridge party, she revealed to her housewife friends the secret to her success and pulled out the deck. The housewives all gasped in horror at the devilish cards. But Marlene persisted, asking her friends how they thought she managed to keep her house so spotless or make her meat-loaf the perfect texture. She used the tarot to guide her every move.

In actuality, this modern collage-based deck, based on 50’s advertising artwork, is the brain child of designers, Paul Kepple and Jude Buffum at Headcase Design.

Imagery and Symbolism

As you can see from the sample cards below, the artwork is colorful and humorous, adopting themes and products of the times. The color palette is subdued and faded to give it a retro feel. The deck is peppered with various product parodies which kind of remind me of Wacky Pack Bubble Gum Trading Stickers. The Death card, for instance, features a bottle of mayonnaise called Salmonella which has obviously gone bad. Mrs. Butterworth even makes an appearance as the High Priestess. The suits are represented by various tools of the time…Mops and brooms represent Wands, dishes represent Pentacles, cocktail glasses are Cups and knives and scissors are the Swords.

The people and objects found on the cards all have a hand drawn and colored Madison Avenue quality to them. Flipping through old magazines of the 50’s you will see where the designers got their inspirations. The deck includes a lot of people imagery, but most of the Major Arcana cards feature products or objects. The aces each feature a traditional hand holding an object. The deck follows the Rider-Waite format for the most part. Although the subject matter may seem offense to some in this day and age, the intent of the deck seems to be one of nostalgia and enjoying the fun qualities of the 50’s.

The Cards

Booklet Descriptions

The Booklet is nicely bound, sturdy and printed in color. It features 3 keywords and an upright description for each card along with a 2-color image of the card itself.

Additionally, the book provides a fictional background for the deck and its history. Also, you will discover several brand new spreads that fit in with the overall theme, including The Virgin, The Neapolitan, The Dinette, The Clothesline of Life and the Martini Spreads.

The descriptions are often written in the second person, telling you what you might experience with each card. They describe the overall feeling of the energy without giving you a list of simple words. Each description is humorous and light in tone even for the more heavy-themed cards.

Here is an excerpt for the normally oppressive Ten of Wands (pictured above):

TEN OF WANDS Control - Burden - Weariness
At last, you are in complete control of the situation. Unfortunately, it also means all the responsibility is yours, and it may be more than you can handle. The Ten of Wands illustrates the housewife who has it all, but without the energy and zest she had in the Ace. It may be time to put down the wands and rest until next time.

Recommendation

This deck provides a refreshing make-over for the standard tarot deck. Despite its backward-thinking social ideas, it is humorous, pleasurable, colorful and fun to play with. It takes the tarot part seriously, but makes it accessible for anyone to use and provides a great conversation piece.

The descriptions may not help a newbie reader learn the traditional meanings of the cards as well as some other decks, but you could do a lot worse as well. The deck feels very nostalgic and fun and it is reasonably priced as well. I would recommend it to any collector and for readers who want a lighter deck. It’s also perfect for housewives, house husbands, people into retro advertising and 50’s imagery. It may appeal to younger readers as well. And the Bob Dobbs-like imagery fits in with any members of the Church of the Sub-Genius, even though it does not feature Bob Dobbs at all.

Deck Information

• Size of Cards: 2.5″ x 4.25″
• Number of Cards: 78 Major: 22 Minor: 54
• Major Arcana Titles: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength (8), The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Justice (11), The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World
• Suits: Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles
• Court Cards: Page, Knight, Queen, King
• Included with Deck: Sturdy color 96-page booklet with descriptive interpretations and keywords; 5 new spreads; 4 recipe card dividers; a sturdy recipe box with lift off top for storing everything
• Appeals to: Housewives, Older people who have a nostalgia for the time, Retro-ad artists, people who like collage-based deck, collectors
• Deck Designers: Paul Kepple and Jude Buffum
• Deck Distributor: Quirk Books