Garfield Gets a Life (1991)

I actually did know something about this when I first went into it. Back when I was first watching the Garfield primetime specials, I came across a video by a YouTube channel called ElectricDragon505, where the user gave his personal ranking of all twelve. (He was the one who ranked Babes and Bullets at the very top of his list and, as I said back when I reviewed that one, it's not hard to understand why.) At the very bottom was Garfield Gets a Life, not because he felt it was bad, but because the plot was nothing more than Jon trying to get a date, something we've already seen him struggle with a lot, both in other specials and in various episodes of Garfield and Friends. By extension, I also learned that Jon is really the protagonist here, while Garfield just tags along for support, or, rather, to comment on his failures. And I knew I was in for quite an epic dance sequence on Jon's part, given some of the clips featured. While I can't remember what my exact impression of the special was when I first saw it, I do think I liked it more than ElectricDragon505. Upon re-watching it again, I'd say that I would rank it on the lower end as well, but I also think I would put it above Garfield in Paradise, as well as maybe Garfield's Thanksgiving. Regardless, like all of the specials, it is watchable, making for a breezy 22 minutes, and there are a good amount of funny moments to be had, including some jokes that kind of shocked me. However, there is, indeed, not a lot to it plot-wise, Garfield is a supporting character (though he's always present as such), and, above all else, if you don't find the idea of a cartoon centered around Jon's lack of a love-life appealing, you're not likely to get much out of it.

As he goes through his morning routine, Jon realizes he's stuck in a boring rut and needs to get a life. Garfield, by extension, feels that the sooner Jon gets a life, the sooner he can get on with his. But when Jon proves to have a lack of motivation, Garfield pushes him along by giving him a book called How to Make Friends and Fool the Rest. Jon focuses on a chapter about picking up women, but no matter where or how he tries to put it into practice, his attempts fall completely flat. Later, while watching TV with Garfield and Odie, he sees an advertisement for the "Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired," which promises to help even the most boring, uninteresting people get a life. Jon opts to attend and, during his very first class, about making a good first impression, he meets a woman named Mona, who turns out to be as self-conscious and unsure of herself as Jon. As a result, the two of them hit it off by just being themselves, and they quickly leave the school and go out on a date. But, now that Jon seems to have found somebody, Garfield worries that Mona may drive a wedge between him and his owner.

Like I've said throughout this series of reviews, Garfield Gets a Life is the only one of these specials not to be directed by Phil Roman in any capacity (he still acted as a producer on it). Instead, John Sparey, who'd co-directed the last handful of them with Roman and Bob Nesler, directed it himself. This also ended up being the very last of the specials altogether, as CBS decided there was no longer any need for them since Garfield and Friends was doing so well. Following Garfield Gets a Life, Sparey, in addition to some episodes of that show, would only direct one other project: an animated Christmas-themed TV special called Nick & Noel. Otherwise, he mainly continued working as an animator, having done so in the past on movies like The Black Cauldron, Oliver & Company, Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, and Fire and Ice. Among his last couple of credits in this regard were as a sequence director on Tom and Jerry: The Movie, which Roman directed, and as an animator on The Swan Princess. Sparey died in 2010, at the age of 83.

As others have noted, the special should really be called Jon Gets a Life, as Jon (voiced by Thom Huge) is very much the central figure here. After he and Garfield sit around the breakfast table, suffering from the Monday Blues, he's next seen counting the ceiling tiles in his bedroom (he finds there are 144 in total), then tells Garfield that he'd organize his sock drawer next, but already did it the night before. And when Garfield checks the drawer, he finds that Jon actually put a lot of thought and effort into it, sorting the socks by color and size. As he specifies the different types of socks and where they are (winter socks, summer socks, natural fiber socks, man-made fiber socks, etc.), he realizes that he does, indeed, need to get a life. But after he tries on a very tacky suit, much to Garfield's horror, and walks right into the wall, Jon needs to be pushed into taking further action by looking through the book How to Make Friends and Fool the Rest. He follows its directions about picking up women at various places, like a singles club, the laundromat, the video store, and the beach, but finds himself shot down at every turn, mostly due to his being a massive dork whose attempts at impressing women are the definition of cringe. And in one scene, he's talking to a "woman" in a department store, only for her to turn out to be a mannequin. It gets to the point where, as he and Garfield are sitting on a park bench, Jon says hi to every woman who walks by and they each tell him to go screw himself in some way. After that, he's ready to give up altogether, when he sees the commercial for the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. Hoping they can help him, he enrolls and, during his first class, meets Mona, whom he forms a connection with. Unfortunately, said connection causes concern for Garfield.

Speaking of which, Garfield (voiced by Lorenzo Music) is intent on helping Jon get a life because he's just as bored, adding, "The sooner you get happy with your life, the sooner I can get back to mine." He tags along with Jon and makes snarky, sarcastic comments about him and his sorry attempts to land a date; in other words, he's just doing what he always does. Among his memorable lines and jokes is a shockingly dark comment he makes at the video store: "Can we get Old Yeller? I just love movies with happy endings." (No joke, I burst out laughing and thought, "Oh, my God!") Also, when Jon's attempt at landing a date there leaves him with a videotape shoved in his mouth, the clerk asks him, "Will you be renting that tape, sir?", and Garfield comments, "No, he'll be eating it here." At the beach, Jon gets a beach-ball stuffed in his mouth and, to that, Garfield says, "Nice going, Jon. Here we are, tryin' to find you a life, and all you can think about is eating." And his fainting when he pops the store mannequin's hand off after talking with it has Garfield commenting, "Oh, let's give him a hand for trying," and then clapping. As they then sit on a park bench, Jon laments, "This may come as a surprise to you, Garfield, but I'm just not very good at getting a date," and Garfield, in the most obvious of sarcastic tones, remarks, "No! Go on! You're putting me on!" He proceeds to call out every rebuff Jon gets from a passing woman as a strike, before later accompanying him to the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. There, in a class on making a good first impression, Garfield joins in the exercise about shaking hands and introducing oneself by attempting to do it with a rather unhealthy-looking guy sitting behind him, saying, "Hello, my name is Garfield. You probably notice I'm quite short and have excessive body hair." The guy doesn't respond to him at all. And when, during the part about pretending to speak a foreign language, Jon and Mona walk out, speaking a smattering of French, Garfield grumbles, " Hey, Monsieur Dumb Guy, remember me? What am I, chopped liver? Duck pate? Foie gras?", then wonders, "Why am I getting so hungry?"

Thus begins Garfield's worry that Jon is forgetting about him, reinforced when he eavesdrops on them talking on the porch and Jon simply refers to him as, "My cat." He laments, "Yesterday, I had a name. Yesterday, I was his bosom buddy. His confidant. Today, I'm his cat!" Then, shocked at the idea that a woman, other than his mother, actually likes Jon, Garfield has a dream where he and Mona continue dating, get married, and have a baby, who proceeds to terrorize Garfield. Waking up when the 

baby goes to bite his tail, Garfield attempts to break up the relationship, exclaiming, "I must stop him before he multiplies!" But, when he wedges himself between them and tries to convince Jon to stop dating Mona, she proceeds to scratch Garfield behind the ears. Initially, he tries to resist the sensation, claiming to Jon that she's using him as a way of strengthening her hold on him. But, Garfield starts to fall for her, and even crawls into her lap, as she rubs his back. He futilely continues trying to break them up, but it's clearly a lost cause.,, until Mona turns out to be 

allergic to cats. Garfield isn't exactly broken up about this but then, much to his horror, Jon initially suggests shaving him! He's then on pins and needles, as Jon seems to try to choose between them, but, fortunately, he does ultimately embrace Garfield. That doesn't dissuade Jon from continuing to see Mona, though. Garfield, however, is intent on being their chaperone, saying, "Jon's more than a friend to me. He's my meal-ticket."

Odie (voiced by Gregg Berger) only appears a small handful of times and has no role in the story at all. He shows up at the beginning, happy and carefree, unlike bored Garfield and Jon, with the latter tossing him a piece of toast. He reappears briefly afterward, when Garfield is watching TV (there is no point for him to pop up there, as he literally walks in, then walks off when Garfield turns the TV off), and again when Garfield is talking about how humans should appreciate the, "Simple things in life, like lasagna, a good nap, family." When he puts his arm around Odie as he stands there, panting, Garfield comments, "Dog breath. P.U.," and walks off, as Odie turns to the screen and goes, "Huh?" And finally, he's watching TV with Garfield and Jon, when they see the commercial for the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. 

As Garfield himself notes, it's surprising how, after all of his bad luck, Jon not only finds a woman who likes him in Mona (voiced by June Foray), but also someone who has a similarly awkward, insecure personality. When they meet during the class about making a good first impression, she asks him if hers was okay, saying she has no idea what she's doing. Jon, in turn, asks how his first impression came off, and when neither of them can give satisfactory answers, they both lament that they're ruining it. That breaks the ice, and they stop listening to Lorenzo to have a casual conversation, with Mona admitting, "I was so shy in gym class, I had my sister take my showers for me" (she also later says that, like Jon, she once got her tongue stuck in an elevator door). It also turns out that she was at the beach when Jon made an idiot out of himself with his desperate attempts to impress women but, fortunately, she doesn't recognize him. Eventually, they decide to leave and go out to dinner. That night, they're talking out on Jon's front step, and realize that they can enjoy each other's company by just being themselves. Garfield, realizing what this may lead to, attempts to break them up, but when Mona scratches him behind the ear and then rubs his back, he starts to fall for her as well. But Mona starts sneezing, and has to admit that she's allergic to cats. Moreover, medications don't work, but Jon hates the idea of giving up somebody he connects with so well. While he does opt not to put Garfield through the humiliation of being shaved, he and Mona decide to continue seeing each other, though Garfield is intent on chaperoning them.

While he comes off as big and boisterous on the TV, in reality, Lorenzo (voiced by Frank Welker) is much more low-key when Jon and Garfield meet him in person. Lorenzo says, "That was a lip synch, you know. My body, Charlton Heston's voice. It's, uh, a theatrical thing. It's done quite often." (Trust me, he did not have Charlton Heston's voice in that commercial.) He also gets Jon's last name wrong, calling him "Mr. Airbuckle." In his class, he first reminds everyone of the company motto, "If you can

get a pulse, you can get a life," then tells them to check for a pulse and raise their hands if they don't have one. Apparently, several do raise their hands, so Lorenzo has his assistant give them each a second opinion. He continues on with the class, first teaching them how to make a good first impression (looking someone right in the eye, giving them a firm handshake, and saying, "Hello. My name is 'so-and-so,"), how to dress for success (by showing off his rather ugly wardrobe ensemble, with his plaid shirt and slacks giving Garfield the urge to play golf), and finally, pretending to speak a foreign language. Lorenzo starts the latter lesson with "Canadian," saying, "Now this is an easy language to learn. You just talk like you normally would, except occasionally, you throw in an 'eh.'" His assistant and receptionist, Priscilla (voiced by Julie Payne), doesn't say or do much, but she's memorable because of how she's a rather bubble-headed, overly happy woman, with a design that's a tad off-putting, to say the least.

While the character designs and backgrounds are back to the traditional Garfield style here, as opposed to some of the last few specials, Garfield Gets a Life is notable in other ways. As ElectricDragon505 said, there's some really good animation here, with the standout being the dance sequence with Jon. Like Franklin's cringe-inducing rap in It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown, words and a few images can't do this bit justice, although I mean that as a compliment in this case. The animation in this entire scene is really 

good and fluid but, as corny and out-of-date as his dance moves are, it's still amazing to see Jon let loose the way he does. He twirls this woman around until he sends her flying towards the bar; you get a close-up of his fancy footwork; another close-up of him shaking his butt (not the first time you see this, unfortunately); him dancing in silhouette; and so on. You also get some cutaways to Garfield's tail swaying as he sits at the bar, corresponding to one of the lyrics in the Temptations song that plays during the scene, 

while the other people on the dance floor grow more and more aghast at what Jon's doing. The animation is also really good during the opening credits sequence, with Jon flexing his non-existent muscles after removing his shirt and shaking his butt (for the first time) at the camera after pulling on his pants, while Garfield has some not so enthusiastic reactions to this. The character of Leonard is quite well-animated in and of himself, as he's always moving and

gesturing, and in one instance, he stretches his neck to get his face right up into the camera, like it was in his TV commercial. And Garfield's movements near the end, when he declares himself Jon and Mona's chaperone, are quite quick and fluid as well.

While it doesn't get as crazy as it could, Garfield's dream about Jon and Mona marrying and having a kid who turns out to be a little terror, at least for him, is animated to come off as a nightmare. This mainly applies to when the scene turns to Christmas and the kid, who's drawn and animated to look psychotic, rabidly tears apart a present that Garfield was holding (there was literally nothing underneath the wrapping paper, by the way), then goes after Garfield himself. He grabs his tail as he tries to run away, and while Garfield breaks away, he runs and gets himself

cornered up against a gigantic wall. You then see the baby crawling towards the screen in a fast and threatening manner before, in a quick series of close-ups, he grabs Garfield's tail and bites into it (yeah, this baby has all of his teeth, by the way). That's when Garfield wakes up and realizes he has to stop this from happening.

The special's presentation and style are also a bit different from what you typically get in a Garfield cartoon. Both the opening credits and that dance sequence make it feel as though the special turned into a music video, especially the latter, with its quick cuts, close-ups corresponding to the song on the soundtrack, and the stylized background in some shots (that's actually just how that singles club's background looks, combined with the dance floor's colored lights). Also, when Garfield is watching TV during the opening, we briefly see some live action

footage when he turns it to the "All National Anthems All The Time" channel and it plays O, Canada. Speaking of which, Garfield watches a couple of shows that are done in a different art style than the actual cartoon itself. One is Yukon Stinky, a show featuring a Dudley-Do-Right kind of character (as well as a poor dog who gets mauled by a bear off-screen), and a noir-like gangster flick with a generic-looking lead character. 

As you've already grasped, much of the humor comes from just how little of a life Jon actually has and what a dork he is when trying to impress women, with Garfield adding his sarcastic quips. When the special begins, you see how utterly bored both of them are, as they both resort to counting the ceiling tiles in the rooms they're in just to kill time (this comes back around when, at the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired, they know they've found the right room when they see that everyone in there is counting ceiling tiles before class). When Jon goes

into detail about his overly organized sock drawer, he decides that he needs to get a life, saying, "There's more to life than just socks," and Garfield adds, "There's underwear." But it's when he starts trying to pick up women that the comedy really starts. While he does, believe it or not, find a woman willing to dance with at the singles club, he messes it up with his dancing. Once he's chased nearly everyone out of the club, someone off-screen yells, " Hey, jerk! Disco is dead!" Jon is shocked at that revelation, and on the way out, says, "Boy! You learn a dance and then,

zango! Fourteen years later, they change it!" Garfield remarks, "Go figure." At the laundromat, he meets a woman who's washing a pink tutu and asks if she's a ballerina  She says yes, then points at his boxers, which have teddy bears on them, as Garfield holds them up and she asks, "Are you a dweeb?"; Garfield answers, "Why, yes, he is." And after his disastrous attempt at the video store, which leaves him with a VHS crammed in his mouth, Jon tries to impress some bikini babes on the beach by stretching and

flexing while asking if they've seen his "missing Olympic swimming medals." He then walks off, boasting about how he's planning to do some push-ups, and, coming upon a balding guy with glasses who's buried in the sand, kicks some in his face and tells him to get out of his way. He's about to call him a pipsqueak, when the guy pops out of the sand and reveals he has the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger! That's how Jon gets the beach-ball crammed into his mouth. And you know something's up when Jon is talking to this "woman" who's staring at him with a blank, unblinking expression on her face... and she's then revealed to be a mannequin.

When he and Garfield are sitting on a park bench, Jon gets harshly turned down by every woman who walks by, even when he just says hello. He gets responses like, "Don't flatter yourself!", "Take a hike!" (Jon tries to laugh that one off by responding, "No thanks. I just took one,"), and, "Buzz off!" He then pulls out a guitar and tries to sing the blues, as it starts raining, only for a big guy with his gut hanging out to grab the guitar, throw it on the ground, and start stomping on it! Garfield comments, "And I thought fat people were jolly." While later watching TV with Garfield

and Odie, and seeing Lorenzo's commercial, Jon can't help but hide his face after Lorenzo asks, "Is your idea of a fun Saturday night sittin' home, watchin' television with your kitty cat? [Garfield blows a raspberry at that.] Are you so boring that you could make cheese yawn? Are you so out of touch, you think disco is still in? Have you ever passed time by counting ceiling tiles? Compared to you, does a slug seem hyperactive?" And at the end of the commercial, when Lorenzo says, "Our motto is, 'If you can get a pulse, you can get a life,'" Garfield tells Jon, "Well, maybe they'll take you anyway."

Speaking of Garfield, it's funny watching him be as bored as Jon at the beginning, mainly because Jon leads such a dull life. He tells the audience that he intends to help Jon get a life, "Because Jon's my friend, and I'd do anything to help my friend, no matter what." But then, he pulls up a newspaper and adds, "Unless, of course, there's somethin' good on TV," and realizes it's time for Yukon Stinky. But,he seems just as bored watching the TV, even after the show is over, and like Jon, resorts to counting the ceiling tiles. In addition to his many jokes while Jon

is trying to get a date, he also has some funny moments when he's sitting in class with him. When Lorenzo says the next part of the day's lesson is learning how to dress for success, Garfield gasps, pulls on his fur, and exclaims, "I'm naked!" And when Lorenzo is getting everyone to speak "Canadian" by occasionally adding in an "eh," Garfield remarks, "Great. Let's all go to town, eh? Maybe we can have some lunch, eh?" And twice during the finale, including the very end, he does an imitation of those 

suction plush car toys that were once really popular. Determined to not let Jon go off with Mona without a chaperone, he literally grabs some suction cups, climbs up the back of Jon's car, and attaches himself to the back window, saying, "I saw this on a freeway once." As you can see, he even puts on the same blank expression as those toys.

There's also some humor pertaining to the often ridiculous or inane stuff you run into in everyday life. This especially applies to the television, with Garfield coming across the channel that plays nothing but national anthems, then finds an infomercial for "Ajax Nose Hair Tweezers," where the announcer says, "And if you're not completely satisfied with your Ajax Nose Hair Tweezers, we'll refund all your tweezed nose hair!" It also takes a bite out of the inherent phoniness of this kind of programming, with Lorenzo's commercial featuring some painfully fake 

testimonials. One guy, who looks like his mind is off on another planet, states in a bland, emotionless voice, "I thought I'd never have a personality, but after only fourteen weeks at Lorenzo's School for the Personality Impaired, I now have a great personality." Another guy is dressed up like a matador and, with a similarly vacant look, says, in an even more monotone voice, "Six months ago, I was a school crossing guard. Crossing the street was my life. Now, thanks to Lorenzo's School for the Personality 

Impaired, I am a bullfighter." As the camera pulls back to show him standing in a bullfighting ring while wielding a club, he adds, "And why am I carrying this stick, you ask? Why, that's to keep the women away." In addition, while the commercial shows an image of a posh, fancy university, when Jon and Garfield go to the school in reality, it's a small, rundown building that looks as though it's nearly condemned. And finally, there's a bit of a lesson in how, when it comes down to it, Jon and Mona only need to be themselves to form a bond, rather than follow Leonard's vapid advice.

But as enjoyable as this special can be, I understand why it's not likely to be anyone's favorite. While the plots for these specials, for the most part, can hardly be called mind-bending or complex, this one, in particular, is built around the one joke of Jon not being able to get a date. Not only was that a big part of Garfield's Thanksgiving, two years prior to this, but, like ElectricDragon505 said, if you've watched a lot of Garfield and Friends, you've already seen this scenario a good number of times, often with Liz the veterinarian. There is a nice spin on it here with the 

character of Mona, but still, this is well-worn territory, as is Garfield tagging along on Jon's date and imagining what his life will be like if Jon ever manages to settle down and have a family, specifically with a baby that proceeds to torment him. And speaking of Garfield, while he does have plenty of screentime here (there's no scene that he's not in), some may find it disappointing that he's reduced to a supporting role and that Jon is the protagonist. I don't have a problem with it, because I like Jon, and I think the humor here is effectively funny, as I've gone into, but it is a shame that the series of specials couldn't have ended on a more overall crowd-pleasing note.

Music-wise, this is one special where I find the songs to be more memorable than the actual score by Desiree Goyette and David Benoit. In fact, most of the incidental music feels like extensions of those songs, anyway. There are some noteworthy pieces, though, like this one that plays when Garfield and Jon are so bored that they're counting the ceiling tiles, which sounds like it's signifying the ticking away of time and just how meaningless their lives are at the moment. There's also this slightly bluesy guitar bit when Jon laments his inability to get a date, leading into when he, very briefly, actually sings the blues. And when Garfield dreams about Jon marrying Mona and their having a child, the music transitions from a wondrous, dreamy piece to, when the scene switches to Christmas, a version of Jingle Bells that becomes nightmarish when the kid chases and corners him. As for the actual songs, the cartoon opens with B.B. King performing Monday Morning Blues, emphasizing how much of a rut Garfield and Jon are stuck in as they go through their morning routine. Then, after he was absent in Garfield's Feline Fantasies, Lou Rawls returns for one last opening credits song, this one called Spare Time. Basically, the song tells Jon to do what this entire cartoon is about: get a life. And when Jon dances at the singles club, it's to a song by The Temptations called Shake Your Paw, which matches how out of date his dance moves are (it's still a nice, upbeat song, though, and you can hear Lorenzo Music adding in some brief instances of backup as Garfield).

So, yeah, as the last of the primetime specials, Garfield Gets a Life isn't the best one they could've ended on, but it's far from the worst, too. If you don't want to see a 22-minute cartoon revolving around the oft-used plot of Jon trying to get a date, with Garfield himself being a supporting character (albeit one with a big chunk of screentime), then this isn't for you. But still, you'd be depriving yourself of a lot of truly funny moments and jokes, some of which are rather shocking in how daring they are, really good animation, some noteworthy instances of style that you don't tend to get in these cartoons, and fun songs on the soundtrack. Trust me, when it comes to Garfield, you could do a whole lot worse.

Garfield's Feline Fantasies (1990)

I know I've said this at the start of many of my Garfield reviews but, I have to say it again because it's the truth: I had no preconceived notions going into Garfield's Feline Fantasies. But, unlike His 9 Lives and Babes and Bullets, there wasn't as much history behind this one to go into, and the title made it sound like something of a repeat, especially given those two previous specials (remember that, chronologically, Garfield's Thanksgiving was the previous one before this). I was confident that, if nothing else, it would be entertaining, as these specials always are, even the ones I don't care for that much. But it still felt like we'd already gone into a number of "feline fantasies." And when I watched this, that was the impression it left with me. It was fun to see Garfield and Odie placed into so many different settings, scenarios, and guises due to the former's overactive imagination, but it didn't feel that distinctive from what I'd seen before. Moreover, looking back at it, I think this one is kind of a missed opportunity, as the majority of it is based around one fantasy in particular, which is entertaining enough, but it's not anywhere as well done as Babes and Bullets, and it also feels limiting. In my opinion, it would've been better and more creative to have the entire special consist of nothing but Garfield and Odie going from one fairly shott fantasy to another, and maybe make it 45 minutes like His 9 Lives in order to fit in as many as possible. I'm not saying it had to get as experimental as that one, but this still could've had more to it. As it is, though, it's perfectly fine and enjoyable to watch.

Garfield's often overactive imagination has been especially out of control lately, and is starting to continually bleed into his real life. After dreaming about being a World War II submarine captain, and then imagining he's in a Wild West showdown with Odie, he goes on to experience even more fantasies throughout the day. Even while eating breakfast, he falls into a fantasy, and it continues when he attempts to eat the pet goldfish. Though he's initially concerned about this, Garfield figures that he can always count on Jon to bail out him and Odie, who finds himself continually pulled into the fantasies, if things get too hairy. They put it to the test when they pretend to be pilots of a passenger jet whose engines just blew out, and have to jump without parachutes. Sure enough, Jon saves them when they jump from a high spot in reality, and with that, Garfield declares that they can do whatever they want without worrying about getting hurt. Thus, they go right into another fantasy, wherein Garfield is Lance Sterling, an adventurer who's like Indiana Jones combined with James Bond, and Odie is his bodyguard, Slobberjob. In Istanbul, the two of them meet a Sidney Greenstreet-like character named Fat Man, as well as his bodyguard, Rameet. The two pairs are searching for the Banana of Bombay, the first banana used in the classic banana-peel gag. Lance and Fat Guy each happen to have half of a holy ankh that will act as a map pointing to where the banana can be found, but their respective plans for it are completely at odds. When they bring their two halves of the ankh together, Lance and Slobberjob promptly make off with it and use it to acquire the banana. But not only are Fat Guy and Rameet on their trail, but so is a mysterious woman named Nadia, who claims to have been tasked with protecting the heroes. It all culminates in a confrontation at an ancient temple in the Amazon.

As with every one of these cartoons since A Garfield Christmas Special, Garfield's Feline Fantasies saw Phil Roman acting as the main director, assisted by one or more co-directors. Like with the previous handful of specials, said co-directors were Bob Nesler and John Sparey, both of whom had started out in the series by directing, and sometimes co-directing, segments of His 9 Lives. Following Feline Fantasies, Nesler would go on to direct some episodes of Garfield and Friends, but wouldn't be involved with the last primetime special, which Sparey would direct himself. In the following years, Nesler would direct episodes of shows like Bobby's World, ChalkZone, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Danger Ranger, but has mainly worked as an animator on numerous shows and movies like Rocko's Modern Life, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Space Jam, Godzilla: The Series, Johnny Test, Turtles Forever, Adventure Time, and many of the direct-to-video Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, and DC animated movies, just to name a few.

While not as prevalent as his love of food and sleeping, a big character trait of Garfield's (voiced by Lorenzo Music) is his very active imagination (Babes and Bullets alone can be viewed as proof of that). But here, it's really getting out of hand, not only running wild while he's dreaming, but from the moment he wakes up, as he's thrust into one after another. He goes from the Wild West showdown with Odie, acting as a magician attempting to do the classic tablecloth trick while waking Jon up, playing with his food, and thinking the pet goldfish has turned into a shark, to imagining that he and Odie are pilots on an airline jet with faulty engines, and then that they're the adventurous due of Lance Sterling and Slobberjob. Though initially worried about this, when he hits on the notion that Jon will always be there to save them if things get out of hand, Garfield decides he and Odie should just indulge these fantasies for all they're worth, which is why the Lance Sterling one nearly takes up the remainder of the special.

Speaking of Odie (voiced by Gregg Berger), he, naturally, just kind of goes with the flow and allows himself to be sucked into Garfield's fantasies. After the High Noon one, he gets caught up in Garfield's "magic trick" of waking Jon up, where he appears as his assistant, and is well aware that this trick isn't going to end well. Then, when they're airline pilots and their engines blow out, Garfield suggests they bail out and leave the passengers behind, but Odie protests and Garfield grumbles, "Okay, crybaby! We'll get the passengers off first." And then, during the Lance Sterling section, he plays Lance's trusty and, surprisingly, very competent and tough servant, Slobberjob.

Speaking of Lance Sterling, he, as I said, is like a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones. The former influence comes from the fancy white sport-coat and tie that he wears throughout most of the section (though, it is also reminiscent of Indy's fancy outfit during the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), his covertly meeting up with Fat Guy in Istanbul, and his use of a high-tech computer to put together the two halves of the ankh and create the map leading to the Banana of Bombay. Of course,

his going after a "treasure" and having to brave an ancient, booby-trap-filled temple is where you get Indiana Jones. Odie's character of Slobberjob is naturally based on Oddjob from Goldfinger, and he wears a kind of similar outfit, consisting of a tweed gray jacket, suit, and tie, as well as a bowler hat, which does have a sharp rim that he makes use of during the climax. While Lance says of him, "He doesn't think. He's been trained in macrame, bonsai, origami, and he's nearly housebroken," Slobberjob actually proves to be rather tough and skilled. When he and Lance are escaping the cafe with both pieces of the ankh, he beats up a bunch of thugs offscreen, and he proves very competent during the climax in the temple, as he manages to get them out of there when they're seemingly trapped, making good use of his hat in the process.

Lance and Slobberjob's enemies in their adventure are Fat Guy and his servant, Rameet (both voiced by Frank Welker). Again, Fat Guy is an utter archetype, based on Sidney Greenstreet, specifically his role in Casablanca, with his white suit and fez. Not only does Welker do his best impression of Greenstreet, but he also often inhales very deeply while speaking as an additional touch. In their meeting at the restaurant in Istanbul, Fat Guy (who's holding a ravenous pet weasel that chews up his shirt sleeves 

throughout the scene) makes clear his intention to sell the Banana of Bombay to the highest bidding country if he manages to get his hands on it. Rameet doesn't say much, but Fat Guy claims, "He doesn't smoke, drink, eat, or sleep," adding, "He's been trained in the martial arts, you know. Judo, Karate, Taekwon-Do, Jujitsu, and, uh, machete-eating." Despite being a big, burly, intimidating guy, he doesn't do much except occasionally disguise himself in clothes that are way too small for him, but he does prove to be too tough for even Slobberjob to handle. During the climax in the temple, when he and Fat Guy are escaping with the banana, Rameet is literally left behind by his boss and falls into a huge, lava-filled pit. But after Lance and Slobberjob have managed to vanquish Fat Guy, Rameet shows back up, battered and bruised. He corners them on a cliff, forcing them to jump, where the fantasy ends.

While escaping the club, Lance and Slobberjob receive some unexpected help in the form of Nadia (voiced by Julie Payne), a beautiful, mysterious woman who's dressed in a style not unlike Carmen Sandiego (and this was after that game franchise had been established). She claims she was sent by headquarters to assist Lance, but he's unwilling to accept her help and tells her to leave. She does as he says, but tells him that they'll meet again. Sure enough, when Lance and Slobberjob are at the Cafe DuFleur in Paris, looking for clues, Nadia shows up again, dressed as a waitress. She tries to warn them that Fat Guy and Rameet have followed them there, but her warning soon becomes moot when the villains make themselves know. She trails them to the Amazon, as do Fat Guy and Rameet, and after Lance and Slobberjob find the banana in the temple, only to get caught in a trap, Nadia takes it for herself. She then explains her motive: she's a native of Moldavia and says that, in order to encourage lucrative tourism, they need the banana to start a fruit stand. To that, Lance remarks, "That is the dumbest reason I've ever heard!", and Nadia says, "It's your fantasy, Fat Boy." But before she can escape, Fat Guy and Rameet take the banana from her, and leave her stranded with Lance and Slobberjob. Even after they manage to escape, thanks to Slobberjob's ingenuity, Nadia keeps trying to steel the banana for herself. In the end, though, both she and Fat Guy, as well as a bunch of monkeys, end up in a river at the bottom of a gorge. However, she, or a similar-looking character, pops up in the closing, Casablanca-themed fantasy as the potential lover for Garfield's version of Rick Blaine.

While certainly bigger than his quick cameo at the end of Babes and Bullets, Jon's (voiced by Thom Huge) role here is as little more than a foil for Garfield's shenanigans. After Garfield literally yanks him out of bed to fix him and Odie some breakfast, Jon gives Garfield a plate of bacon and eggs. As Garfield plays around with it, Jon says, "You know, Garfield, I wish I knew what goes on in that mind of yours. I know cats have an active fantasy life, but yours must be in Technicolor." Then, when Garfield ends up getting the food on his face and falls off the table, Jon sits there with his cup of coffee and literally says, "Sigh." After that, he becomes Garfield's safety net, twice proving that he's there to bail him and Odie out whenever their fantasies get a little too crazy. Upon "saving" them after they imagine jumping out of the airplane, only for them to go on to the next one, he comments, "Gerbils. I should've raised gerbils." And he's there when they come out of the Lance Sterling fantasy, literally falling at his feet.

While they were well-made from the beginning, by this point, the Garfield specials had truly become feasts for the eyes in terms of animation and art style. The animation had gotten especially good by this point, and like Garfield's Thanksgiving the previous year, there are many instances in Feline Fantasies where it's really fluid and energetic. There's one particularly well-animated moment when, while planning to eat the goldfish, Garfield looks into the fish bowl, his face distorted by the water and curved glass as he approaches. Stylistically, this one isn't as

dynamic or outside the box as His 9 Lives or even Babes and Bullets, with the backgrounds and environments looking more akin to what you would expect from a Garfield cartoon, as do the character designs (save for Nadia), but it's still very well done and often clever in conception. There are actually some nice instances of lighting work, like when Garfield, upon waking up at the beginning, heads down the dark hallway to Jon's bedroom, only for Odie to appear at the opposite end, leading into the Wild West fantasy when he turns on the light; when 

Garfield and Odie imagine the cupboard opening by itself and spilling a bright light into the dim kitchen; and at the very end, when Garfield walks through a door and into the Casablanca fantasy. And as you'd probably expect, the different fantasies are a major part of the visual appeal here. We start out with one in black-and-white when Garfield dreams of being a World War II submarine captain, then go into the very brightly lit High Noon one, with sharp shadowy contrasts, for the opening credits, a colorful 

magician's stage performance for when Garfield and Odie wake up Jon, the even more colorful Lance Sterling fantasy, and finally, back to monochrome for the last one, wherein Garfield himself starts out in color while everything else is in black-and-white.

The backgrounds and environments here are probably among the best you ever see in any of these specials. Even before we get into the fantasies, it opens with a nice, wide view of the neighborhood, panning over to Garfield's house. The interior of the submarine in the first fantasy looks good, as does that of the airline jet, but the Wild West setting, with Garfield and Odie walking down the middle of a deserted old town, having a classic standoff, is especially well-done. Not only do the backgrounds look cool, as do the lighting contrasts and shading to simulate the effect of the sun

bearing down on them, but the sequence is depicted from various angles, such as from alleyways and off to the sides of the street, with buildings and other objects in the foreground occasionally obscuring the action as the screen pans, through a second-story window looking out onto the street, from under a saloon door, and finally through a high angle looking down at them as they're about to meet. The Lance Sterling fantasy, however, is where the backgrounds and art style really shine. You get a panning shot 

across the Istanbul skyline, with the full moon up in the sky, and that's followed by the detailed interiors of the restaurant where Lance and Slobberjob meet up with Fat Guy, the Istanbul streets, the brightly colorful Cafe DuFleur in Paris, and the Amazon jungle and the ancient temple. The latter looks especially cool, with a freakish-looking exterior that's shaped like a shouting face and mouth, a passageway where a bunch of eyes watch them from the dark (they later turn out to just be monkeys), and the large 

chamber where the Banana of Bombay is kept on a pedestal in the middle of a bunch of them sitting in a large chasm with lava down at the bottom. I also have to mention the interior of Lance's home, which looks like a big, fancy apartment with a nice view of a city, but when they analyze the two pieces of the ankh, the place turns into a high-tech lab, with digital readouts of the ankh (an early instance of CGI work) and a map appearing on the screen. And finally, the last fantasy is very evocative of Casablanca (and I also can't help but think back to Babes and Bullets as well, just due to the black-and-white, and the film noir vibe).

The humor mostly comes from both the personas that Garfield takes on in the fantasies and his reactions to what he's faced with, which sometimes involves some fourth-wall breaking. It also occasionally has to do with how a given fantasy relates to the real world. For instance, when he's sleeping and dreaming that he's a submarine captain during the opening, the "depth charges" that explode around his sub actually represent the sound of his alarm clock going off. He barks orders to his commanding officer (Pooky, his teddy bear, who remains inanimate), with the sub 

then rising towards the surface, and when he looks through the periscope, what he sees is the living room. Upon spotting the alarm clock, he gives its coordinates and orders a torpedo fired. They score a direct hit, which amounts to him, as usual, smashing the clock with his fist. He decides to surface, i.e. wake up, and he gets out of bed, putting Pooky aside, and goes to wake Jon up. But, his seeing Odie at the opposite end of the hall leads into the Wild West fantasy, where the two of them are having a showdown. Throughout it, Garfield narrates a ballad 

about himself: "Garfield's comin'/He's comin' to town/Better not to try to knock him down. Just run for cover/And clear the street/'Cause if you don't/You're dead meat. Yeah, Garfield is comin' to town. There was Jesse James/And Billy the Kid/But this dude's done worse things/Than they ever did. Woe the poor soul/Who crosses his path/He'll have to suffer this gunslinger's wrath. Huh! This poor dog hasn't got a chance/He's had his last meal/And he's had his last dance. One more whimper/One more prayer/Gee/I 

hope he put on clean underwear. I'm gonna deep-fry this sucker." And then, when he and Odie come together, they high-five, transitioning back to the real world. They go to wake up Jon, leading into the fantasy where Garfield is the magician, "Garfield the Amazing," and Odie his assistant, "Odie... the Average." Playing to an audience, he performs the tablecloth trick, or "tablecloth thing," as he calls it, while Odie nervously covers his eyes. He ends up yanking an annoyed Jon out of bed.

We don't see what Garfield's imagining when he plays with the breakfast that Jon gives him, but he goes from acting like he's going to do a karate chop on it (complete with an appropriate bit of music) to yelling, "You'll never take me alive, you scurvy cur!", only to get the bacon and eggs in his face and fall off the counter. Then, when he tries to eat the goldfish, it turns into a Jaws parody, not just with the music but also how, when he sticks his hand into the bowl, it's akin to the shot from the shark's POV beneath the water. And when he imagines the goldfish turning

into a shark, rising up out of the bowl and roaring (Ted Cassidy's vocalizations for the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla cartoon), it mimics the iconic poster image. After Jon comes to check on Garfield and he jumps onto his owner's shoulders in terror (and after Jon leaves, the goldfish glares at him menacingly), that's when Garfield figures he'll always be able to rely on him to bail him out of trouble. Thus, he and Odie climb up onto the china cabinet and imagine they're airline pilots. There are a number of great jokes here, as Garfield tells the passengers, "Thank you for 

flying Inversion Layer Airlines. Our ETA to Chicago today is 4:00. Our altitude is 39,999 feet. Our in-flight movie is Vertigo, and if you think that's in bad taste, wait till you try the food." The passengers, incidentally, are made up of some clearly nervous fliers, a pair of nuns, one of whom is strumming a guitar (a reference to Airplane!, maybe?), and a guy with a bow-tie that he spins like a propeller. Garfield continues, "The copilot this afternoon is Odie 'Crash' Bowbowski...' So, sit back, relax, and enjoy your 

flight." Suddenly, there's a big boom and Garfield says, "And pay no attention to that engine that just exploded." There's a second one and he adds, "Or that one." All the machines in the cockpit fall apart, and Garfield learns they only have two engines (Odie barks twice when he asks how many they have). He says, "Well, this calls for action. I know: have the stewardesses pass out free drinks." Then, after Odie convinces him to get the passengers off the plane rather than leave them there to die, you see them 

bailing out until the pilots are the only ones left. Just as they're about to join them, Garfield realizes they themselves don't have any parachutes. He decides it's time to test his theory about Jon, and he and Odie jump out of the plane. Sure enough, Jon does catch them when they fall off the china cabinet, and thus, their next fantasy begins shortly afterward.

They enter the Lance Sterling fantasy when the kitchen cupboard opens by itself and a bright light streams out of it (prompting Garfield to say his repeated line of, "Nice touch,"). Once the fantasy begins, and Lance and Slobberjob meet up with Fat Guy and Rameet, there's some funny back and forth, like the respective greetings Fat Guy and Lance give each other: "Sim Sala Bim, sir." "Sim Sala Bim." "May your children be happy and wise." "May your chewing gum never lose its flavor." "May your camel walk straight and true." "May your socks always

match." A few seconds later, there's this exchange: "Let's cut the small talk, Fat Guy. You know why I'm here." "Yes I do." "And what I'm here for." Yes I do." "And what I'm going to do with it." "Yes I do." "Then would you mind refreshing my memory?" After Lance and Slobberjob escape the place with both pieces of the ankh, they run into an angry mob, waiting to pulverize them, when a female voice gets the crowd to disperse by announcing through a bullhorn, "Attention, market shopping people. For the next ten minutes, we'll be giving away free flying carpets in Aisle 4." This, naturally, is how Nadia introduces herself. 

Shortly afterward, when analysis of the ankh's map sends them to Paris to find the missing part of it, they stop at the Cafe DuFleur. There, Lance asks for some microwave lasagna, but when the waiter says they don't have it, he says, "Oh, very well. Just give me the soup du jour, with some extra jour on the side." Then, he asks the waiter what the special is and the waiter makes the mistake of answering, "I haven't a clue." Because he said the word "clue," Lance all but interrogates him, demanding to know where the Banana of Bombay is; the waiter answers, "I don't

believe that's on our menu, monsieur. Would you settle for Bananas Foster?" Lance decides to let it go, and the waiter is then jumped and has his uniform stolen by Rameet, which barely fits him. Of course, despite this, Lance and Slobberjob don't recognize him when he brings their soup du jour (although Lance does comment, "Boy, that guy looks familiar,"). Even when Nadia comes out, disguised as a waitress, and tries to warn them, Lance doesn't believe her. And then, Fat Guy reveals himself, then

sics Rameet on them. Slobberjob tries to beat Rameet up, but his feeble attacks on his head and hair do nothing, and he gets tossed across the way... and just so happens to uncover the missing part of the map, hidden in an awning. Upon seeing this, Lance nonchalantly suggests they should get out, and tells Slobberjob to bring the map with them, much to his aggravation, as he has to pull it free. Following that, they're on a plane, heading for the Amazon, unaware that Nadia, Fat Guy, and Rameet are also all onboard, wearing disguises. While Nadia is disguised as a stewardess, Fat Guy is dressed like a tourist, and Rameet, again wearing something too small for him, is dressed like a little kid, while licking a lollipop.

When they arrive on the Amazon, Lance, naturally, forces Slobberjob to carry all of their gear as they trek through the jungle. The path to the temple housing the Banana of Bombay is indicated by some very obvious signs, and when they easily find and enter it, this is where you really get into the Indiana Jones send-up. Creepy eyes watch Lance and Slobberjob from the darkness in one corridor, and Lance stops Slobberjob from stepping on a stone step that fires some poison darts, only to then step in a spot where the stairs fall away. Because he told Slobberjob to follow him, he 

just shrugs and jumps down after Lance, and after riding a stone slide, they find the chamber where the banana is kept. Though Slobberjob fairly easily manages to hop across the various platforms to the one housing the banana and grabs it, he gets snagged in a net. Lance decides to try to get the banana himself, but also gets caught in a net, which is when Nadia takes the banana from them. But then, Fat Guy and Rameet show up, take the banana, and leave Nadia stranded with them. That's when Slobberjob, again, proves to be quite resourceful and gets them 

back across using his hat and some rope. The temple starts collapsing, as they try to run out, and along the way, it's revealed that the eyes from earlier were numerous monkeys hiding in the temple. The monkeys take the banana away from Fat Guy, resulting in a game of keep away between them, Fat Guy, Lance and Slobberjob, and Nadia. Lance and Slobberjob manage to escape the temple with the banana, but find themselves stranded on the edge of a cliff. With Fat Guy, Nadia, and the monkeys all 

coming after them, the two of them decide to make use of the banana's original purpose by peeling it, eating the fruit, and leaving the skin in their path (Garfield figures it couldn't hurt, since it's all a fantasy anyway). They all slip on it and go over the edge of the cliff, down into the river running through the gorge below. But just when it looks like Lance and Slobberjob are home free, they're faced with a battered, bruised, and very angry Rameet, following Fat Guy's betraying him. With no other recourse, they hold hands and jump off the cliff, hoping that the impact doesn't hurt.

That's when they fall out of both the cupboard and the fantasy, landing at Jon's feet. With that, Garfield declares he's never having another fantasy, only to find his way into the Casablanca-style one when he walks by a doorway. Though initially unenthusiastic about it, he does go with it, walking into the monochrome nightclub and up to Odie, who's playing the piano. Acting like Rick Blaine, he starts to tell Odie that he told him never to play that song, when Odie points him over to the table where Nadia (or a woman done in her same design), is waiting for him,

with a literal twinkle in her eye. With that, Garfield suddenly finds himself in black-and-white and wearing a suit similar to the one he wore as Lance Sterling. He goes over to the woman and they lean in for a kiss, becoming silhouettes as the special ends.

If it seems like I'm kind of down on this one or don't have much to say about it, I apologize. Again, like all of the Garfield specials, there is definitely some entertainment value to be found here, as well as some creativity from the fantasies themselves, as I've described. But, like I said in the introduction, after Garfield: His 9 Lives and Babes and Bullets, this comes off as kind of, "Been there, done that." What's more, while the Lance Sterling fantasy is fun enough, I feel it was a mistake to have that take up more than half of the cartoon, when it could've been used to

showcase some more of Garfield's imagination. Either that, or they could've made this another special meant for an hour time slot and used the extra time to extend some of the other fantasies or, again, come up with more. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything they could've done that hadn't already been done in those other specials (or in Garfield and Friends, for that matter), but I'm sure there are more settings, situations, genres, and whatnot that Garfield could've exploited.

There's a notable change regarding the music here. First, no Lou Rawls song, making this the only special to not feature his vocals. Second, though Desiree Goyette, as per usual, was one of the composers, her frequent partner and future husband, Ed Bogas, wasn't. In his place was David Benoit, who would go on to be involved in the music for many of the later Peanuts specials in the 90's and 2000's, as well as 2015's The Peanuts Movie. Regardless, he and Goyette did come up with some great music here, with Benoit bringing his own jazz influences to it, like in the opening, where you initially get this nice, smooth piano tune, and this jazzy horn piece that I really like, which you hear in the background of many scenes in the real world. Of course, they also had to constantly change the genre of music to fit with the individual fantasies, with the most notable being the Lance Sterling one. Within that section, you have some exotic bar music for the opening in Istanbul, a sexy saxophone leitmotif for Nadia, a high-tech, James Bond style one for when Lance and Slobberjob activate the computer to analyze the ankh, typical French-style accordion music for the scene at Cafe DuFleur, and adventurous, Indiana Jones-inspired music for the sequence in the Amazon, which also plays over the ending credits. They also do the predictable take on the Jaws theme for the scene with the goldfish, as well as really, western-style accompaniment to Garfield's ballad during the opening credits, and the final, Casablanca-style fantasy features a beautiful-sounding song that you, unfortunately, only hear a little bit of before the special closes out.

Garfield's Feline Fantasies isn't one of the best of the specials in my opinion, mainly because the concept feels like a bit of a retread of some that had already been done, and the execution is something of a missed opportunity. However, don't let that influence you to not watch it, because there is a lot to like here, with the humor of seeing Garfield and Odie in these different settings and as these different characters, the references to other movies, the appealing visual style that these fantasies offer, really good animation, and some nice music. I can safely that I'd much rather watch this than Garfield In Paradise, the one special I wasn't a big fan of, or a lot of the later Garfield cartoons and movies.