Julia and Geoffrey realize they totally forgot to discuss the Garfield’s Thanksgiving songs in the main episode for this week, so they start there before moving on to commercials and … other things.
First, the opening theme.
Because the more you eat, the more grateful you will feel…
Next, the song that plays while they actually eat, “Thanksgiving Everyday”
Geoffrey calls this a glurge. Julia points out that Dr. Liz is a terrible vet, because dogs should never eat corn cobs. They can’t digest them and end up with intestinal blockages.
Image Description: Dr. Liz puts a corn on the cob on Odie’s plate. Is that a murderous gleam in her cartoon side-eye?
One instance of Lasagna Cat, which, as Geoffrey notes, is kind of hard to explain. You can find more by searching Lasagna Cat on YouTube.
And Julia also mentioned Garfield Minus Garfield, which led Geoffrey to bring up Square Root of Minus Garfield (though he didn’t quite remember the name).
Of course this wouldn’t be After These Messages if we didn’t also watch commercials, so here’s the Peanuts MetLife Thanksgiving Commercial from 1989.
Of course, half of the kids are dressed in appropriative Native American costumes, which is a shame, but also ever pervasive. If you want to read more about why this sort of dress up isn’t cool, here’s an article by a Native visual artist named Valerie Reynoso about costumes. It’s framed as a Halloween article, but the practice applies to this sort of situation as well.
As Reynoso explains, “…appropriation trivializes the brutal history of colonization of the Americas and its legacy today. When European colonizers settled in the Americas, Native peoples of these regions were forced to assimilate into European cultures…” and, “[Appropriation] sustains the Western idea that Native attire is only acceptable when worn by a white person and when viewed under a colonial gaze.”
Reynoso also highlights some Native designers and their work, which is pretty cool!
Anyway, this commercial was basically a bunch of cartoon Peanuts characters singing a Thanksgiving song … which Geoffrey actually knew! Geoffrey called it “Harvest Home” though “Come Ye Thankful People, Come” may be the actual title. Julia had no idea this song was a thing. But this did lead Julia to reminisce about a song from a middle school winter concert called “Feast of Lights”, here performed by the Stanford Intermediate Chorus.
Did any of those kids go home feeling like this was their favorite song of the winter concert?
This then led to Julia and Geoffrey arguing about whether “O Come O Come Emmanuel” is a gorgeous song (Julia) or just the worst (Geoffrey).
Who do you stand with on this, the most important issue of 2019?
Other songs discussed include “Here Comes Santa Claus” (which Geoffrey says is too religious, while Julia apparently never actually paid any attention to the lyrics) and “Santa Baby” (whose utterly charming composer is Jewish, and also Julia’s mother met him once on a train).
Okay, we know. You didn’t come here for the extended examination of holiday seasonal music. You came for the commercials! Here’s some commercials from Thanksgiving 1989, which featured a bumper Geoffrey remembered from the Muppet Babies!
We watched through three commercial breaks (about 6 minutes and 20 seconds), which included Precious Places, a sweet Hot Wheels Car Wash, Honeycomb cereal, a Ghostbusters play set, and a commercial for the movie The Little Mermaid, which was in theaters! If you listened to this week’s main episode, you’ll understand why this excited us so much. Ursula the sea witch is Jon Arbuckle’s grandma!
The kind of crab Geoffrey was thinking of was not a hermit crab, but a fiddler crab, by the way.
After These Messages: Garfield and Thanksgiving