If you thought A Garfield Christmas has had trouble keeping its status as a generations-spanning holiday classic, get a load of Garfield’s Thanksgiving. Debuting in 1989, the special received annual play only for a scant few years. From there it would spend well over a decade in putrid dormancy, seen only by those who had been forward-thinking enough to tape over some PPV boxing event that nobody was ever going to watch again, anyway. Finally, thanks to the Garfield Holiday Celebrations DVD, Garfield’s Thanksgiving can live on as one of society’s only methods of celebrating Thanksgiving by watching a cartoon about it.
As I recall, Garfield’s Thanksgiving usually aired right before or after A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the duo serving as an appetizer for the many glorious nights we’d spend watching animated specials during prime time the following December. It fails to deliver the nostalgic, good-feeling punch of Garfield’s other holiday specials, but consider the source material! Halloween, yes. Christmas, definitely. But Thanksgiving? Eating a giant turkey has a certain appeal, but as something to form a cartoon television special around, it isn’t a great muse.
I guess the main issue is that the cartoon has barely anything to do with Thanksgiving. The story happens to take place on Thanksgiving, but it’s not like it needed to. They take the long way in getting there (about a third of the episode), but the general setup involves Jon finally winning a date with Liz, the cold, distant, dried-up veterinarian who frequently pokes Garfield’s belly and makes fat jokes. I much preferred the comic strip’s version of Liz to this one, who always seemed a bit less like a heartless demon shark from the eighty-fourth level of Hell.
Aside #1: Many years ago, I went to the drive-through safari at Six Flags Great Adventure. The big field full of wild baboons was the venue’s chart-topper, but I was much more fascinated by the ostriches. Namely because one of them stood in front of our car, ejected its anus from the rest of its body like some slow-moving flying saucer, used its muscles to squeeze it like a wet rag, and sprayed more urine on our car’s front hood than Toyota manufacturers could’ve possibly taken into consideration. I’m not too versed in ostrich physiology, but what this particular ostrich did was definitely similar to what I described. There are a few shots of Jon whistling in the special, and they somehow remind me of that ostrich. If I have to suffer, you should too.
Anyway, Liz surprises everyone by actually showing up for the date. On Thanksgiving. Liz acted like she was doing Jon a big favor, but if she was available for dinner on Thanksgiving, the lady doth protest too much. I really, really hate cartoon Liz. Worse than cartoon Ed Grimley and cartoon Jackie Chan.
Only problem is, Jon can’t cook. With Liz impatiently waiting to be fed, Jon finds that his turkey has barely thawed, and that his chances to utilize tryptophan as a legal roofie have been totally destroyed.
Illustrating his despondence in the way that all of us would, Jon buries his face in the raw turkey and sobs. Garfield, by now royally ticked over becoming the industry’s first titular bit character, climbs back into the focal position by offering the ULTIMATE solution to ANY problem.
With Jon’s chances of scoring in peril, Garfield insists that he pick up the phone and call….
THE ONE.
THE ONLY.
THE GRANDMA.
When Grandma Arbuckle enters through Jon’s back door, she’s scored with a death metal guitar riff. It works, but I think it should’ve been the theme from 2001. Grandma is God, and I really wish people at work would stop looking at me weird whenever I prance around the office drinking from a coffee cup that says so.
This psychotically amazing old freak totally made A Garfield Christmas what it is. She’s Sophia Petrillo mixed with the T-1000, and she’d steal every scene even if she didn’t wear that alluring star-symbol sweatshirt. (Yes, the pink, star-symbol sweatswirt returns in this episode…it’s under her motorcycle jacket.)
While Jon distracts Liz with Thanksgiving history lessons, Grandma turns his failed Thanksgiving dinner into a feast straight out of the pages of one of those food magazines that liken pork chops to real estate. Because Grandma is God, she even uses a chainsaw to cut through the frozen turkey.
In an ocean of crimefighting Ninja Turtles, offensive Barts and robots that transformed into trains that transformed into space shuttles that transformed back into robots, it’s amazing that this crazy old bitch was one of the coolest cartoon characters of my childhood. I can’t believe that she never had her own series, where I imagine she would’ve played a freelance mercenary who only accepted contracts if the targets were criminals themselves. Don’t tell me you can’t see it.
Grandma cooks, sets the table and quietly leaves so that Jon can take all the credit and make out with Liz. Liz, for her small and horrible part, is impressed. She ends up leaving right after dinner, but she’s impressed. Jon, Liz, Dog and Cat sit happily at the table, eating like pigs while some really cheesy song about sharing blares over them. The song really didn’t connect with the visuals of Odie licking corn and stuff, but I guess it was better than just listening to all of them make chewing noises.
I haven’t mentioned the big side plot involving Garfield’s struggle to stay on his diet, but even considering that, it’s tough to find the moral of this story. Can “Call Grandma” be a story moral? I guess, in some odd and subversive way, it almost makes sense.
Garfield’s Thanksgiving would only be considered a classic by a very small group, but since this group is twenty times better than any other group on the planet, people should listen to us. So, I’ll say it again: GRANDMA. IS GOD.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
Ghosted by 
this DVD is $5.50 at Target. Anyone who doesn’t own it is crazy not to buy it seeing as you get all three Garfield holiday specials on one DVD for so cheap.
The Garfield specials are just as much tradition to me as the Charlie Brown or claymation specials.