Even though I heard that the live-action Garfield movie is incredibly lame, my kids want to see it, so I stopped by Wal-Mart this morning to pick up the DVD. While I was there, I got the first season of Arrested Development as well. And then, while looking around, my eyes happened to land upon …
THE GARFIELD HOLIDAY CELEBRATION DVD!!!
With Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, Garfield’s Thanksgiving, and A Garfield Christmas, including extras like subtitles and digital sound and everything. Of course, it’s the Halloween one I’m most excited about – no longer will I have to keep checking eBay for $60 VHS copies of the Halloween Adventure, just on the off chance that I’ll find one that’s going cheap so I can acquire this relic of my childhood. Finally, my kids will get to enjoy the Halloween special – our recorded-from-TV VHS tape died years ago, before either of them were born.
And you know, it’s the perfect time. The Halloween season is upon us, and Garfield’s Halloween Adventure is the only animated Halloween special of its type that is actually scary. Not that I have anything against It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but Garfield’s Halloween Adventure can actually give me chills. It’s just sublime. Words cannot describe the wonderfulness of it all.
And yet, even though they’ve been wanting to see the Garfield Halloween special for years, neither of the girls seemed all that excited when I told them about it this morning. Maybe it’s just that I woke them up at 4:30 this morning to tell them about it. Kids today are so lazy, I tell you …
Well, now I must be off to watch Garfield go trick-or-treating with Odie. I can’t possibly be the only one who harbors such powerful feelings of love and delight for this movie, can I?
Jon takes Garfield and Odie camping, and they get lost, and then Garfield gets left behind and winds up living on the streets? And there’s this really scary feral cat who hates him?
That’s all I remember…we used to have this, on Beta (!), and it freaked me out as a kid.
Despite me not understanding what that fourth panel was all about (“You cold have a peter in your mouth?” What the criminy? Should that be “could,” maybe? Beats me, and even if it should, I still don’t get it), that strip caused me to burst out laughing. But it seems to be referring more to the actual Garfield comic strip, rather than the movie, right?
Not that I disagree, even though it unsettles me to say so … like I’m being treasonous to a strip that, when I was a kid, was hilarious. I used to just love Garfield, and my daughters still love his early strips … but now the funny-to-boring ratio is about one in twenty gazillion.
The same thing happened with Peanuts. It was my favorite comic strip through my whole childhood and I have pretty much every Peanuts book that has been published (the recent Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 and Complete Peanuts 1953-1954, and the plan to continue the series and eventually publish every Peanuts strip ever written, almost caused me to pass out from glee when I saw the books at the store) but in the later years, strip quality went way downhill. Even so, I sure wish Charles M. Schulz was still around so we could continue getting new Peanuts strips. Hmmm … well, now I’ve gone from happy about the new Garfield DVD to sad about Charles Schulz. Maybe reading some of those early Peanuts strips in the 1950-1952 collection while I watch Garfield’s Thanksgiving will help.
All I’m gonna say is “Candy candy candy candy candy candy!” I’m not sure if that’s the same one you’re talking about, but I know it’s from some Garfield Halloween thing I used to watch when I was a kid, way back in the latter Reagan years.
Wasn’t there a Garfield special that was done in segments, illustrating his nine lives or something, and each was animated in a different style.And in one of the segments he has to escape from an animal testing lab.
I saw it once and haven’t thought about it for years. If it’s not from the Garfield Halloween special, it would be a perfect Identify-This TV-Show thread.
Hmmm … I don’t recall one like that. I recall the part where:
Garfield is living on the streets and the feral cat hates him, which I believe is Garfield: On the Town. And the one where they go camping and a panther tries to kill them is Garfield - In the Rough. I don’t think that Garfield: On the Town involves camping, but I haven’t seen it in ages and I could definitely be wrong. The camping one with the escaped panther, Garfield - In the Rough, sure freaked me out as a kid, and it still freaks my daughters out. But not as much as the Halloween special does.
The first one, Garfield: On the Town, can be found on the new Garfield As Himself DVD, which also includes the first Garfield TV special, Here Comes Garfield, and Garfield Gets a Life. But for Garfield - In the Rough you have to buy the VHS tape still – hopefully they’ll come out with all the Garfield specials on DVD soon enough!
And Cliffy, I bought the Garfield and Friends, Vol. 1 DVD as soon as it came out; I was jazzed to show my kids the splendor of the funniest Saturday morning cartoon that I ever watched as a kid (well, except for the Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, I guess, which I liked a bit more). And they love the show’s Garfield episodes, and they’re just as fond of his farm friends over at “U.S. Acres” too. But it’s not as funny as I remember it being – I guess now I’m more of a Futurama type than a Garfield and Friends type. The perils of becoming an adult!
Hey, wow, looks like Garfield and Friends, Vol. 2 comes out on 07 Dec 2004! The kids will be excited about that. Maybe Volume 2 includes the point at which they changed the show’s theme song. Personally, I liked the first one better.
Heck yeah – that’s my favorite Garfield movie of all time, Garfield - His 9 Lives. I even bought the gigantic comic strip version of that book. That segment you mentioned was one of my favorites because
after escaping from the animal testing lab, the drugs they gave him take effect, and he turns into a dog, blending in with the other dogs that are hunting him down and escaping to a life of freedom. And it had a really spooky atmosphere about it, similar to the Halloween special, just like you mentioned.
One of the really great parts about that movie was the way each segment was animated in a different style (as I see Marley23 has mentioned, on preview). And it also shows the creation of cats and shows us what happens to Garfield after he runs out of all nine lives.
Me and my friends still quote bits of the Garfield 9 Lives movie pretty frequently, even though it has been something like 10-15 years since we last watched it all together, and now my daughters have started quoting bits of it too. It’s quite hilarious to hear a three-year-old say “It was back in the eighties, or was it the nineties, and I was a mouser of some note.”
Whoa, I didn’t know there were any animated Berkeley Breathed cartoons. That’s ultra-spiffy. I must add that to my “Please put it out on DVD!” wishlist.
I remember waking up one Halloween and saying that line to myself. It wasn’t spontaneous, either, I was such a dork that I planned it. Anyway, I don’t remember that much of the plot- could you re-spoil it for me?
[spoiler]
Garfield and Odie are out trick-or-treating (maybe halfway through the show; the previous time is spent finding out about Halloween, picking a costume, tricking Odie into thinking that dogs help cats get candy and if they’re really good and do a really good job they get a whole piece of candy of their very own, several musical numbers, etc.) and after they hit all the houses in the area, Garfield notices a bunch of other houses across a river. So they find a rowboat and put out to sea (well, out to river) – the eternal quest for more candy, you see.
After a moment, Garfield notices that they are caught up in the current, and he tells Odie to “put out the oars.” Whereupon Odie, being Odie, immediately drops the oars into the water and they’re left at the mercy of the river. Garfield drops into a funk, sure that they’ll be swept out to sea and die.
But fortunately for them, they drift right into a little island where a creepy old house stands, and they decide to investigate the place. After Garfield attempts to kick down the door (“OW! <rubs his foot> Hey, tell you what – let’s quiiiiietly slip in.”) and they peer into the house, Garfield decides the place is empty and they decide to warm themselves in front of the fire. As they warm up, Garfield glances back and discovers that a terrifying old man is staring at them from his chair in front of the fire. They panic and he orders them to shut up. Then he tells them that they picked a poor night to come visit – it could be the worst night of their lives!
He proceeds to tell them how, one hundred years ago tonight, a ruthless band of pirates holed up in this house while being pursued by government troops. (As he tells them, the pirates and their activities are shown in flashback, of course. And lightning and thunder provide a suitably spooky atmosphere.) Their huge stash of ill-gotten treasure is weighing them down so heavily that they bury it under the floorboards of the house. But before they escape, they sign a contract written in blood, swearing to return one hundred years from that very Halloween night in odrer to retrieve the treasure, at the stroke of midnight – “Even if it meant returning from the grave!”
Garfield expresses doubt, but the man tells them that he was the pirates’ 10-year-old cabin boy and saw the whole thing, and that he never took the treasure because “they would have found me – there’s no escaping them. They know we’re here. They know who we are!” Garfield and Odie converse and decide to go, and turn back to invite the old man to come along, but he has vanished! Yikes! So they run out to the boat, and …
… and the old man is rowing away rapidly in their boat, of course.
“Rats! There goes my boat. RATS! THERE GOES MY CANDY!” Garfield mourns. Then they hear the grandfather clock inside the house striking twelve. They rush back in and try to stop it from chiming, but are unable to do so. The music at this point is quite scary and tense. But when the twelfth chime rings, nothing happens, and Garfield says “Just as I suspected – that old man was just some kind of lunatic!”
Then thunder roars, and lightning strikes, and suspenseful music begins. Garfield and Odie run out the open door and see an eerie ship, glowing blue-white, floating towards the island. As it approaches, a blob of light breaks off under the water, floats up, swirls a bit, and BLUE-WHITE-GLOWING SKELETAL PIRATE GHOSTS EMERGE FROM THE WATER AND FLOAT TOWARD THE HOUSE!
Garfield and Odie rush back inside, panicking and running around in circles. Garfield says “We gotta hide, Odie! We haven’t much time! We gotta find a good place to hide! Don’t worry that – (deep voice and looming posture) THEY KNOW WHERE WE ARE!!!” (they run around in circles gibbering like idiots again). Odie buries his head in a flower pot and Garfield pulls him out – “Not there, dummy!” – and they hide in a little hutch, with the door slightly ajar.
As they wait in the dark interior of the hutch, light suddenly streams in through the small opening in the door and Odie looks through it. In a very spooky scene, Strange lights start flashing through the open door of the cottage, and through the windows as well. Suddenly, one of the BLUE-WHITE-GLOWING SKELETAL PIRATE GHOSTS!!! floats up to a window. The three pirate ghosts float in through the door and swirl around the floor, then sink beneath the floorboards through a small hole in the wood. Light shines up through the boards, which bend and crack and finally shatter; a treasure chest rises up out of the hole and the floorboards mend themselves, and the chest sinks to the ground. Then it opens up, revealing tons of glittering jewels. (The pirate ghosts are nowhere to be seen.)
Meanwhile, inside the hutch, Odie is rubbing his nose! Oh no! Garfield tries to stop him, but – “Ah-CHOO!” The hutch doors fling open and the three pirates look back from their place in front of the treasure. Garfield and Odie, huge cheesy grins of terror on their face, each close one of the hutch doors. “Maybe they didn’t see us,” says Garfield. There is a pause. Then, in perhaps the scariest scene of the movie, the skull of a pirate ghost is in front of them, looking malevolent, as the music crescendos in a frightening manner!
Garfield and Odie run for it, startling the ghost. They sprint out the front door and run down the walkway and stop at the edge of the boat dock. Looking back, they see that they are being chased by the pirate ghosts. Onto the wooden dock they run, even though they know they have no boat! Oh no! Odie steps on a rotten plank and falls through, barely clinging to the next board. But he pulls himself back up and they reach the edge of the dock. They look back again. The ghosts are coming!
“This is it, pal – we swim for it!” cries Garfield, “one, two, three --” and they leap into the murky water below.
“Rats! I forgot! I can’t swim!” Garfield gurgles and struggles, sinking in a bubbly haze, and only his pirate captain hat (part of his costume) bobs back up. Odie tries to save him but can only find the hat. Then he spies Garfield – Garfield is dog-paddling (ironic swimming stroke, isn’t it?) to a nearby tree, grabbing for a branch, but it snaps and he sinks, . Odie dives and grabs him and pulls him to safety on the beach. As they lay in a puddle of water, half-drowned, Garfield gasps “I owe you one, old buddy,” and puts his hand on Odie’s shoulder.
Then the scene cuts to them walking along the beach. “This was the worst night of my life,” says Garfield. Then Odie stops and points. With a dramatic swell of music, Garfield looks and they spy their boat! And what’s more, their bags of candy are still in the back! “Well, lookie here!” says Garfield in his pirate accent. “It do be me candy, arrr! I guess this story do have a happy ending after all, matey! So let’s be shovin’ off for home now!”
It cuts to them walking home, full moon overhead, bags of candy in their hands (well, Odie’s in his mouth). “So the pirate ghosts got the treasure, and WE got the candy candy candy candy…”
Then it cuts to them at home, sentimental music playing, Garfield safe in bed. “Odie, I’m about to do something that is totally out of character for me, but seeing as how you saved my life about 18 zillion times tonight, I want to give you something. Something of great personal worth. SOmething that represents a great personal sacrifice on my part. <pause> Here’s your half of the candy.” Odie barks and acts happy. “Yeah, love you, now get out of here.” Odie leaves, happy and yipping. “What a night,” Garfield says, settling back into bed.
“Boy, am I wired, I think I’ll see what’s on TV.” Garfield flips the TV on with the remote, and to his shock, a man on TV appears – it’s the old man from the island, now wearing a pirate-captain hat just like Garfield’s!
“Good evening,” says in a Bela Lugosi-style Dracula-like voice, “and welcome to our all-night pirate movie festival.”
Eyes wide, Garfield flips off the TV. “Boy, am I tired!” He snuggles back under the covers with Pokey, and as the music plays its final last bit, he gives a little smile and lets out a very piratey “Arrrr…” as he falls asleep.[/spoiler]
Whew! I guess it wasn’t such a “quick plot summary” after all. Man … watching it again to get those details has once again reminded me of just how great it is. I highly recommend it, especially since I summarized the first 15 minutes or so (out of a 24-minute show) in that one sentence in the parentheses of the first paragraph. There’s lots of good stuff there too – some of the songs included therein have been stuck in my head for years, in fact. I just chose to focus on the main action of the show rather than the beginning parts there.
Incidentally, there’s also a comic book version of the Halloween special with some important and interesting plot differences. For instance, one that springs instantly to mind is,
in the book, Garfield steals a ring from the treasure chest as they run out of the house, and the ghosts keep pursuing Odie and Garfield even after they jump in the river and find the boat and candy and all, until Garfield remembers the stolen ring and returns it to them.
I had a copy of the book as a kid – it was from when the book was originally published and they called it “Garfield in Disguise,” instead of using the same title as the TV special like they do now – but alas, my copy of the book is no more.
Good lord, I remember being actually scared of the Garfield Halloween special too. Eek.
But Bon Voyage Charlie Brown, where they have to sleep in the stable and there’s some sort of mysterious Count creeping around, kinda scared me too.
Also the Care Bear Movie. Possibly the first movie I saw in the theater, when I was about 5. There was an evil face in the book that I can remember clear as the day I saw it. :eek:
Oh yes! I love that Charlie Brown movie, and I was also scared by that stable-sleeping part when the mysterious guy was about. There were several scenes in that movie that I remember being scared by, or at least creeped out by. Same with “Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown” when they’re racing down the river on rafts at summer camp. Some of those nights got pretty scary…
Now that I think about it, “Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown” was actually one of my earliest exposures to other cultures. I remember being puzzled by a lot of things in that movie when I first saw it, like the tiny car they were driving and the bread they bought at a shop.
Oh, man, I also saw that in the theater when I was little, and that face in the book almost gave me a heart attack. Then I hadn’t thought of that for years, until a little while ago when we bought the movie on DVD for the kids. When that face on the book showed up again I still remembered how scary it was back then, and I asked my kids if they thought it was scary, and they said “No way.” Either things like that are a lot scarier when you see them on a big theater screen with speakers all around you, or my kids are just super-brave compared to me.
Maybe it’s just that I woke them up at 4:30 this morning to tell them about it. Kids today are so lazy, I tell you …
I’m not sure if that’s the same one you’re talking about, but I know it’s from some Garfield Halloween thing I used to watch when I was a kid, way back in the latter Reagan years.