A Look at Garfield Merchandise and Commercials

Continuing my look at Garfield’s 40th birthday and there is only one more thing to really discuss. And that is all the merchandise and commercials the cat has been in. Garfield was a merchandising machine. In fact there’s a while company devoted to it called Paws. In 40 years Garfield has become a major part of pop culture.


He has appeared in everything from Happy Meal’s

to amusement parks (where he has roller coasters named after him)


and yes even being a balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (several times).                       .
 






In fact Garfield is such a pop culture phenomenon that one of the biggest phenomenons o the 1980’s was this :

Yep, no joke.  This plush Garfield “stuck on you” was accidentally made for car’s and people adored them. So much that the company couldn’t keep up with the demand!! These were all over place and the image has been homaged to death.

Though to be honest, I am not sure how safe it is to have a something blocking a portion of your back window. Still, it’s GARFIELD!!!!  These were so popular in fact that there were reports of people vandalizing cars just to get their hands on the plush toy. Check this ad out:

We’ll get back to these ads in a bit.
Garfield has permeated pop culture so much there are references to him all over other media. Here are some quick examples : 

THE SIMPSONS

FAMILY GUY

AMERICAN DAD

and finally, this from The Big Bang Theory

 Just to name a few!!



So let’s talk about some the memorabilia out there you can buy, either as a collector or just because it’s so darn cute.  A lot of people insist that Jim David ONLY created Garfield for the merchandise and that’s ridiculous. I really can’t believe he knew in 1978 what an icon the character would become. I can see begrudging him for over commercializing on him, but don’t tell me that’s the only reason he was created. There’s a ton of stuff out there and since we don’t want to be here all day I will only over a few notable items. Of course it all starts with the stuffed toys, and I had more than a few. There are for any season, including Christmas of course.





And yes there were others besides Garfield. In elementary school my teacher had a stuffed Odie she’d let someone take him home on different weekends. I have no idea why, but I took him home one weekend!




And we have the books. All they were were reprints from the comic strip, and yet they were huge hits! Almost always landing on the best seller list and the format for these books (for the comic strip format) has become synonymous with Garfield. Until the format was later dropped, but still!! There were also treasury books which collected the Sunday strips in bright color.


Not all books were reprints, some were adaptations of the TV specials. There were original stories to and even books which use Garfield to give a message. Like the “9 Lives” book I discussed last tine, or the “Me” book I had as a kid which was all about being confident in who you are and what you love.


And yes even a cook book, because why not?







Obviously we have DVD’s of the TV show's. How about a CD? Not kidding In 1991 there was a CD called “Am I Cool or What?”. Yep, an honest to god music CD with music and everything. You can imagine Desiree Goyette, who I talked about last time, was sure featured!






I am not sure if this is well known nationally, but for a time i did a lot of business with Danbury Mint, which is a company that makes licensed sculptures and other memorabilia. I had tons of Disney but since Garfield is what we are discussing here is the Danbury Mint item I still have and love.

This was part of an entire series however I only bought this.


and I still have this Christmas train, it’s put every year.


They had a whole village too but alas I never owed that.
And while Hallmark never had the license there are still plenty of Christmas tree ornaments





I totally had this poster growing up, though I seem to remember that the one I had was green not blue.





And I did in fact have the clock, which was huge! I sold it at a flea market. It went very fast!!






I also had this phone






Were there T shirt’s? Oh my yes!!!!



Magnets. Mugs. And Calendars, wall and desk! I had this one.





Now honestly this one doesn’t make sense. How do you make Garfield into a video game? I think most are trivia games, or Mario rip off’s, but there are tons of these, and yes I did have one. It was a trivia game and I could not find a picture of it.


Yes there were board games, don’t recall ever having one. Including a Garfield Monopoly which I am really wishing I’d had!!!!!






Of course there were collector plates! And like I asked in my Star Trek article, why were these a thing exactly????



And I should mention that there is a web site, obviously as well as a phone app. Course not everything is memorabilia. Sometimes a company will just throw Garfield’s face on a product even if it makes no sense

Cat litter? Ok




Ok catnip spray makes sense too.







But this? Huh??? What kind of gross candy is this and why is Garfield’s face on it?



So what about food? Would  you believe this existed:

Makes sense, in a way.


This one makes a little more sense

And that leads is to out final discussion. Garfield was a huge sell ou…er, commercial mascot for lots of products. Here is a collection of some of those TV ads that aired over the years!


AMERICAN EXPRESS
I like this one because even to this day, can anyone pick out Jim Davis in a crowd? He only created Garfield!!!

HONEY NUT CHEERIOS
This one is just adorable.

ALPO
His cat food commercials were always cute, even if they weren’t always voiced by Lorenzo Music.

FRUIT SNACKS
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this one. This was totally a thing.

RAVIOLI
This is for the pasta I pictured above, and it’s a very well done ad.

EMBASSY SUITES

This is just stupid. The slogan was “you don’t need to be a fat cat to stay here”. So what better way to illustrate that than with a fat cat? Ugh. You just know the ad execs who came up with that idea were high fiving each other all day. Stupid, but it’s still Garfield.

McDonald’s
What else an I say?

Here  we get an ad for kitty litter. You know it’s well established that Garfield uses a litter box like any other cat. But the way he eats, ever wonder how disgusting that is to change? Man Jon is a saint!

And one last one to end on :

Well folks that’s all I got. Did I miss your favorite item or commercial? Comment and let me know. I love Garfield, and am thrilled he is turning 40 (except for the part where it makes me feel very very old). What is it about this character that has made him endure? It’s his personality, so sure of himself. He likes who he is and we can relate to that. We can also relate to the stuff he hates, like Monday’s!

Happy Birthday!

(yeah that’s me circa 1990)