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popculturebuffet · 2 months ago

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Pirate Month III Finale: Garfield's Halloween Adventure (Here Comes Garfield) (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Arrr me hearties and welcome to the FINAL instalment of Pirate Month. I gotta say this may be our best yet: while I had my doubts going in from the weirdness of the wiggles to the heights of pirates 2 this has been a lot of fun and reminded me of the possiblity of this.

Speaking of which we're ending on a high as we return to Here Comes Garfield my look at garfield's career in specials and film. We'll be taking another break next month, like muppet maddness emma's allowed me to be flexible, but rest assured i'm having a lot of fun with these and while I consdiered doing Garfield In Paradise as I wanted some summer fun.. I ultimately couldn't deny what fit here best. Don't worry we have just the right treat for halloween though.. after all halloween's all about putting on another face.. and garfield's had 9.. or shall we say 13.

On that tease for next time, let's talk about the special before us. Garfield's Halloween Adventure is his fourth special, and i'd say one of the most remembered. While Garfield's other holiday specials have failed to catch a ton of attention outside garfield fans and those who grew up with it, Halloween Adventure seems to get talked about more.

It's easy to see why: Halloween Adventure is the best of the three. Christmas is awesome and I talked about why last month, having a ton of heart and a clear perosnal bent from Jim Davis, and Thanksgiving... sure does exist. But Halloween both perfectly fits the season and garfield all at once: it's got all the coziness of halloween from trying on costumes to carving pumpkins to the eerie yet fun atmosphere of trick or treating.. and all teh scares with a few smaller ones spread about, nothing too severe.. and then a spooky enough final act that comes out of nowhere and just.. works. While garfield woudl take a genuine stabs at horror later with a segment in the 9 lives book and a week of strips where he wakes up to find the house long abandoned and john and odie long gone, this is more just some fun. As Davis himself said, it's more a regular garfield story with some scares at the end for four year olds. IT's a fun, breezy specail I can't wait to break down.

We open on a crisp and cozy halloween morning around 5am as we get the debut of a legend: On the TV Binky the Clown wakes Garfield for exercises.

Binky is one of the best garfield recurring characters, played by John's va Thom Huge. While he started here he'd quickly become a key part of garfield and friends when it aried, showing up regularly, having tons of fan support and even making it into the strip

I was also shocked to find when looking him up on the garfield wiki he has his own burger chain binky burger, which seems to show up more than he does

It's also amazing how much of the guy was down from the start: his hammy personality, catchphrase of "HEYYYYYY KIIIIIDDDS", antagonism of Garfield and general obnoxious hostility. Despite not being physically present you can tell WHY Garfield hates this guy most of the time and why Davis and co brought him back for Garfield and Friends. He hasn't been properly brought back since, likely because Thom Huge retired though he did make cameos on products in the garfield movie. He feels like a protypical Krusty the Clown: children's tv host, merchandises himself to hell, has run ins with the main characters but firmly existed before him. I think the creators just had similar childhoods growing up with tv clowns and took them in diffrent directions: Krusty is enthusastic on screen burnt out and kinda sleazzy off while Binky is ALWAYS on, just as much of a dick as krusty but that kind of manic. As seen above in the strip even when he's being a dick it's clear he takes his craft VERY seriously.

So Binky making fat jokes, calling people who don't exercise worthless and generally being the clown prince of dickheads is both deeply entertaning and causes Garfield to change the channel... only to change it back when Binky mentions candy. Garfield's reminded it's halloween and wnats to be in shape to get candy dosen't he.

We launch into our standard Lou Rawls opening number and as usual it's a lot of fun. This is the Night is a fun song about going out to trick or treat. The man never failed to make his song the best minute of the special. And he's got another later lucky us.

So Garfield does what he does best.. harasses john, scaring him so he ends up wearing a pumpkin on his head as is his lot in life. I do like how this special really leans into one of my faviorite aspects: Garfield is more than anything John's spoiled son. The age varies, usually he's a bratty teen but here he comes off more like a big kid, and that sponebobian flexiblity really works for the character. Garfile dhas a blankie and flights of fantasy btu generally just vegges out and spends all johns money. He can be a kid or a teen depending on what joke works better and his status as a cat means which one dosen't firmly matter.

Anyways garfield decides to get candy candy candy, and soon runs into odie who scares him using the same pumpkin what ended up on john. Naturally he dosen't find it amusing. I hadn't noticed before but the first half of this special is a nice slow burn: for the first 2/3 it's just normal garfield stuff but on HALLOWEEN, and the holiday fits him well: it's all about spooky stuff, which he's been shown to love when it's not real as garfield watching late night double features is a recurring thing in the strip, and excess, which is his whole deal.

So to get more of that candy candy candy, Garfield enlists odie, who true to form is too stupid to know wha thalloween is so garfield says dogs help cats get candy candy candy. And just to go ahead and tackle it, Garfile'ds regular increasingly manic shouts of CANDY CANDY CANDY are amazing and a testiament to Lorenzo music's talent

Speaking of testiaments to Lorenzo music's talents, the next musical number, of three is what should I be and it's one of only TWO times Garfield sings in the all 12 specials. And Lorenzo makes a meal of it it's a fun song about how he could be whatever he wants from a "an astronaut a robot a king or a clown or a alien creature going out on the town" with some nicely spooky image of garfield as a vampire bat or a big black halloween cat. It's a fun jaunty number and cute as hell.

Eventually, and the reason why we're here, Garfield settles on pirates. His pillaging John's Lasanga is both predictable and shocking of him to not you know, have some ready. IT's late enough in the characters history he should just accept this is his fate to feed a cat Lasanga and move on with his life.

So with that our heroes head out into the night, and garfield threatens a woman who only gives him one.. and she takes it seriously as garfield won't murder over much, not worth the effort but he will murder anyone in his way of food Jon included. He once strangeled the guy for not getting up to feed him

And that was year one garfield. I'm suprised John's neck isn't in a brace forevermore from that.

So after getting plenty of candy we get our final musical number, as Lou Rawls sings for garfield that the one thing he's not is a scardy cat, my faviorite song of the special. I love his smooth vocals and the sheer weirdness of this section as every trick or treater garfield unmasks, trying to prove to odie it's just kayfabe bro is some sort of monster. I mean come on guys when else are they going to get out and party, get candy or go to an I hate my ex party. Let em have their fun.

So with that Garfield has a scheme as he notices another neighborhood across the river and a small boat and being a pirate decides to set sail. This goes as poorly as you'd expect as they soon get lost.

This is where the last act kicks in and it's a doozy: okay so for the last act the pirate stuff ramps up and it's why I couldnt' resisit including it. while Garfiled wearing a pirate costume is frankly enough to fit pirate month, Wiggles having about 5 minutes of pirate nonsense sure did, it's this last part that made it essential. It's an act dripping with atmosphere gorgeous animation and one creepy old man.

So garfield knocks on a house and decides when he dosen't get an answer to sneak in at night and wreck up the place. Instead turns out there's a person there an old man lit only by fire light alone in a creepy old mansion. Garfield's reactoin is an understandable

But the old man tells them to stay. He's played by tv and film vet C Lindsay Workman who just had a perfectly deep booming voice.

It's here he regails us with a tale: 100 years ago some pirates hid their gold swearing everyone to secrecy.. including a lowly cabin boy

Yup. They vowed to come back in 100 years to get back their gold. And tonight's that night. Garfield decides wisely to RUN RUN BITCH RUN USE ODIE AS A SHIELD RUN but our dynamic duo find the old man stole their boat and now there's a ghost in this home, and it's not better than being a alone. Since this house is haunted and that's not the way tehyw ant it garfield hides but gets found out in a quick gag. The ghosts.. look amazing using rotoscoping to give them this nice pale blue look as they search for their gold. It's a fun tense sequence as our heroes barely escape jumping for it and taking it to the river, dipping in the water.. only for Garfield to realize he can't swim. Sadly he hadn't learned a crucial fact just yet he'd learn later that year.

Thankfully odie has the strength of a mack truck and lifts him. We get a genuinely touching ending too: the pirates get their gold.. and Garfield, in a move he FULLY admits is out of character and casues him some pain... gives Odie his fair share of their candy, as the old man left it behind.. either after the pirates murdered him or he retreated back into the depths of hell.. or into a hosting gig s he's later shown hosting a pirate movie marathon.

And so with that button Pirate Month ends and so does this special. Halloween Adventure is possibly the best garfield specail, only slightly behind babes and bullets, a fun heartfelt and breezy thrill ride that gets halloween and garfield just right while throwing one small bit of heart in at the end that works. IT's funny, spooky and good stuff

Ranking wise...

Next Time: With this gone and september off what will we do for the actual halloween? Well as I hinted when you've got 9 lives you've got nine ways to loose as we look at BOTH major versions of garfield's nine lives: the original book and it's special adaptation.

#garfield #jon arbuckle #odie #pirates #halloween #garfield's halloween adventure #binky the clown #comics #comic strips #jim davis

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