Chuck Lorre scales back vanity cards for Bookie again

Lorre has personally written vanity cards for his Chuck Lorre Productions since 1997.

By Matt Schimkowitz | December 16, 2024 | 9:05pm

Photograph by John Johnson (Max)

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Chuck Lorre scales back vanity cards for Bookie again

The flash of Chuck Lorre‘s vanity card has been a familiar site for television viewers over the last 30 years. The cards are a Lorre staple. He’s been personally writing them for every episode of his TV shows since the ’90s, offering jokes, nonsense, and, occasionally, keen insights into the show’s production. For instance, the finale of Two And A Half Men, one of television’s strangest 40 minutes, concludes with a title card explaining why the series wraps with a piano falling on Charlie Sheen and Lorre. “We thought it was funny,” he wrote. His cards inspired a coffee table book; each one he wrote lives on his website. He’s clearly proud of them. Unfortunately, Lorre’s current corporate overlords, Max, aren’t amused by people-watching credits.

Per Variety, for the second season of Bookie, Lorre only wrote one vanity card, explaining why he only wrote one card this season. “No one, not even my family and friends, bothers to read them,” the card states.

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“Max actively dissuades viewers from reading end credits,” Lorre wrote,” let alone sticking around to read the mischievous word salad that is a classic Chuck Lorre vanity card.”

Nevertheless, Lorre will continue to offer fans a “peek inside [his] fiendishly clever mind” via his show Georgie And Mandy’s First Wedding “with easily accessible vanity cards on CBS. Ask your grandma what that is, and where it can be found.”

It should be noted that he wrote only one card for Bookie last season, too. For season one’s vanity card, he explained, “Back in the days of network television, a vanity card in the end credits was a means by which writer-prodcers could express their creative dominion over the just-viewed show.”

“But here we are now in the world of streaming television,” Lorre continued. “On the plus side, a world with no commercials, no time restrictions, and no censors. On the minus side, a world where end credits are barely viewed by anyone. The viewer is actually encouraged to skip over them and quickly re-engage with another episode, or a different show or movie. Which brings me back to my vanity cards. Why on earth am I writing vanity cards for BOOKIE? My friends and family won’t read them. They might not even be able to find them. One might say, ‘If a vanity card is written on MAX, and no one reads it, was it amusing?’ Fuck if I know.”