Special TV-Garfield TV Specials

So as I talked about before, June will be Garfield’s 40th anniversary. Since I talked about the comic strip last time, what to discuss this time? How about all the TV specials? Truth is I have hardly discussed them, and to be even more honest I barely remember them! Mostly because, I was not a fan of them (holiday one’s aside). They just never grabbed me, and in fact I remember the books these specials were adapted into more than the shows themselves. I think I had most of them. They were mostly in the 80’s and I never understood why they stopped. Though I supposed you could argue the Saturday Morning Cartoon had something to do with that. Still that’s eleven specials over ten years, pretty good! Man, I miss the days when the networks would put an animated special on just because.

Now since others smarter and wiser than I have done thorough retrospectives on these, this not going to be a thorough overview. Just quickly go over the premise and what I thought of it. They’re all on YouTube so feel free to hunt them down and check them out!








Plot:When Garfield and Odie are caught by a dog catcher, Garfield escapes. But Odie doesn’t. Does Garfield decide to go back for him? Of course he does and just in time to find out Odie is to be put down (you read that right).

Comments:This is the first special aired, and you can tell because the voices aren’t the same. Well ok it is Lorenzo Music doing Garfield, but Jon is a different actor. Also the designs are clearly early 80’s Garfield. Right away we have Lou Rawls who did songs for all of these. Also doing some voices an singing is Desirée Goyette. Man do we need talk about her! But first, what did I think of this? It feels like a Garfield strip animated into a TV show so it’s good. It hits all the notes a Garfield story should, and has a plot which is not overwhelming like some others will be. But the big thing with this is the scene where Odie is dragged away to be euthanized. This is THE SADDEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. Not helped with Desiree’s haunting vocals singing over the scene. Goyette should be much more well respected than she is, not only does she sing in every one of these specials but she’s done some great voice over work. Not only did she do the voice of Nermal but her voice made the character click and become popular. So does Garfield save Odie? Of course! Thankfully the cell opens at the right moment allowing Garfield to escape and rescue Odie at the same time.

Just a quick unrelated nitpick, It’s a common thing in animation but I hate it when people call the pound on pets who are lawfully owned. That just drives me crazy. And why was Odie being put down so fast?

Grade-B, Good start except for the padding (yeah Rawls is awesome and a legend but what do those songs really ad? I wish he had just done the openings)




Plot:Garfield gets lost downtown and runs into his mother.

Comments:I said before that the strips would have story lines, and the longest one ever is where this special got adapted from. And I hated both versions. Garfield isn’t supposed to be a drawn out drama and while seeing Garfield reunite with his mother was nice, I just didn’t care about the rest of it. It becomes a story about Garfield not wanting to fight a rival gang. Whatever. Though the fact Garfield was born in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant is clever. Jon is played by actor Thom Hugh who would play him through the animated show. And we had the birth of the “Nice Touch” gag which would be in all the specials. I was hard on this until I watched the preceding specials, I realize it wasn’t so bad. It sure had heart! Also it won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 1984, who what do I know?

Grade:A








Plot:Jon and Garfield go camping. Hijinks ensue.

Comments:I thinks this is the one I remember the least. It feels like a classic Garfield story in the start, with Garfield bored and excited about a vacation. But then fantasy cutaway’s start. Yeah, Family Guy can do them but here they’re stupid. Then we get a horrible song by Jon which was done so much better in the Christmas special. That’s pretty much what this feels like, a combination of the Christmas special and the previous special with a stupid plot involving a runaway killer panther. Because I’m sure most camp grounds are close enough to zoo’s that have deadly panthers (like all zoo’s have). I mean, what the hell? The danger in the previous one made sense in the environment they were in, this is forced and awful. And Garfield literally fighting the Panther? C’mon! That wold be like seeing Snoopy literally have a fist fight the Red Baron, just no.

Grade-D, My least favorite









Plot:Garfield and Odie go trick or treating on Halloween, and end up being chased by pirate ghosts.

Comments:I’ve talked about this before so I wont go on to long. I watch it every year for Halloween, but it’s not that great. The plot feels rushed and underdeveloped. Still, hearing Garfield say “CANDY CANDY CANDY” gets me every time. I just wish the pirate thing had been developed better, like in the book this special was adapted into. And this also won for Best Animated Program at the Emmy’s. What did it beat out? See below.

Grade-B-,I watch it every Halloween but it is sad when the adaptation is better









Plot:John and Garfield take a trip to Paradise World, sort of a Hawaii knock off. Jon finds romance while Garfield tries to figure out how to save the natives from a volcano.

Comments:Are you ready for tribal stereotypes? It’s pretty much Garfield and Jon having trouble in paradise, and that’s about it. I give it credit they did the “island romance” plot, a lot better than the idiotic killer panther idea! Though the native stereotypes could have been done without, as well as the whole “virgin’s being thrown into a volcano” stuff. No they don’t use that word but we all know that’s what they’re doing. Yeah there are tons of references to Hawaiian movies and I don’t care about any of them. It is better than “In the Rough”.

Grade:C+





I don’t get it is was “Garfield goes on vacation” the only idea for these? Where is the next one, Hollywood?





(sigh)

Plot:Jon takes Odie and Garfield to Hollywood to participate in a Star Search knock off called Pet Search.

Comments:To be fair, this is a lot better than the other two. It starts like a typical Garfield short (with a fence routine) and there is a plot rather than “Jon and Odie go on a trip and get into trouble”. Ok it’s a cliche’d sitcom plot, but it’s also just a cartoon special. At least they’re there for a reason. And seeing Garfield gets stars in his eyes is clever. Do they win? Of course not. They lose to an opera singing cat named Desiree. Hey…….

Grade:B, Not too bad








Plot:Jon takes Garfield and Jon to the country for Christmas. Yes, another trip but I’ll let this one go.

Comments:I did a whole review on this, so suffice it to say it’s wonderful and a shame it no longer airs on TV every year. One of the best Christmas specials ever, in my opinion anyway. More thoughts HERE

Grade:A+







Plot:This is a weird one, pretty much exactly what the title suggests and breaks the structure of the rest of these specials. Each life is a vignette featuring very different moods and animation styles.

Comments:So Garfield’s 9 Lives was quite a book, which detailed Garfield’s nine lives. Only six were adapted into the special, with another being adapted into the next special. This special is real hard to break down being all vignettes, but my favorite easily is life 6, “Diana’s Piano”. Look that one up it’s great! The rest vary from scary to stupid to…just plain Garfield. It’s worth a watch but don’t go in expecting a run of the mill Garfield special. In fact I didn’t like it or the graphic novel at first for that reason. Now older and wiser I can admire the various animation styles used and appreciate it for what it is.

Grade:A-, it’s nice to see something different








Plot:Basically a Garfield “Elseworlds” story, what if Garfield was Sam Spade?

Comments:This was written for the “9 Lives” book and used here. Not much to say about it. It won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program of 1989. It’s really not bad. Nothing wrong with the fantasy idea as long at isn’t overdone. Not much else to say if you’ve seen a Sam Spade knock off you’ve seen this. By the way, Sam Spayed? LOL!!!

Grade:B+








Plot:Garfield is forced on a diet at Thanksgiving, while Jon finally convinces Liz to go out with him.

Comments:Again I’ve talked bout this before, so will keep it quick. This is a quintessential Garfield special to me, even if it isn’t the strongest Thanksgiving show. It is league’s better than the Charlie Brown one. And after watching these older specials it’s no wonder I love it. No wild plot or contrived dilemmas, it’s just Garfield being Garfield! Even the songs are toned down to a bearable level.

Grade:A








Plot:Hey, they did one successful fantasy with “Babes and Bullets”, how about a few more in one cartoon? Yeah that’s pretty much it. Garfield keeps having wild fantasies.

Comments:This is where the fantasy stuff was overdone. The premise is forced, the fantasies boring, and no Lou Rawls is kind of sad. Yeah I know I called them pointless filler but at least it was something unique in these. The fantasizes include sub commander, old western gunfighter, magician, and lots more. The one positive unlike “Babes and Bullets” we do get breaks to see Garfield in the real world as the fantasies are woven into his real life. Problem is we had Garfield and disguises already, and the fact he is having these fantasies gets kind of silly. He’s a lazy cat guys! Sure he gets bored and has fantasies now and then but here it’s to much. Leave the wild imagination to Snoopy guys.

Grade:C









Plot:Garfield tries to help Jon do better with women

Comments:This is more like it. Sort of. To bad it was the last special ever made. And it’s pretty close to the Thanksgiving one which is a shame. It’s just Jon going out and striking out with women. After going through some old bits from the cartoon strip, Jon joins a dating school and it doesn’t even end so much as, stops. My favorite is the final gag of the episode. However of you ever wondered what difference a director makes on a cartoon, here’s proof. The amazing and talented Phil Roman did not direct this as he had the others and you can tell. It lacks the structure the others had, feeling instead like a series of shorts thrown together.

Grade:C-, No wonder it’s the last, and it makes sense since Garfield and Friends was a hit what did they need these specials for?





Ok so maybe the plots were sometimes lame, but even at their worst these specials always had a charm with Garfield being so awesome and snarky. Of course as I noted all these specials led to something I cherished :


No way to cover this one in a way that will do it justice. I loved this show and while not every episode was great when it was good it was fantastic. It ran for seven seasons which is amazing for a kids animated show, especially on a Saturday Morning! In fact I find it amusing that it was still plugging away well after the point when I stopped watching cartoons on Saturday mornings. It created a lot of original characters, great 4th wall gags, and managed some decent satire which Garfield usually wasn’t known for. Usually when a cartoon is paired with some lesser known series I don’t like the B series, but I even liked U.S.Acres it was pretty good. I’d love to cover this series in its entirety someday but that’s a TALL order. But it’s also no surprise the series killed the specials, since they could do nice short stories rather than the dragged out plots the specials had. In fact that’s what a lot of these specials feel like, episode of the cartoon drawn out to fill a longer run time. At least with the cartoon if I didn’t like one of the stories, another would be coming along in eight minutes.




Oh and yes years later  there was this :

I’ve seen a couple episodes and, it was OK, enough said. Not the same charm as Garfield & Friends and no Lorenzo Music as Garfield really hurts it. But it’s not the worst thing ever. It feels like they are more interested un showing off the cool animation than telling a story. And why do Garfield’s lips move when he talks? Still it’s harmless.


Unlike…..





Ugh.
Yeah we have the movies based on him, two theatrical and three direct to video. What did I think? They were stupid, awful, and insulting to the character and I will not dignify them any further.



So that’s my overview of Garfield’s film work. I did the strips and his TV shows, now there is only one thing left to discuss concerning Garfield. I’ll be back to cover that before the official birthday, June 19th. Until then, a quick clip to leave before next time, from Garfield and Friends :