Here Comes Garfield

I'm 46 and have seen tons of show. This is the only show/movie that ever made me cry.

This, the first in a steady line of entertaining Garfield specials, came about before the flabby tabby had completely found his footing in the character design department, so if the animation standard occasionally dips into crude or off-model waters (goodness – was Odie's neck really ever that spindly?), there's your answer. Slightly more vexing is a minor plot-hole that occurs around the final third simply to move things to a tear-jerking climax in which Garfield is forced to re-examine a few of his attitudes (exactly how long does an animal have to be in this particular pound before the possibility of being 'removed' starts looming over them? Odie hasn't even been there for a day, and already the other animals are predicting that he'll be next to go.). As wickedly superior as Garfield's scripting tends to be in comparison to a lot of your typical animated family fare, there are a small number of details which you'd be better off not thinking too diligently about in this one. Sit back instead and enjoy it for what it is: a simple, breezy and surprisingly touching little escapade, one which ranks as a sure-fire classic in the field of comic-strip TV spin-offs. Here, Garfield finds it in his lethargic paws to rescue Odie from ill-kismet in the local pound, having landed him in there after a series of pranks on the disgruntled old man next door.

With hindsight, I have to laugh at just how much this basic 24-minute cartoon managed to get my heart racing when I rented the video as a considerably younger viewer. Back then, the notion that Garfield might choose not to save Odie at all (as he considers for a brief while) just horrified me, not to mention the heartbreaking scene where the two of them spend what could well be their last few moments together. Really, the story is as safe and foreseeable as the next piece of family viewing, and when I recently got my hands on the DVD and gave it a re-visit, I wasn't too surprised that it had lost the power to have me dangling on the edge of my seat. What it still refused to give up doing, however, was to move me just as much as it did before. In its perfectly contented simplicity, 'Here Comes Garfield' goes for the most tried and trusted way of giving the human heart-strings a good tugging – matching a lachrymose tune with an ingenuous flash-back at just the right moment – and succeeds hands down. Sure, I'm fully aware that I'm a total softie, and it doesn't take much to have me snivelling, but really, if you're not in the slightest bit moved by the sequence in question, you'd have to be at least three times more cynical than Garfield himself, the King of Sardonic (and even he gets dewy-eyed at one point in this special).

On the lighter side, 'Here Comes Garfield' is also packed with many an amusing moment, continuing the tradition laid out by 'Lady and the Tramp' to have impounded animals spouting prison clichés (and each one of them has an amusing story to tell about how they came to be in the pound – me, I like Rocky's myself). Top it all off with Lorenzo Music's magnificent voice-work, in what would later immortalise him as our leading cat's vocals, and the usual selection of catchy easy-listening tunes, and you have compulsory viewing for every Garfield fan. A bit simplistic, perhaps, but then we all need a bit of light-hearted entertainment every now and then to keep those inner kids of ours happy.

Grade: A-

Chances are that at least once throughout your life, you've read a Garfield comic, watched one of the specials, or even some of the tv show adaptations. You can say what you want about how popular Jim Davis' big orange cat is, but you can't deny how much his fame made an impact in both comics and television animation. Well, if we're to go back to his roots in animation, then why not check out the special that started it all, Here Comes Garfield. Released in 1982, the special proved to be such a hit that more specials and the beloved Garfield & Friends would come out later on. But how does this one age?

The general storyline revolves around Garfield and Odie's mischief getting to the point of Odie being sent to the pound, leaving Garfield to save his friend. Yeah, the storyline is really basic, especially when most of the humor is taken directly from certain comic strips. However, what makes this special work well is the genuine heart. Garfield may mess with Odie a lot, but it is made clear how much he cares for him as a friend. He may go through the same routine of playing and eating as much food as possible, but without a friend, he becomes quite lonely. Add in a very emotional tearjerker of a song "So Long Old Friend" and you've got the heartfelt relationship that made Garfield and Odie so lovable.

So as simple as the special is, in addition to the low budget animation mind you, Here Comes Garfield still succeeds in representing the charm and even heart of Garfield that has been lost for so long. Many incarnations of the cat have come and gone, but not many of them have quite the amount of sweetness that this adaptation offers. In a way, it's possibly one of the most faithful out of all the Garfield franchise in terms of respecting the source material. I think it's safe to safe to say that Garfield won the attention of others out of his cynical albeit soft and charismatic charm more than any other comic cat ever could have, and this special understood that dearly.

I would have rated this attempt by Jim Davis and Co. about a five because I felt as though it wasn't creative and didn't seem to show that true Garfield spark we saw later on, but I changed my mind and gave it brownie points for the musical talent. The Song we hear as Odie is taken away to be put to sleep is soulful and beautifully sung (by who I'm not sure) and it captures the thoughts Garfield was having as he contemplated life without his best friend... I say CLOSE but not QUITE what I'll call a Jim Davis triumph- for that you'll have to watch, Garfield Goes to Hollywood and A Garfield Christmas.

As you may know, Garfield movies are animated frame-by-frame adaptations of the Garfield mini-books (the story specials, not the numbered books), with a few songs thrown in. Here Comes Garfield was the first movie, with nine more to follow.

OK, maybe it's just a cheesy 25-minute cartoon translation of a comic book, but I found it to be done remarkably well. I was embarrassingly moved by the tear-jerking "Goodbye My Friend" song that played around the time of Odie's impending execution. That was at age 7. Well, now that this just came out on the new "Garfield As Himself" DVD (which also contains the 2nd and 10th movies), I watched it last night at freaking 23, and damnit, I STILL almost cried. Then I felt like cheering when the "Together Again" reunion song got me all roused up during the big city pound breakout.

If you're a Garfield fan, prone to being moved by music, and have any problem admitting what a sensitive wuss you are, don't see this.