Courtesy Raccoon Society
Mary Wallin, left, and Tim Sanders with the card game 'Death By Captions.'
Making people laugh is hard. Making card games is also challenging. But there is one Madison man daring to do both: Tim Sanders. The online store for Sanders’ company, The Raccoon Society, sells games, cards and posters that aim to make people laugh.
Sanders moved to Madison with his family eight years ago from Seattle. With a background in performance, particularly sketch comedy and poetry and comedic spoken word shows, he and his wife started their creative business venture, Curious Charts, while still on the West Coast. It was a side gig for them, though a few of their charts — posters like their Shakepearian Insults wall chart — sold especially well. At a certain point, Sanders wanted to branch out to make more than just posters.
Thus, The Raccoon Society was born. The name came from the most reliable source of funny anyone could ever hope to find: his child. “She was hilarious,” says Sanders. “She was ferocious. She tried to bite the dog, she was just adorable and it made me go ‘Aw, she’s like a little raccoon.’”
Sanders calls The Raccoon Society “a comedy troupe on paper.” While there are no live performances, they translate their comedy into gifts people can keep on their desks or hang on the wall. The company has advanced from posters and charts to dipping its paws into greeting cards, notepads, magnets and party card games. He currently works with one employee, Mary Wallin, with other comedians occasionally chipping in their own content, something Sanders would like to continue doing with more local talent.
Sanders describes that game, Death By Captions, as a raunchier, more offensive Apples To Apples, or Cards Against Humanity meets Saturday Night Live. The new Performer Edition amps the performative SNL aspect of the game over the game’s first edition. Players can choose to play with the new "performance" rules, or stick to the original game rules, depending on how bawdy they want to be, Sanders says. It took “a lot of learning” before the original edition of the game hit the shelves.
“It’s like publishing a book,” Sanders says, “there are a lot of up-front costs.” It’s also harder to know when jokes translate in this format than with the immediate feedback of performing comedy on stage. “You can spend a lot of money before you find out whether they’re actually funny in other people’s heads,” Sanders says.
Courtesy Raccoon Society
A poster called "My Current Mood" showing many cute cat photos with a mood associated with them.
Cats are big at Raccoon Society. (Excerpt from larger poster.)
Some of The Raccoon Society’s popular items right now are the 2024 Pissed-off Cats calendar, the cat moods chart, slightly off-color greeting cards and cheeky “to-do list” notepads.
Sanders likes being able to surprise or delight himself with the products they come up with; he’s working on a new game venture, due out possibly next year. Although paying the bills is important, Sanders wants the creative process to be the priority. “We’re this little group of people, we’re trying to push the limits,” he says, “we’re trying to do something that you won’t normally find. Maybe that’s a slightly more intelligent brand of offensiveness, but that’s what we’re doing.”
