Where's the Jest?
Gord Wilson | Bellingham, WA USA | 06/21/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Imagine a story in which a funny cartoon cat gets abducted by aliens. He's replaced by a cat that's not funny and not a cartoon. That doesn't happen in this story, but it might as well. What does happen is that Garfield loses his "funny". That gives the writers a chance to lose theirs. Garfield supposedly gets his funny back at the end of the show. The writers never get theirs back.
The idea seems to be to see how far Garfield can break the mold. How un-Garfield can you get and still have him vaguely recognizable enough for branding? There's a trend in animation to take something that works and keep breaking it until it doesn't, and to staff studios with shirts who apparently can't tell the difference. But it's hard to believe audiences can't tell either.
When Garfield first appeared in the funny papers in 1978, it was slammed as the least funny comic in existence. Arguably it became the funniest comic in existence. In its thirty plus years, it's changed a lot, and in many ways gotten better. Garfield TV specials won Emmy awards and built Phil Roman's gargantuan Film Roman animation studio. Twenty years in, Jim Davis managed to buy the rights back from the syndicate. Fox's Garfield and Friends is arguably yet one of the best kids' cartoon series of all time.
What to do? How about a live action movie? How about various sorts of CGI shorts and featurettes? Instead of using the proven characters from Garfield and U.S. Acres, how about just inventing new ones? And lastly, why should Garfield be funny? Must he kick Odie off the table? Must he be so satirical and sardonic? What if he were warm and romantic and friendly and lovable, with no sharp edges, no barbed wit, more, uh, bland?
If the idea is to have a moral, maybe the writers could learn from Veggie Tales, who still manage to be lighter and wittier than 90 per cent of cartoons, and certainly than this one. Once again, I must quote Joe Barbera in favor of cartoons that are "mindlessly funny instead of mindlessly preachy". This new, improved Garfield may appeal to some viewers, but those who want the old, funny one might check out: Garfield and Friends, Volume OneGarfield and Friends, Volume TwoGarfield and Friends, Volume ThreeGarfield and Friends, Volume FourGarfield and Friends, Volume FiveGarfield Cat Tales - (Garfield as Himself / Garfield Fantasies / Garfield Travel Adventures)"