Since I brought back my Peanuts specials reviews, I figured it was only fair that I also go back to another series I'd left off on for a while. Actually, I'd planned on doing this particular review a couple of times over the past few years, as it was the next Garfield special for me to do, chronologically, but it called for a little more preparation than usual. If you've seen it or, at the very least, have read the book it's based on, you'd know this is, by far, the most unique Garfield cartoon that's ever been produced. I, however, had no such expectations when I first watched it, as I'd heard next to nothing about it or the source book, and the title gave me little inkling of what I was getting into. All I did know was that it was divided into different segments, which is where I figured the nine lives came into play, and I was definitely right on that latter score. However, I never imagined I would get a collection of stories that were often not only very different in terms of plot, but also art style and even tone. While some of them are definitely what you would expect when considering Garfield's possible past lives (a prehistoric "cave cat," the revered pet of a pharaoh in Ancient Egypt, etc.), others are anything but. Ever expected to see him as the cat of a court musician in 18th century England? As a girl's pet in a bizarre, Wonderland-like garden? As the beloved pet of a woman who watched her (yes,
her) grow up and eventually die? As a lab cat who has bizarre experiments performed on him? Well, you will here, and in various types of animation and storytelling that you would
never associate with Garfield. It's a fascinating watch, and some of the stories prove to be quite touching and, in some cases, downright shocking in the directions they take, as some of them flat-out tell and show you how those respective lives ended! But, as creative as it is, there aren't many moments that I find laugh out loud funny, and some of the stories are duds, as well as so brief that you could easily skip over them. In the end, it's more clever and unique than anything else.
It turns out that God has a design team of cartoonists and, in the beginning, he had them create the cat and decreed that they give it distinctive features, such as the ability to always land on its feet. Declaring it the "perfect animal," God then decides that the cat should have nine lives. Why? Because it would make a great plot for a story. And thus, this story begins, as Garfield personally introduces each of his nine lives, telling us their individual significance and how they each helped shape his character. (Technically, we see seven of his past lives, his current eighth one, and his final ninth one, which will take place far into the future.)
This is the only Garfield cartoon/movie to have some concrete source material outside of the overall comic strip. The book was published in 1984 and was also done in various art styles, with Jim Davis sometimes either writing the stories along with a co-author or, in the case of some, handing them off to another writer entirely. While most of the stories in the book were adapted into the special, there are a handful that were left out and replaced with all new segments: The Vikings, Babes and Bullets (which would be adapted into its own special the following year), The Exterminators, and Primal Self. While it's understandable why some of those were left out, I'd be curious to see what that last one would've looked like in animation. Judging from what I've seen of the artwork, as well as heard about the story itself, concerning a housecat suddenly going feral after coming into contact with a dark force and attacking his owner, it probably would've made for some real nightmare fuel. (That's not to say that the special doesn't already nightmare fuel, though, in the form of that Lab Animal story that did make it in, which we'll get into.)
As per usual, Phil Roman was the overall director on this special, but the only segment he solely directed was the opening, In the Beginning; otherwise, he either had one or two co-directors, or handed a segment off to someone else entirely. One of his most frequent co-directors was John Sparey, who was involved with the King Cat, Garfield, and Space Cat segments. Sparey went on to be involved with the rest of the Garfield specials, including directing the very last one, Garfield Gets a Life, all by himself, and worked on Garfield and Friends. Also involved with Garfield and Space Cat, as well as Stunt Cat, was Bob Nesler, who, like Sparey, went on to work on three of the remaining specials, as well as Garfield and Friends, and would also later direct episodes of Bobby's World and My Life as a Teenage Robot, among others. Stunt Cat's other co-director was Bill Littlejohn, who'd been in the animation business since the 1930's and had worked on everything from Tom and Jerry to numerous Peanuts specials and films, The Cat
TV special, and even stuff like
Watership Down and
Heavy Metal, as well as all of the previous Garfield specials.
Cave Cat was co-directed by George Singer, who'd previously directed over a hundred episodes of
Rocky and Bullwinkle, some episodes of
The Pink Panther Show, had been involved with
A Garfield Christmas Special, and would go on to do one episode of
Garfield and Friends. Ruth Kissane co-directed the very bizarre segment,
In the Garden. She was another animation veteran, as her career stretched as far back as the 50's, when she worked on
Lady and the Tramp, and she also worked on many of the Peanuts specials and movies,
The Reluctant Dragon, and the
Alvin & the Chipmunks TV show. She went on to work on
Garfield's Babes and Bullets the following year. Doug Frankel not only co-directed
Lab Animal but also solely directed the memorable
Diana's Piano segment. He's since gone on to work as an animator on many Disney and Pixar movies. And finally, Bob Scott, who's also had steady work as an animator since, directed
Court Musician.
In the Beginning: Right off the bat, the special lets you know what you're in for, as you get a live-action montage with surreal blurry filters placed over it, as God (voiced by C. Lindsay Workman), who only appears as a backlit figure standing in a doorway, orders his "animators" to create a cat. We see them drawing Garfield, as God spitballs various ideas (he says he wants the cat to have six eyes but one of the animators tells him, "We only have two eyes left,"). After the drawing, they come up with a sculpture of the cat, as the one animator comments, "Hmm. Notice how the heavy lids give it an arrogant yet warm
expression." God then commends them on their work, before demanding they add the finishing touch of nine lives. This stuns his staff, with a woman saying, "Everyone else gets only one life!", and God says, "Well, let's just say it would make a... great plot for a story, okay?" That transitions into the opening credits sequence, where we see Garfield, wearing dark glasses and a hat, walk in under a streetlamp and lean against a brick wall, playing a harmonica, as Lou Rawls sings a similarly bluesy theme song. We then get snippets of each of the upcoming stories, before we finally get to it.
Cave Cat: Walking out while carrying a big bone, Garfield (voiced by Lorenzo Music) tells us, "In
my first life, I formulated many of my likes and dislikes. I disliked
my rock bed. On the other hand, you wouldn't believe the size of the Pterodon drumsticks." This first segment starts off in the art style you most associate with Garfield (and with some very lovely backgrounds for the prehistoric setting, which is a mix of jungle and desert), save for the design of Garfield himself: a fat, walrus-like body, with enormous tusks, elongated back feet, and a pointy tail. Done in the vein of a nature documentary, with a
narrator (Gregg Berger) describing everything in an objective, informative voice, the segment follows Garfield, or Cave Cat, as he first emerges from the sea (and immediately takes a deep inhale of air because, as the narrator says, "He had been holding his breath for quite some time,"), and adapts to living on land, as well as co-existing with other creatures that also emerge from the sea. He chases the first female cat, yelling, "Woman!"; literally runs into a caveman, who looks like a giant version of Captain Caveman (the caveman hops around, holding his leg, and yells, "Cat!," which the narrator tells us, "Was
caveman talk for 'darn it!'"); learns to talk, first by imitating the sound of a nearby volcano and then comes up with "meow," which he's very proud of himself for; is domesticated by the caveman, who puts a leash and collar on him, and accidentally pounds him flat as a pancake while "petting" him with his club; and chases after a mouse, which turns out to be able to breathe fire. Things don't turn out so well for Cave Cat, though, when he and a couple of other cavemen feel a powerful rumbling, which they say is Big Bob. Cave Cat asks who Big Bob is and the one caveman says, "Big Bob big! Big Bob bad! Big Bob go, 'Whoomp, whoomp, whoomp!'
Fear Big Bob!"
The cavemen run off, while Cave Cat meets Big Bob: a dinosaur-like creature with a very familiar visage, as you see. The narrator adds, "Hence cat's instinctive fear of dogs." After pouring slobber all over him, Big Bob runs off and Cave Cat warns him to stay away, saying, "Cave cat go, 'Whoomp, whoomp, whoomp!'" Unfortunately for him, Big Bob returns with a tree, wanting to play fetch, and drops it on him. The narrator concludes, "Thus, the world's first, and last, cave cat bought the farm for failing to field a fetched frap-tree."
King Cat: Garfield comes out with a pharaoh's cane, telling us, "2,000 BC was a good year to be a cat in Egypt. We were revered, even worshiped. Ah, for the good ole days..." Again done in the traditional art style, with more beautiful backgrounds, and with Garfield looking like himself, save for the Egyptian outfit, this segment has more of a plot. In Ancient Egypt, King Cat is the beloved pet of the dimwitted, childish King Amenhotep III (voiced by Thom Huge), or "Junior," as he calls him. Due to cats being worshiped because of their ties to Bastet, King Cat lives a life of luxury, having a group of slave dogs,
with Odie among them, to transport him from here to there, and also goes over to the pyramids, which are being constructed, to annoy the slave workers. But, while doing so, he learns from one slave that, when Junior dies, he'll be buried with all of his worldly possessions, including King Cat himself! Realizing that Junior's stupidity doesn't bode well for his lifespan, and that his brother, Prince Black Bart (voiced by Nino Tempo), is more than willing to bump him off for the throne, King Cat rushes back to the temple to protect him. He gets back there just in time, too, as Black Bart attempts to trick Junior into
falling to his death, but King Cat manages to break his fall (though both he and Odie are flattened in the process). He then immediately has to save him from being crushed by a falling block, getting squished himself in the process. Junior's reaction is to get mad at King Cat for shoving him, and Odie has to restrain him from killing Junior himself. Ironically, he does end up doing so, albeit accidentally. Black Bart drops a stick of dynamite outside the temple entrance and King Cat finds it. Picking it up, he comments, "I wonder what this is?", and nonchalantly tosses it inside the temple behind him, which Junior just walked into, adding, "Oh, well. Whatever it is, it
probably hasn't been invented yet." Following the ensuing explosion, which sealed his fate, he then says, "Then again, what do I know?" And with that, he's wrapped up in bandages, save for his head, and sealed up inside the tomb with Junior's mummy. Fortunately for him, Odie comes to the rescue, managing to push away a loose stone in the tomb's wall. After he unwraps him and helps him escape, King Cat promises to repay him for it, saying, "You know, slave dog, it's friends like you that keep this tired old world goin' 'round." And, at the end, Odie has become Black Bart's pet and makes King Cat his personal slave, forcing him to transport him around, along with a bunch of other slave cats.
In the Garden: Garfield tells us, "My third life was my favorite. My body grew old, but I never, never, never grew up." This is where things take a turn, as this segment is surreal, to say the least. Done in what I can only describe as the Garfield style on acid, mixed with the Care Bears, and cranked up to the nth degree, we see him living as a little orange kitten owned by a bizarre-looking girl named Chloe (voiced by Desiree Goyette), in a garden that, while I described it as being akin to Wonderland earlier, is actually more like Candyland, as there are marshmallows, lollipops, and candy canes growing
along the ground. Garfield looks like a cutesier version of his typical self, with more innocent-looking eyes, and is completely orange, with none of his black stripes. Chloe's Uncle Tod, who's said to have built the garden, "During a very intense period of just having fun," is drawn in a more realistic style, but it's the look and tone of this segment that really gets your attention. You see Uncle Tod dancing around while playing an accordion, which turns into a bunch of floating shapes, like hearts and colored circles, as well as a little thing piloting a rocket; a laughing sun in a jester's hat; Uncle Tod turning himself into a clown with one swipe of a paintbrush;
Chloe and her kitten playing with instruments and bubbles that grow out of the garden; flying harmonics leaving behind trails of musical notes; and so on. Chloe narrates all this (in a voice that goes back and forth from talking to singing; I can't understand much of what she says), telling us that Uncle Tod joined the circus and gave the garden over to her and her kitten. But, even though he left, his spirit remained... in the form of a smiling hot air balloon playing an accordion, with flowers growing out of its basket, which it later tosses down to Chloe and the kitten when they're building a sandcastle. She also tells us that the friendship between her and the kitten is what made the garden the special places that it was.
But, Uncle Tod left behind a crystal box on a checkered toadstool, telling them to never open it. Because they weren't used to rules, they get curious and make their way over to the crystal box, which they poke and sniff, and then gaze at the, as Chloe describes, "Simple to open latch." She adds, "Finally, they decided to take action. They decided...
not to open it! They bounced right by the crystal box, never to give it another thought." Sure enough, after all that build-up, they just scamper off into the distance, with Chloe saying, "And, they lived happily forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and
ever..." She goes on and on like that, as the segment ends with the view of the garden dissolving into a psychedelic, colorful spiral, as the viewer wonders whether they took drugs and didn't realize it, or went insane. Have to admit, not a fan of that one. In fact, I can safely say it's my least favorite out of all of them. I get that it was meant to be a parody, and that twist was, admittedly, kind of clever, but it was just too much weirdness and cutesiness, and Goyette's voice, which I usually find lovely, grated on my nerves. (She may be fairly annoying as Nermal on Garfield and Friends, but here, she greatly contributes to the already palpable feeling of sensory overload.)
Court Musician: Walking up to a stand containing music, while holding a conductor baton, Garfield tells us, "I learned to think on my feet in my fourth life. Thinking was okay, I guess. But now, I avoid it whenever possible." Set in 1720, where he was the cat of musician George Frederich Handel (voiced by Hal Smith), this is where the art style takes a massive turn from what you associate with Garfield (just look at how he himself is drawn here). Instead, it feels like the style that Chuck Jones adopted in the 60's, with the characters often making very exaggerated facial expressions, the animation being quite stretchy and
energetic, and the backgrounds and settings drawn in an abstract manner. Garfield himself takes a backseat here, as it focuses on Handel, or Freddy, who's informed by an obnoxious, and rather sadistic, court jester (voiced by Gregg Berger) that King George I is expecting a concerto for a dinner party he's holding that night, as opposed to the fugue that he was writing. In other words, he must start from scratch and write the expected concerto by that evening, or he'll be promptly executed! Under such a tight deadline, he charges his cat with writing the finale, while he himself writes the first and second
movements. At the banquet, the first two movements go off well enough, although Freddy is sweating bullets, and the king watches with a blank expression. But when he gets to the finale, he sees that the cat covered the music notes with paw-prints and ink smears. It seem for sure that this has doomed Freddy, and now, even the cat is nervous, but when they start playing, it transitions into a bluesy jazz number, which the king is more than happy with. And when Freddy sees his backup is now dressed appropriately, he puts on some cool shades and starts grooving as he plays, with the king and the queen getting into it (the king bounces up and down, while the queen just
stiffly moves her right arm back and forth). Garfield tells us in his narration, "After that night, he never wrote any more music. Had I stuck with it, there would've been the recording contracts, the concerts, the agents, the managers, the roadies, the groupies. It sounded like a lot of work to me."
Before we move on, I want to emphasize just how utterly bloodthirsty that jester is. He clearly wants Freddy to screw up and get executed, and all throughout the performance, he's reminding Freddy of his potential fate in various ways. He takes an apple from a suckling pig and, with his mouth morphing into a guillotine, chops it in half; he tears the head off a drawing of Freddy; squeezes an effigy of him until the head pops off; and puts on a slideshow of himself depicting Freddy's fate through methods such as his head being mounted on the wall, a grisly image of him holding his own head in one hand and an axe in
the other, and him lying in two separate coffins, one for his body and the other for his head (a picture of him in a hot tub with women is seen for a split-second as well). And when Freddy sees the concerto's finale and believes himself to be doomed, the jester holds up a sign that reads, "SEE YA LATER, BUD," as a funeral dirge briefly plays on the soundtrack. But when it ends up going over well, all the jester can do is sit in a chair, seething that Freddy isn't going to be beheaded. Believe it or not, though, that's not the most disturbing stuff we're going to see here.
Stunt Cat: Standing in a black-and-white frame with a ratty-looking building in the background, Garfield says, "Life No. 5 was short." He's then called to a set and walks offscreen, saying, "I'll be right back." Amazingly, even though this segment lasts about thirty seconds, it's one that had Phil Roman working two co-directors. Here, Garfield is a stunt double in a
Krazy Kat cartoon, brought in to replace the title character when a mouse is about to drop a ton of bricks on him. Not a big mystery as to how and why that particular life ended for him. This one is made to look like an early cartoon short, with very little detail
to the setting and background, and the same goes for the character designs, save for Garfield himself, with the outlines making them feel like very rough pencil drawings. The animation, while occasionally stiff, is still a lot more fluid than you would get in actual cartoons from that era. Other than the novelty of its visuals, I don't really know why they even bothered with this one, except for maybe to just pad out the running time.
Diana's Piano: Walking out onto a pink background, with lovely piano music playing, Garfield tells us, "Six must be my lucky number, because that's the life I fell in
love with music. I also fell in love with a girl who played the piano
just for me." Talk about an even more extreme shift in art style and tone. This segment begins with a woman, Sara (voiced by Carolyn Davis, Jim Davis' wife), who's sitting in her rocking chair, with a cat named Patches sitting on her lap. She decides to talk about Diana, a kitten she got for her eighth birthday. She adds that she also began taking piano lessons that day, which she wasn't too crazy about, initially. However, as she practiced during the
following months and years, Diana would often sit on the piano and listen to her, even commenting in her own way whenever she hit a wrong note. Eventually, Sara went off to college, where she missed Diana, as Diana did her, and when she came back home, she was now engaged to be married to a man named Lee, something Diana wasn't too thrilled about. But, even though she ripped Lee's pants' leg in retaliation, Diana was taken to live with Sara and her growing family, which soon included a baby boy named Billy. They also took Sara's old piano with them, and Sara recounts Diana's last night on Earth, where she played
an entire concert just for her. Afterward, Diana decided to stay on the piano, where she crawled down to the keys and passed away in her sleep. Sara says, "It was Diana's testament to her love for my music." The segment ends with Sara asking Patches if he would like her to play something to him. After Patches meows, she says, "It's just as well."
Again, the art style and animation are what immediately get your attention. It's done in a soft, water-color style, with the main story of the flashback animated in a wavy, fading in and out manner that fits with the notion that is somebody reminiscing back to an earlier point in their life. The environments, backgrounds, and even the characters are often drawn in a very simple manner, but that doesn't make them any less appealing or beautiful to look at, like the exterior of the small house where Sara lived, that idyllic shot of her swinging on a tree atop a hill, and the simplicity of the interiors when she's playing her piano with Diana. But even more startling is the
melancholic tone, which you wouldn't expect from a Garfield cartoon, as we watch young Sara grow up with Diana, then have to leave her behind when she goes off to college, and come back for her when she starts a family of her own. Diana herself is characterized as fairly sassy, especially when it comes to the new people in Sara's life, but absolutely devoted to Sara herself, loving to listen to her play her music. Thus, it's very poignant that, knowing that the end is near, Diana decides to spend her final moments at the piano, listening to Sara play one last time, before dying on the keyboard. Carolyn Davis' narration of this segment, especially that last part, is
absolutely perfect, as we can hear the love she had for Diana and how much she misses her. Her softly-voiced description of how Diana climbed down onto the keyboard during the night and quietly passed away there, combined with the visual of her lying on the keys in the dark, is quite affecting, especially for anyone who grew up with a beloved pet and eventually had to watch them go. There's also a sadness in the idea that Sara won't be able to have this type of special relationship with Patches, even though she still has the piano (pictures on the wall suggest that she might've become a concert pianist).
Moreover, it's possible that Sara may actually be reaching the end of her own life and is now alone except for Patches, with her husband possibly gone and her son grown up and moved away, and thus wouldn't be able to play even if she wanted to. You wouldn't expect a Garfield cartoon to get you in the feels like this (not to say that none of the past ones had their own touching moments) but, then again, this isn't your typical Garfield cartoon...
Lab Animal:... speaking of which. Garfield comes out wearing a lab coat and tells us, "In my seventh life, I was a laboratory animal. To this day, every time I see a test tube, I throw up." At a government research facility, a small orange cat is given an injection of a serum, the nature of which one of the scientists (voiced by Gregg Berger) describes as being like, "Something out of a horror movie." The cat is put back into his cage, clearly feeling the effects of the serum, and when he wakes back up the following night, he hears he's about to be dissected. Not having this, he jumps at the scientist, knocking him to the floor, then breaks through a window and flees the
facility, with a soldier hot on his tail. The cat manages to grab onto the leg of a helicopter as it's lifting off, and lets it carry him over to the top of a large ridge, where he jumps to safety. However, he then finds himself being chased through the woods by a search dog, which leads to him falling into a river. After being washed downstream, he comes ashore, cold, wet, and tired... and that's when the serum he was given takes effect.
I don't know what's more horrifying, this or that
Primal Self story from the book that wasn't adapted. Regardless, I'm sure this alone caused a lot of nightmares for unsuspecting kids. The art style makes me think of latter day Disney but also the films that Don Bluth was making at that time. That goes not only for the character designs, especially the cat, but also the very smooth and well-done animation, and the overall look of the story itself, with instances of harsh shadows, like when the cat jumps at the scientist and when the flashlight is fixed on him. Then there's the tone, which is downright horrifying right off the bat, with the poor cat being held down as he's
injected with a serum. While you don't see the actual injection, you do get a close-up of the syringe, along with the cat struggling beneath the one scientist's hand, and it cuts away as he's injected, which is all the more disturbing, as you hear him yowling. As if that wasn't bad enough, the cat learns they're going to dissect him, prompting him to bolt. The segment now takes on the feel of an action/chase movie, with both a rocking soundtrack and a daring escape on the cat's part, followed by him getting chased by a vicious search dog in the woods. But if you thought this segment was done being horrifying, you're in for a big surprise. Upon escaping from the dog via the river
and crawling ashore, the cat collapses onto the ground, only to suddenly undergo a transformation into a dog himself. That may not sound disturbing, but it's a detailed and apparently painful transformation a la An American Werewolf in London, with his tail going from long and thin to short and broad, his paws and claws growing in size, his spine arching, and, in silhouette, his profile twisting into that of a dog, which snarls then bays at the moon. It's well-animated, for sure, but the fear on the cat's face as to what's happening to him and the pain makes it unsettling. It does, however, allow him to elude capture, as he blends in with the other search dogs that show up, and the final shot is his eyes glowing yellow in the dark as he looks right at the screen while standing among them.
Garfield: Getting back to something much more traditional, we now catch up with Garfield in his "current" life. He walks in holding a pillow and tells us, "All that I ever was made me what I am in my eighth life. Somehow, it's falling short of my expectations." He then fluffs up the pillow and curls up for a snooze on top of it. The opening builds on the backstory for Garfield that was revealed back in the second special,
Garfield on the Town, with him being born in the back of a kitchen in an Italian restaurant, on June 19th, 1978. Immediately after his mother (voiced by Sandi Huge, who also voiced her in that previous special) gives birth to him, Garfield, who
looks exactly like his adult self, save for his size and cutesy eyebrows, announces that he's hungry. Upon learning they're in an Italian restaurant, he asks, "Are Italians good to eat?" Getting out of the box, he recreates a scene that was in
Garfield on the Town, as he goes to rub against the legs of the restaurant's owner, Luigi (voiced by Nino Tempo), while he walks in carrying a plate of lasagna. At first skittish of the lasagna when some of it hits the floor in front of him, to the point where he attacks it like it's a threat, it becomes love at first sight when he tastes it for the first time. He proceeds to gobble down the whole
plate, saying, "I think I'm gonna like this thing called eating." He then goes after a table full of food, bouncing off some jello, gulping down an entire bowl of fettuccine, and even trying to eat some uncooked spaghetti, which doesn't agree with him (that clip was used during the second opening montage for
Garfield and Friends). However, Luigi decides to take Garfield to the pet shop, as he's eating up all of his business. While his mother protests, Garfield is more than fine with it... until he's tossed into the shop with the other pets and sees a cat who's been there for seventeen years without being bought. This is also
where he first meets Odie, who's up for adoption, as well, and when Jon Arbuckle walks in, looking for a cat, Garfield immediately jumps on him, insisting he take him, saying, "I'll catch you mice, fetch your paper, scratch your back!" Thus, Jon takes him, as he seems "friendly." As he walks out with him, Garfield yammers on, "I steep till noon, and I desire my milk tepid. I require three daily scratchings and I eat a pasta-based diet. No substitutions..."
Some time later, Jon tells Garfield that he bought a dog as a possible playmate for him, namely Odie. Garfield throws a tantrum at the very idea of having to share the house with a dog, but when he recognizes Odie and gets licked by him, he describes him as, "A tongue with eyeballs and feet." He adds, "It's as though I know Odie from a former life. A bad one." But, in the next scene, which is also some time time afterward, Garfield now has Odie trained to wait on him, such as by fetching his slippers (although he initially puts them on the wrong feet), as well as getting Jon for him. By this point, Jon has settled into his familiar role of Garfield's human parent/other servant, as Garfield demands to have a picnic on the
lawn as lunch and Jon goes to see to it (in breaking from the norm, Jon seemed to hear and understand what Garfield said there). Garfield and Odie then run outside upon hearing the ice cream truck, but when they get to the sidewalk, Odie grabs Garfield's tail, stopping him dead. Initially irked and ready to pound him for it, he then sees when a truck comes by that Odie just saved him from getting run over. Thanking him for it, the two of them walk off together, as Garfield tells Odie, "Listen, I may not be wildly successful in this life, Odie, but at least I'm alive to live it. And that means something. I'll forever be
grateful to ya, Odie. I'll never forget this." Cut to years later, when both Garfield and Odie are elderly, and Garfield tells his grandchildren about how he was a big TV star in the 80's, as well as that near miss when they went after the ice cream truck. However, he turns it around to where he's the one who saved
Odie's life, with Odie unable to do anything but snarl in frustration.
Space Cat: For the final time, Garfield walks in and says, "I'd like to think I'll live forever but, hey, I'm only human. Here's a sneak preview of my ninth life." The digital text for LIFE NO. 9 on that screen is a hint as to the nature of this final, futuristic segment. As we drift through space, he goes on to narrate, "Space. One thing to be said for space: there sure is a lot of it out there.
So what do you do with space? You can take part in grand intergalactic
battles and encompass old solar systems. Or you can bravely forge new
worlds of exploration by traveling through uncharted territory. Or you
can get lost. Me? I'm lost. Finding out where the heck I am is still
secondary,
though. What I want to know is... why am I here?" Sitting in the cockpit of his fish-shaped spaceship, Garfield (whose black stripes are a light red in this segment) gets the answer to that question from the computer (voiced by Thom Huge). It turns out that they're studying a cat's survival instincts when it's on its last life, which Garfield wasn't aware he was down to, making him lament his situation even more. He decides to consult his "Operations Data Index Element," or O.D.I.E., which is supposed to be the smartest machine in the galaxy, but really just consists of a digital version of Odie's face appearing on a computer screen and barking like he usually does.
Garfield then goes to a vending machine in order begin "surviving," only to push a button for pie and coffee, and for the machine to spit them out in this sloppy order: pie, saucer, coffee, cup. Punching and kicking it in despair, Garfield then comments, "Oh, well. Everything tasted like lettuce, anyway." He also ends up turning the artificial gravity off, and as he floats about the ship, O.D.I.E. warns him of some company: his ship is surrounded by seven, shark-shaped ships. Their leader introduces himself as Commander Mendelson (voiced by Frank Welker), "Leader of the Incredibly Huge Galactic War Fleet,
the IHGWF for short. " He goes on to say,
"We do not like you being here! And to show you we mean business, we will
atomize your craft in five minutes. Any questions?" When Garfield doesn't answer immediately, Mendelson gets annoyed and yells, "I said, 'Any questions?!'" Garfield then attempts to fight back, deploying his ship's secret weapon: a giant clawed hand... only for the claws to detach by the fingers and hang loosely by springs. Garfield, however, is able to negotiate for a little more time, although it turns out to only be for seven minutes instead of five. Still he attempts to use the Clone-a-
Matic to create some more crew-members, only for the thing to produce an Odie, much to his irritation. Odie does manage
to be useful and turn the gravity back on, but he then creates more duplicates of
himself. Garfield next tries to fix his ship's weapons, only for the numerous Odies to get in his way. At first annoyed, he then realizes they could be useful and has the original Odie take the clones down to the launch pad to have them pilot drones against Mendelson's fleet. But, while the Odies do take command of drones that happen to be shaped like them, when they're launched (out of a giant cannon), Mendelson
retaliates by firing an enormous fire hydrant through space, drawing the drones away from his ship. With one minute left, Garfield, again, tries to get the weapons working, but just as he brings together the two necessary wires, Mendelson fires on his ship, zapping it out of existence, turning the screen white. Garfield then gives his trademark line of, "Nice touch," at that.
In the book, it was revealed after this that Garfield was playing an arcade game, but here, it circles back around to the special's opening. Garfield and Odie, in black and white, find themselves sitting under an overhead lamp in a dark void, when God appears to them, standing in that doorway. Garfield tells him that, while he appreciates having nine lives, he felt that the circumstances of that last one were unfair, which God actually agrees with. He allows him to have his life back, but then asks which life that was, as their computers were down and they couldn't keep track. Garfield takes the opportunity to get all nine lives back, and does the same for Odie, convincing
God that he's also a cat. God gives them back their color, signifying that they're alive again, and Garfield and Odie happily embrace before being sent back to Earth. Finally, as happened in the book, it's revealed that God is himself a cat, as his eyes glow yellow (a creepy image, as you can see), and he says, "We have to stick together, you know." (Incidentally, the actual animation of Garfield and Odie in this final bit is really good and fluid.)
In doing the music like always, Desiree Goyette and Ed Bogas kind of had their work cut out for them, as they had to come up with a different musical feel for each segment. Much of it is what you'd expect given each segment's personality. For instance, both the opening In the Beginning segment and the final scene where Garfield and Odie meet God are scored with an otherworldly, holy type of sound, while Cave Cat is mostly done with big, bombastic, primitive sounds, like drum hits and low, warped horns. However, the latter is augmented by other notable bits of music that hint at what Garfield eventually evolves into (like saxophone bits and such), while Big Bob's appearance is scored to an overblown instrumental version of Three Blind Mice. King Cat, naturally, has a very subtle Egyptian flavor to its music, along with some dopey themes for Junior and a sinister kind of saxophone theme for Black Bart. In the Garden's music is, as expected, overly whimsical and saccharine, along with a hint of sad music for when Uncle Tod leaves and suspenseful music for when it looks as though Chloe and her kitten may open the box they were told to leave alone. The music kind of gives out by the end of that sequence, as if it is actually exhausted by the craziness. Court Musician mostly consists of classical music, including the first parts of Freddy's concerto, but unexpectedly transitions into that really cool, bluesy jazz number, which is also played over the ending credits. Stunt Cat has nothing but that old-style type of suspenseful piano music that was played to accompany silent movies, while Diana's Piano is played to very soft, poignant music, mostly on the piano, which accentuates that story's mood perfectly. Lab Animal goes for broke with both creepy, unsettling sounds and thrilling chase music that, as I said earlier, wouldn't sound out of place in an action flick of the period. Garfield has music that you most associate with the character, like instrumental versions of the theme song for the first special, Here Comes Garfield, and you also hear Odie's traditional theme when he shows up. There's also Italian-style music for the opening at the restaurant, whimsical music for when Garfield first falls in love with food, jazzy horns for when he's taken to the pet shop, stately violin pieces for when he establishes himself as master of the house, and a harmonica for when Garfield is old and telling his grandchildren a story. Finally, Space Cat is scored with a combination of electronic sounds and sweeping music meant to give a grand, Star Trek kind of feel.
Like I mentioned earlier, the song that Lou Rawls sings during the opening is full on blues, even being titled Blues Cat and with Garfield himself playing the harmonica, as Rawls laments about being under a bad sign, with lyrics like, "I'm broke from payin' my dues/'Cause when you got nine lives/You got nine ways to lose," and, "Hey, I had me nine lives/I'd roll snake eyes again and again/And maybe this time/I'll roll me a lucky ten." It's okay, though not quite fitting, as not all of Garfield's lives turned out bad, and I can say I like some of Rawls' theme songs for the other specials better.
If you're looking for something Garfield-related that's outside of the norm,
Garfield: His 9 Lives, both this special and the book, might be right up your alley. It's definitely the most unique and ambitious of the prime-time specials, right down to its being double the length (48 minutes, to be exact), and while a few of the segments, in my opinion, either aren't that great or fail to live up to expectations, most of them range from interesting to genuinely touching and even downright horrifying. The animation is also often really good, and the different art styles and music scores help give many of the segments their own identities. But, as clever and creative a cartoon as it is, I would hardly call it the funniest or most overall entertaining of the specials. Still definitely worth watching if you're a fan, but prepared for a few duds and for the cartoon to begin to wear out its welcome near the end.
