I fucking flip flap loved Garfield as a kid. It was one of the things I loved the fucking MOST. The saucy fat cat and his poor sap owner Jon Arbuckle was some high quality entertainment for me as a youngster. I would go to bookstores all over the small island I lived on. Used bookstores, new bookstores just to get Garfield books (alongside this were Heathcliff, Dennis the Menace, Foxtrot, Bloom County, B.C., The Wizard of Id, Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and because I didn't want to leave the store without something sometimes even the Family Circus. I think my greatest shame was owning Family Circus books.) I even remember the time I pretended to sing up in front of a large audience some dumb ass Newfoundland songs that sucked shit (seriously nothing is worse than Newfoundland music) and just pretending got me a Garfield book, I think they just didn't want me to skip off the entire day of school. I don't even know how I got up there to sing because my music teacher literally said I couldn't sing. Fuck her right in her nose. I should have stayed home just to spite her, but I guess Garfield Dishes It Out was worth it. I'm sure I will talk about Garfield again so I will keep some other stupid Garfield related memories for those times.
Garfield & Friends was a TV Cartoon series that ran on CBS from September 17th, 1988 to December 10, 1994 for seven whole seasons and 121 episodes. Every episode had 3 segments, two Garfield's and one U.S. Acres (my greatest disappointment was finding one of these books as a teenager and realizing how fucking terrible it was. I know tons of people hate Garfield but holy shit Garfield is the fucking Mona Lisa of comic art compared to Jim Davis' other creation) for about three hundred and sixty three segments. As you can tell by the episodes I will be talking about they were clearly running out of ideas by the time this came out. I also have to point out before getting to the episode that the third Garfield theme song was so bad that I'm pretty sure they replaced it for the DVD set. Here we will even include it here thanks to YouTube! It's really bad and I don't like it.
The Three segments of the last Garfield And Friends Episodes are:
Arbuckle the Invincible: The only one of the three I actually enjoyed. Yeah it's a bit out there but Garfield and Friends had to end up getting out there because you can't just animated Garfield eating Lasagna for 7 seasons. This episode starts with Aliens coming to earth and a globe thing that helped Meteors keep away from them falls off their ship and into Jon Arbuckle's pocket making him INVICIBLE. He then goes to get an agent and to set up a crazy stunt, only problem is when he's going to the stunt he doesn't take the globe thing because he doesn't realize he needs it. The aliens save him and at least it was some what amusing.
The Monster Who Couldn't Scare Anyone: This is the U.S. Acres segment. Orson tells Booker and Sheldon (the eggs name was that right? I don't care enough about U.S. Acres to even look that up) about a monster who couldn't scare anyone but had to wear a paper bag because even his family thought he was homely and ends up scaring Orson's brothers because he looks like a pork sausage farmer that does TV commercials. U.S. Acres was mostly pretty not great and this one is no exception.
The Ocean Blue: This one is a musical segment. Like carribean music. A shark is doing some shit to Garfield. I literally don't care enough about this segment to even talk about it. Worst one of the episode.
Final Verdict: I enjoyed Garfield and Friends as a kid, and I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen an an adult. It's a worthy and enjoyable cartoon but this Final Episode clearly shows that season 7 was the time to finally put the show to bed. I might have been harsh on these episodes but I certainly wouldn't want the job of trying to keep a show based around Garfield and U.S. Acres fresh after 363 segments, ya know?
Owning Family Circus books is horrific. You... got rid of them, right?
ReplyDeleteUS Acres was good in that Jim Davis had to actually try. It was bad because Jim Davis did not try well. I still have 2 Acres books. They're fine. Yes, it is Booker and Sheldon.
I loved Garfield growing up too. Books and the show. Mark Evanier is a childhood wizard. Also the CGI Garfield from 10 years ago was really bad. Another Evanier joint but he clearly did not refill the idea well over the decade between old and new.
I realize I haven't said anything clawtroversial so your dad is a horse. Have to keep the status quo.
Mark Evanier is very underrated. I've always enjoyed the comic stuff hes done.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a single Family Circus book anymore. I don't think I ever had more than 5, it was like man everything else I want is not here so I guess I'll buy this. It's like that because we went to a book store out of the way and I HAD to make that visit count.
The books were never worth the 1.00 I spent on them.