A Garfield Christmas
This is a reprint of the TV essay from Issue #81 of Exploits, our collaborative cultural diary in magazine form. If you like what you see, buy it now for $2, or subscribe to never miss an issue (note: Exploits is always free for subscribers of Unwinnable Monthly).
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I hate Garfield. Like many of my millennial compatriots, when I was around five years old, I’d wake up on Saturday mornings and run downstairs to turn on the TV. If Muppet Babies graced the screen, it was going to be a good day. Pee-wee’s Playhouse was next. If the set tuned in to Garfield and Friends? Tragedy. Calamity. Complete emotional upheaval. I had missed my chance to scream real loud.
Setting aside Garfield’s bullying of Odie and treating the clearly depressed Jon like a servant – qualities that already fail to endear me to him – I’ve never understood the appeal of his trademark sarcasm, especially packaged up for kids. Now that I’m a ways into my middle age, I get the relatability of the strip, but as Garfield Minus Garfield handily illustrates, recognizing that relatability is bleak. Regarding Saturday morning’s Garfield and Friends specifically, who are these farm animals? Why am I supposed to care about this boring-ass pig? Why does that sheep have Garfield’s face, besides lazy art design? Why is that duck stuck in a pool innertube, and why is there a tiny version of the duck sticking out of the front of it? Why does the tiny duck blink when the big one does?
Nevertheless, A Garfield Christmas had an honored place on my 1980’s VHS compilation of Christmas specials. Why? One word: Grandma.
The beginning of A Garfield Christmas has Garfield and crew heading outside the city limits back to the old family farm for the holidays. There we meet Jon’s mom, dad, his brother Doc Boy and Grandma, voiced by the late, great Pat Carroll. At first, Grandma seems to be a classic crank, complaining that she’s being forced to molder in the corner alone when Jon and company take too long to greet her upon their arrival. Garfield, of course, takes to her immediately.
Later, Garfield approaches her during a moment she’s actually alone, lounging in a rocking chair and gazing at the softly falling snow outside a window. Here the special makes way for a sincere interlude of Grandma reminiscing about the way her late husband celebrated Christmas with the family. It’s a typical still-waters-run-deep narrative, Grandma explaining that her husband looked forward to Christmas as a day where he was free to express his emotions. Carroll sells the hell out of it.
To this day, I prefer a shot of sad with each pint of silly, a dram of pathos to enrich a draught of humor. A Garfield Christmas is the first time I encountered this heady recipe, and even now I find myself taking it with me into my work. So, despite his outsized role as my childhood nemesis, on Christmas I have room for the orange menace. After all, following that sojourn with Grandma, he’s even nice to Odie. At least for the rest of the special.
