I'm trying
something different to get in the holiday spirit this year. Every
day, from now through Christmas, I will be watching a different
Christmas movie or television special. I have compiled the list of
features ahead of time and am drawing one, at random, from my
Christmas stocking everyday to determine what gets watched. Thank
you for joining me in this endeavor. Here we go with day twenty-one.
A Garfield
Christmas Special (1987)
A Garfield Christmas Special was released near the end of the boom
years of Garfield-mania. This is a
special that I used to watch damn near every year when it would air
as part of CBS holiday programming schedule. As Garfield's shine
continued to diminish throughout the nineties this special fell out
of rotation until, like his Halloween special, it seemingly has left
the airwaves forever. My parents found it on DVD a few years back
and I know I have watched with them once since then; though, it has
still been a while since I last viewed it. Does it hold up or is
there a good reason that CBS stopped airing it (other than the fact
that Garfield's popularity is in deep decline).
Synopsis
The special opens with Garfield
dreaming about a spectacular Christmas full of lasagna and hi-tech
present building machines. Woken from this lovely dream, Garfield is
informed by Jon that it is Christmas Eve morning and they are all
headed out to his parent's farm house in the country to celebrate
Christmas. Garfield is skeptical of this plan as he would rather
stay where his bed is for Christmas. However, upon arriving at the
farm, Garfield soon forms a close relationship with Jon's
grandmother. While Garfield is sitting in her lap, she tells him
about her recently past husband and how she always misses him most at
Christmas.
 |
| This scene is touching but is also a huge tonal shift. |
Later, Odie leaves the farm house to head to the barn in the middle of the night. Garfield follows him to
find out what he is up to. However, it looks as though Odie is just
messing with some random parts. After Odie heads back to the farm
house, Garfield is about to leave as well when a box falls on top of
him. He finds something of interest inside the box and then heads
back inside.
The next morning, everyone is
gathered around the tree to exchange gifts. It seems that all the
gifts have been handed out when Garfield announces that there is one
more. He retrieves the objects that he found in the box last night
and gives them to Jon's grandmother. They are love letters written
to her by her deceased husband back when they were courting. She
proclaims it the best gift she could have been given. Odie then drags
Garfield back to the tree and unveils the gift he made for him. It
is a back scratcher. Garfield loves it and then delivers the
emotional message of the special.
 |
| It is kind of a cop out to have your main character say the message of the special straight to the viewer. |
Final Thoughts
After viewing the special, I can
understand why it has dropped out of rotation. While it does have
moments here and there, the special is pretty thin. It relies
heavily on Garfield issuing biting sarcastic comments. Fun for a few
viewings, but not the stuff that holiday traditions are made of.
Further, the animation quality is pretty rough. It is worse than
Garfield and Friends, the weekly series that followed it. It is a
sad day when a television special has worse production values than a
weekly series with tighter deadlines. I'm glad I watched this
one and it does remind me that Garfield used to actually be amusing,
but I feel like this will end up as an every couple of years viewing
rather than an annual tradition. Join me again tomorrow, if you feel
like it.
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