Alright folks, let me walk you through what happened when I decided to jump on this whole Donald Trump birthday cartoon idea bandwagon. Buckle up, it got messier than I thought.
Where This Whole Thing Started
Honestly? I was scrolling, saw like fifty million clips everywhere, people cracking jokes about it. The feed was just full of it. Figured, why not? It looked stupid fun, and hey, maybe get some eyeballs. Went straight to my sketchbook.
Brain Got Mushy Thinking Up Jokes
Tried really hard. Sat there staring at a blank page. First thought: big birthday cake, obviously. Maybe him trying to blow out candles, hair puffing all over the place? Made a quick sketch. Looked… meh. Not funny enough. Scrapped it. Then tried him opening a gift box, jumping out screaming “You’re fired!” like that old show. Sketch looked kinda stiff.
Got frustrated. Remembered seeing real short clips blow up. Needed something quick and dumb. Landed on:
- Him throwing papers yelling “Best Birthday!”
- A tiny golf cart shaped like a birthday card zooming
- His face photoshopped onto a baby blowing out a candle? Okay, maybe too weird.
Settled on the yelling and the tiny golf cart thing for the first tries. Simple motions, right? Ha. Wishful thinking.
Animation… Yeah, That Happened
Fired up the software. Drew a rough cartoon version of him. Okayish. Then tried to make him do that yelling throw. Arms wouldn’t move right! Kept looking like a stiff puppet. Spent like two hours just getting the arms to swing halfway naturally and the mouth to open wide enough. Face kept glitching.
The tiny golf cart zooming sounded easy. Just move it across the screen! Except making it look like it was actually moving over something, not floating? Needed to scribble a quick background path. Cartoon him bouncing inside? Ugh. His hair animation was a nightmare! Software crashed twice. Got it sorta working, but man, looked amateur. “Whatever, ship it,” I told myself.
Sound? Uh… Yeah
Knew I needed some kinda noise. Couldn’t figure how to record myself yelling without waking the neighbors! Searched free sound effect sites. Found a generic crowd cheering sound. Grabbed a happy birthday tune clip, sped it up weirdly fast. Slapped them together over the animations. Sounded cheap and mismatched. Perfect, in a terrible way.
The Slow, Slow Rendering Pain
Hit render. Thought it would be quick, ten seconds max for these dumb little clips. Computer started wheezing like an asthmatic cat. Fan kicked in hard. Progress bar crawled. Looked at the estimated time – twenty minutes?! For ten seconds?! Went to make coffee. Came back – still rendering. Took forever. Seriously thought the computer was gonna give up.
Finally finished. Played it back. The yelling clip: okay, kinda weirdly funny? The golf cart zoom: looked janky but maybe dumb funny? Good enough. Called it done before I smashed something.
Just Threw It Out There
Copied the text I saw everywhere: “Best Donald Trump Birthday Funny Cartoon Ideas Now! (See Viral Videos Fast!)”. No fancy edits, no nothing. Just uploaded the two stupid clips with that text, using the cartoon sketch as the thumbnail. Hit publish. Didn’t expect much.
Woke Up To… Chaos?
Checked the feed next morning. Phone buzzing. Notifications exploded. Way more than usual. Views stacking up fast on the tiny golf cart clip especially. Comments section? Wild mix. People arguing about politics (which wasn’t the point!), people actually laughing at the janky zoom animation, some calling it cringe, others sharing it saying “this is gold.” Go figure. It somehow hit the dumb algorithm lottery.
End Of Day Thoughts
Lesson? Don’t overthink viral bait stuff. It’s often messy, looks cheap, takes way longer than expected to make, and blows up for reasons that make zero sense. Half the popular stuff I saw looked just as thrown together as mine. Kinda depressing, kinda funny. Would I do it again? Maybe if I have another dumb idea brewing.
So yeah, that’s how my weird little Trump birthday cartoon adventure went. From blank page to weirdly viral janky golf cart. Internet’s a strange place.
