Top 10 Favorite Animated Christmas Specials-#2

Welcome as I continue counting down my top 10 favorite animated Christmas specials. I wont lie, the last three slots were very hard to sort. It’s a bold statement saying one special is better than all of them! I mean, where the heck is Frosty? How could I leave of The Flintstones? What about Mr.Magoo???? But I chose this to be my second favorite because it’s a character that I have adored for as long as I can remember. I am talking about, who else?….
'

 

This special has kind of disappeared from network TV, I’m sorry to say. It was re-run for a long time in the 80’s and 90’s but I haven’t seen it on TV in a long time. Thank goodness for DVD (or VHS in my case). So, what is it about this special that makes it so awesome?

First of all, there’s Garfield. Yeah I know that’s a no brainer but what some people forget is that Garfield loves Christmas. So while he gets a little sentimental here it’s still very much in character. It starts out like it’s going to be a big kind of special with Garfield getting wild gifts..until we find out that’s just a dream. The real story and is much simpler. It turns out Jon is taking Garfield and Odie to the farm for Christmas.

One question I see a lot is “Why do people like Christmas?” Well his special is a perfect example of why. If you can’t get into the religious reasons anyway. The special is a family getting together for Christmas Eve, and simply enjoying each others company. Perfect. Some of the little things are perfect. Like the mother making to much food for dinner, the family singing by the piano, decorating the tree, and even Garfield snuggling up with grandma as she looks out the window and waxes nostalgia. She talks about how Christmas wasn’t always easy, but it was always special. That’s what Christmas is all about to me anyway.

The family is just perfect. Having spend time on a farm I can say that these characters all ring true. The mother is sweet, the father is gruff, and the brother is a lovable dope. And of course, the grandmother is just cool! Pat Carroll is a great voice actress and she really makes this character memorable and believable at the same time. Carroll is just awesome, of course she can a good villain too (what was that Disney movie she did? Something about a little mermaid I think).


Yeah Ok some things are a little to silly. Like Jon and his brother wanting their father to read them a story like they were children, or waking the parents up at 1:00am to open presents. I get the whole feeling like a kid thing but there’s a point where they look stupid. Let’s be honest it’s not as if they have exciting new toys waiting for them. They’re excited about a sweater? And the fact that Garfield mysteriously stumbled into those letters is really stretching things, even by Christmas miracle standards.

But I’m just nitpicking really. This is a pretty solid special, even the music is pretty good. It wouldn’t be a Garfield special without hokey music by Lou Rawls but unlike other Garfield specials were the music stops the special cold, here the songs help move it along. Ok there is one song which is a little to sappy but that’s about it.I love the one Garfield sings in the car on their way to the farm, it’s clever.

What about that ending? Odie gives Garfield a present which is cute, if anticlimactic. They had been building it up the whole show. Yeah the fact that Garfield stumbles onto the letter is a bit far fetched, but the scene where give them to Grandma works really well. And then the special just kind of…ends. Yeah there’s not fancy ending just Garfield reminding us that it isn’t the giving, it’s the loving. Then the family singing another song together. How can someone possibly hate this??