After getting Jon out of bed to make him breakfast, Garfield is horrified to learn that he has an appointment at the veterinarian later that day. Tearing the page off the calendar to make Jon forget, he then discovers that the next day is Thanksgiving. Looking forward to all of the food that comes with it, Garfield has Jon go to the grocery store and stock up on all the necessary supplies. Unfortunately for him, Jon remembers his appointment with the vet and takes Garfield there on their way home. Dr. Liz Wilson examines Garfield and comments that, while he's healthy, he's also far too fat and needs to be put on a diet, much to his chagrin. At the same time, Jon, as usual, tries to ask Liz out on a date and she only gives in when he decides to hold his breath until she says yes and nearly asphyxiates himself in the process. Ecstatic, Jon invites her over to the house for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Jon may be happy about the prospect of Liz coming over but Garfield is cranky and miserable due to his diet, and his mood doesn't get any better when he learns that Jon has Odie watching his every move to make sure he sticks to it. Now, Garfield has to deal with having to mind his food intake on Thanksgiving, of all days, while Jon has no clue how to cook a big dinner for himself and Liz.
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| Gerard Baldwin |
After "helping" Jon pick out something to wear to dinner, Garfield is, once again, inspected by Liz when she arrives, as she doesn't want him to become anemic. When he acts out every single symptom of vitamin deficiency that she lists off, Garfield's misery turns to relief and joy when Liz decides to forget the diet and have him do some minor exercise for the time being. He kisses Liz and celebrates that he's free to eat, only to then remember that this meal is shaping up to be a disaster, as Jon has proven not to know the first thing about making a Thanksgiving dinner. Going into the kitchen and finding that the turkey is still frozen, Garfield gets Jon to call his grandmother, who promptly arrives and takes control of things. While Jon "entertains" Liz out in the living room (i.e., bores her to tears), Garfield watches as Grandma works her magic and soon, she has his mouth watering. Once she finishes the dinner and discreetly leaves, they all enjoy the meal she left for them, with even Garfield getting into the tradition and spirit of joining hands with everyone. After it's over and Liz has gone home, Jon tries to get Garfield and Odie to join him in a walk to work off some of the food, only for the latter to be revealed to now be as fat and listless as Garfield usually is. Jon puts him on a diet and Garfield gets a little payback by blowing the whistle and making him do pushups.
Though it's not much to write home about in terms of its look, as the story is set almost entirely within Garfield's home, so you don't see anything at all exotic or really lovely, like you do in other specials like Garfield in the Rough and Garfield in Paradise, or in the character conceptualizations, as by this point, they'd firmly established their signature look (this special is one that really feels like a longer than average episode of Garfield and Friends), one thing that makes Garfield's Thanksgiving stand out among most of its peers is how surprisingly good the animation is. Sometimes, it's the same, simple animation you usually get with these Garfield specials but, in many instances, it transitions into a very fluid and often energetic style. It's not Disney-level but it's still very above average for Garfield. I don't know if it was due to Phil Roman having three other people assisting him in the directing or if he had more animators working on it than he normally did, but the quality of the animation is one thing that really makes this short distinctive.
The special is also not hard up for comedy, either. The idea of Garfield being put on a diet is ripe for laughs in and of itself but when you have it occur the day before Thanksgiving and combine it with Jon trying to fix a big meal in order to impress Liz, it's absolute gold. The two funniest scenes occur in Liz's examination room and in the bathroom when Garfield decides to weigh himself. In the former, while Jon, after his upfront requests for a date have been shot down, holds his breath to try to make Liz break down out of pity, Garfield freaks out when Liz proclaims that he's going to have to go on a diet. Both of them talk over each other, Liz describing the details of the diet and Garfield ranting and protesting everything that she suggests he cut out, all while Jon's face has turned red and bloated and his head looks like it's about to explode. It ends with Garfield letting out an anguished yell while Jon lets his breath out with a groan and the two of them both faint at exactly the same time. It's absolutely hilarious. Later, at home, Garfield decides to weigh himself and steps up on a scale that's robotic and talking. Their exchange is priceless: "I'm RX2, your talking scale. I can tell you your weight, your fortune, or just about anything else you would like to know." "Okay, smarty pants, what's my name?" "Judging by your weight, you are Orson Welles." "Great, her voice chip with a cruel streak." "May I have your autograph, please?" "Oh, shut up. Why is everybody picking on me?! And what's wrong with being large-boned, anyway?" "I've seen all your movies." "Hey, how would you like to have your battery removed?" "I wouldn't like that, Mr. Welles." "It's not like I'm all that overweight! I... can still see my feet." "I've seen Citizen Kane eight times." With that, Garfield decides he's had enough and repeatedly stomps on the scale until it's crushed. As he storms off, the scale groans, "Rosebud," before giving up the ghost. This kind of reminds me of an episode of Garfield and Friends where Garfield pulls the plug on a sentient TV set that's been tormenting him and the way it "dies" is similar to how HAL 9000 goes out in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I find that gag to be a bit funnier but this is still good stuff all-around. There are other funny moments in the special and I'll get to them shortly, but these two scenes are the comedy highlights, for sure.
Like I said in the introduction, the one major flaw with Garfield's Thanksgiving that keeps it from being on par with the other Garfield holiday specials is how it doesn't really capture the essence and point of Thanksgiving itself. It certainly has more of the feel of the holiday and the season than something like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which looked and felt more like it was taking place in the springtime but, when it comes to what Thanksgiving is all about, it only has the one scene where we see them sharing their dinner, which is accompanied by Desiree Goyette singing a lovely song pertaining to it. Nice moment, but other than that, it's all about how Garfield is initially denied one of the things he loves most (food) on a day whose celebration is centered around a big meal and how Jon uses Thanksgiving as an excuse to get a date out of Liz. You could say that, by the end of it, both of them are thankful for finally managing to get what matters to them but that feels like grasping at straws to me.While Garfield's Halloween Adventure perfectly captured the spooky fun of Halloween, and A Garfield Christmas Special managed to get to the spirit and meaning of the season without being too saccharine about it, as well as touched on the more melancholy aspects of it, Garfield's Thanksgiving mainly just uses the holiday as window dressing and little else. It honestly comes off like they felt obligated to do Thanksgiving since they'd already done Halloween and Christmas, which is why I can't put it on the same level as its brethren.
The special starts off with Garfield attempting to wake Jon up to make him breakfast, asking him politely and saying that he'll allow him to go back to bed when he's finished. But, when he gets rebuffed and thrown off the bed when Jon rolls over, Garfield takes more drastic measures and sends him flying out of bed by playing loud martial music over a boombox. Garfield and Odie, the latter holding a pair of cymbals, march across his bed and Garfield, acting like a drill sergeant, demands that he get to it, declaring, "Rise and shine, Jon Arbuckle! Time to serve your nation as you serve your fellow man! Yes, it's time to serve him pancakes. Pancakes the size of Australia, and coffee. Yes, Jon, coffee. We wouldn't be the great nation we are today if it weren't for coffee. So do your patriotic duty, Jon Arbuckle, and fix... me... breakfast!" The two pets march out of the bedroom, Odie smashing the cymbals together before doing so, leaving Jon to ponder, "I wonder if people with goldfish have this problem." Later, after gorging himself on breakfast, Garfield decides it's time for his early mid-morning nap, but when Odie walks by, he decides it's time to abuse him instead and prepares to kick him off the counter. But, just as he's about to do it, he spies the calendar on the wall and sees that it reads, "Take Garfield to Vets today." Horrified at this, describing it as inhumane, he tears the page off the calendar, crumples it up, and shoves it into Odie's mouth. That's when he sees the page for the following day, which is marked as Thanksgiving. His horror turns to elation and he tells Odie, who's still chewing on the Wednesday calendar page, "Do you see that, Odie? Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. That's the day people celebrate having food by eating as much of it as possible... That's the day people try to eat every turkey, pumpkin, and cranberry on the face of the Earth. It's a tradition, and you know how I LOVE tradition!" Excitedly, he grabs the calendar and runs over to Jon, showing it to him. Jon says that they'd best go to the grocery store and stock up on the necessary foodstuffs for the meal. As the credits play, you see Jon pushing around a cart with Garfield, the two of them exiting the store with it stacked to the hilt with bags of food.
While on the way home, with the car filled up with the groceries, Garfield excitedly chatters about what he feels Thanksgiving is all about, namely a bunch of food, which he names off while stretching it in front of Jon's face, nearly causing him to lose control of the car. That's when Jon, to Garfield's surprise, takes a right, which isn't the way home. Jon tells him that they're going to the vet and Garfield screams in anguish, as the car swerves wildly down the street. The next scene is in the vet's waiting room (one of the people there has a pig on her lap who looks suspiciously like Orson from U.S. Acres, aka Orson's Farm), where Garfield is clamped on the top of Jon's head, shaking nervously. Liz calls Jon in and he carries Garfield into the examination room as if he were a piece of baggage, placing him on the table. As Liz checks Garfield over, Jon attempts to make small-talk with her, only to be rebuffed, with Garfield commenting, "I can see this relationship is off to a roaring stop." Jon then attempts to ask Liz out and is promptly rejected, while Liz takes Garfield's blood pressure and, in her distraction, pumps it until his paw is swollen to a massive size. As Jon continues his ill-fated flirting, Liz then does something that causes it to reverse, causing Garfield's body to swell up like a balloon while his paw shrinks down. He deflates completely when Liz puts her foot down and tells Jon she will never go out with him, which leads him to take drastic measures and hold his breath until she agrees. His face quickly becomes bloated and red and his eyes seem to be on the verge of popping out, which Liz ignores and, after checking Garfield's pulse, delivers her diagnosis and suggestion of a diet that sends Garfield into a fit. Once both he and Jon have passed out, Liz decides to throw Jon a bone and agree to go out with him. Jon is so ecstatic at this that he runs out the door, inviting Liz to Thanksgiving dinner, and almost forgets to take Garfield with him.
When they arrive back home, Jon walks through the door, happily singing to himself about having a date with Liz, while Garfield comes plodding in behind him, moaning, "Oh, woe is me. I've been put on a diet and I'm gonna die." Jon serves him dinner, which is just one leaf of lettuce in his food bowl. Garfield protests this and Jon, indeed, says that he made a mistake... he gets half a piece of lettuce. Irked, Garfield reluctantly eats the lettuce and stumbles over to a mirror, commenting, "Gee, I've been on this diet only ten minutes and I can tell I've already lost something: a sense of humor." Garfield sneaks into the kitchen and tip-toes over to the refrigerator, only to be surprised by the sudden sound of a whistle. Jon shows up and tells Garfield, who thinks he booby-trapped the fridge, that the one who blew the whistle was Odie, who's going to blow the whistle every time he tries to cheat on the diet. Grumbling, "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life. I'm going to put an end to this charade right now," Garfield charges up a punch but Odie hits him with the whistle again, sending him twirling in the air and landing back on the floor in a heap. Jon tells Garfield he'll thank him for this some day but all Garfield cares about is telling Odie, who snickers at his predicament, that he's in for it. Later that night, following his bout with the scale that mistakes him for Orson Welles, Garfield heads back into the kitchen. Seeing no sign of Odie, he tries to go for some cookies, only for Odie to pop out of the jar and blow his whistle. Garfield quickly puts the lid back on the jar, but when he lifts the lids on some other jars of flour, salt, and sugar, Odie pops out of each of them and blows the whistle. After a few moments of battling with Odie here, including one instance where Odie pops out of three jars at once, Garfield groans, "The lack of food must be making me hallucinate." He tries one more time, and when Odie pops up and blows the whistle yet again, he gives up and runs out.
The next morning, Jon is greeted by a very cranky Garfield, who hisses and threatens him with his claws when he asks him if he slept well. Jon, however, isn't going to let his cat's foul mood ruin his day for him and heads over to begin preparing the meal. While he remains optimistic throughout it, as he goes through the cookbook, it becomes clear that Jon doesn't know anything about cooking a big meal. When he reads that he should have removed the turkey from the freezer at least 24 hours before cooking it, Jon writes that off as a "minor technicality" and dumps the frozen bird onto the counter. He then reads, "Remove giblets from cavity and stuff with one cup of prepared stuffing," and laughs, saying, "You can't believe everything you read." He manages to correctly follow the direction of placing the turkey in the roasting pan breast-side up but, when he gets to, "Rub skin with butter," he rubs the butter on his own arms and cheeks, leaving Garfield dumbfounded at his stupidity and causing him to facepalm. That done, Jon puts a piece of foil on the turkey, his idea of wrapping it in foil, and places it in the oven, deciding to cook it at 500 degrees rather than the recommended 325 given how Liz will be there soon. Getting to the vegetables, Jon simply tosses a bunch of random ones in a pot and pours some water over them, thinking that's all there is to it, commenting, "To hear Mom and Grandma talk, I always thought preparing a Thanksgiving meal was tough!" He leaves to go freshen himself up, while Garfield decides that, since he can't enjoy Thanksgiving because of his holiday, no one else will either, and covers the vegetables with garlic powder.
In the bathroom, Jon has his face lathered up and, as he prepares to shave, proclaims his manhood and that he's going to see to it that his relationship with Liz works out, saying that he's in control of his own destiny. He then cuts himself and Garfield comments, "Ever considered putting someone else in charge of your destiny?" In the next scene, Jon and Garfield are in the bedroom, as Jon tries to find something to wear to dinner. He asks Garfield for his opinion and tries on a large set of outfits: formal (top hat and tails, with a cane), semi-formal (a pink shirt and bowtie, with checkered pants and a winged cap), informal (a T-shirt and jeans, complete with a slumped posture similar to a lazy teenager), high-roller (a suit with cowboy boots and a hat), sporting (a tanktop, shorts, and tennis shoes), disco (goes without saying), hippie-style (he even holds up two fingers and says, "Peace,"), rugged individualist (a thick sweater with jeans), Popeye (literally, he comes out dressed as Popeye, with the enormous forearms to match), a ballerina, and a gorilla suit. Garfield blows a raspberry at all of these and, running out of clothes, Jon decides, as does Garfield, to just be himself. He puts on a suit and tie and Garfield gives him a thumbs up, only for him to then see that Jon that forget to put on pants. The doorbell then rings and Jon excitedly answers it, only for Liz to point out that he's in his boxers. Jon quickly shuts the door, runs back to the bedroom, and puts on pants, admonishing Garfield for not telling him about his little faux pas ahead of time. He also tells him to be nice to Liz and Garfield grumbles, "First, I have to be a fashion consultant, now I have to be an actor."
Now fully dressed, Jon lets Liz in and when she does, she comments on a smell. Jon tells her it's the Thanksgiving dinner he's cooking up, which she feared was the case. He sees her to the couch while he heads into the kitchen to see to their meal. Meanwhile, Odie climbs up into Liz's lap and Garfield sits across from her on the couch. She decides to see how his diet's going, saying she doesn't want him to become anemic. She then lists off the various effects of vitamin deficiency due to dieting and Garfield plays up each one: listlessness (he acts like he has no energy), irritability (he swipes his claws and growls), nervousness (he shivers and looks around), twitching (he shakes his leg and arm), dementia (he makes one of the funniest expressions I've ever seen him make, with a witless "duh" sound to accompany it), and breathlessness (he holds his breath until his face turns red and lets it out loudly). Seeing all of this, Liz decides to take him off the diet and instead prescribe some mild exercise for the time being. Thrilled by this, Garfield gives her a kiss right on the lips and celebrates his ability to eat again, only to then remember the disaster that Jon has brewing in the kitchen. Speaking of which, Jon dumps the still frozen turkey onto the counter with a loud thud and laments to Garfield that Liz will never speak to him again because of this. Thinking for a bit, Garfield hits upon something and brings Jon the telephone. However, he doesn't get it, telling Garfield, "I can't feed Liz this." He then grabs a record entitled Biker Blues, Grandma's favorite record, but Jon thinks he means he should play it for Liz. Garfield grabs a heart-shaped pillow Grandma crocheted but Jon still doesn't get it, nor does he when Garfield hands him the sweater Grandma made for him the previous Christmas. Running out of patience, Garfield grabs a picture of Grandma and shows it to Jon. Finally, he gets the idea to call her, with Garfield commenting, "If he had a brain, he'd be dangerous."
While Liz is still waiting out in the living room with Odie, Jon calls Grandma, and as soon as he hangs up, he hears the sound of a motorcycle outside. Grandma comes through the door, wearing a leather jacket, ascot, and helmet, which she removes and declares, "Have cooking utensils, will travel!" She promptly shoos Jon out of the kitchen and gets to work making the meal edible. Out in the living room, Jon keeps Liz preoccupied by pondering the meaning of Thanksgiving, much to her bewilderment, while Grandma takes a chainsaw to the frozen turkey. Liz nearly nods off as Jon drones on about the pilgrims, when they both hear the sound of the chainsaw but Jon tells her it's just the dishwasher. Grandma finishes making turkey croquettes with the saw before slathering them in white sauce and preparing them for the deep fat fryer, which Garfield declares to be music to his ears. While Liz is still struggling to stay awake, as Jon talks about Abraham Lincoln officially proclaiming Thanksgiving to take place on the fourth Thursday of November and how they celebrate it in Canada, Grandma fixes her sweet potatoes, which manage to win over Garfield, who makes it clear he's not typically a fan of them. Jon starts talking about "Labor Thanksgiving Day" in Japan, while Grandma fixes her "split-second" cranberry sauce, covering Garfield's eyes with her hand and pouring the sauce in a bowl, telling him, "Too late; you blinked." She then gets to the piece de resistance, which is pumpkin pie, and puts it all together in an elaborate display that involves juggling before taking it over to the table and serving it up, prompting Garfield to make his trademark comment, "Nice touch." Grandma prepares to leave, telling Garfield to make sure that Liz knows she couldn't ask for a better man than Jon and that she'll have to answer to her if she messes things up. Garfield salutes Grandma as she walks out the door and rides off, commenting, "They just don't make 'em like that anymore."
By this point, Liz has now fallen asleep as Jon talks about what Thanksgiving is like in England, when Garfield comes in and tugs on his pants leg. He then smells the food and announces that it's all ready. Liz snaps awake, wondering where she is, and Jon leads her into the dining room, where she gasps at the sight of the lovely, well-set table. She tells him that she's impressed and he says that he is too. We then get a montage set to the song, It's a Quiet Celebration, by Desiree Goyette, as the four of them say grace before digging in. Jon, after pushing his hand away when he reaches over the table, slips Garfield a roll, while Liz gives Odie the corncob that he just licked. Garfield then slips Jon's plate out from under him when he isn't looking and polishes off all the food. After they've finished eating, they all join hands, including Garfield, who returns the gesture when Jon takes his. Following dinner, Liz heads out, telling Jon she'll join him again next year, and gives him a kiss on his cheek. Jon walks back into the living room and sees Garfield and Odie sitting on the couch, completely stuffed. After they all agree that they're thankful for Grandma, Jon tries to get his pets to join him in a walk to work off some of the food. It takes him a little bit, but Garfield is able to scooch himself off the couch, while Odie finds himself unable to budge an inch or even stand up on his legs. Jon is disappointed to see how Odie has become as lethargic as Garfield usually is and says that they'll have to put him on a diet as well. Odie groans at the sound of this, only to snap to attention when a whistle blows. Garfield jumps on the couch, wearing the whistle and a cap on his head, and orders Odie to give him ten pushups. Odie does so, as Garfield yells out the count, but looks more like a dog-shaped seesaw in how he's moving rather than someone doing pushups. Garfield asks, "Are we having fun yet?", before continuing the count, as the special ends.
Music-wise, Ed Bogas and Goyette don't do much that you haven't heard before in other specials, like a saxophone instrumental of Here Comes Garfield from the first special that you hear a couple of times and the electric guitar and light-hearted tinkling sounds that you often heard in the other specials, as well as in Garfield and Friends. That said, there are a few memorable themes, like the military piece that plays when Garfield and Odie wake Jon up early in the morning, this sincerely suspenseful piece for when Jon is holding his breath to make Liz agree to a date, a theme during some of Jon's dopey moments (notably when he starts cooking the meal and when he's boring Liz) that perfectly captures how clueless and dumb he can be, and an energetic, horn theme for Grandma that accentuates how much of an energetic, lively, motorcycle-riding old soul she is. There are only two songs: Make Thanksgiving One Whole Meal, by Lou Rawls, which is just a lively tune about how great a holiday Thanksgiving can be, and the aforementioned It's a Quiet Celebration by Goyette, which is more soulful and lovely and goes into the true meaning of the holiday. Like I said before, it sounds beautiful, but it's the only instance where this special acknowledges that idea and it feels like they put it in there because they felt like they had to.
