Geoffrey and Julia decided to revisit something they both remember loving as children, and that they truly believed they’d seen before: Garfield’s Thanksgiving.
Okay, so to say we were not prepared for what we were going to see in this one is a major understatement.
Image Description: Jon Arbuckle harassing his cat’s veterinarian while she is trying to examine the cat. The captioned dialogue reads, “How about a date?” “I’d sooner die.” “Well don’t do that.” “Mr. Arbuckle, please.”
Here’s Geoffrey’s hazy summary:
"Did Garfield go to the farm from Green Acres? Or was there an old lady who died at the end?"
No. Green Acres is a totally different show that has nothing to do with Garfield. He did have friends on US Acres in the Saturday morning cartoon version, but that doesn’t appear in this Thanksgiving special. And there is an old lady, but she does not die.
What does happen? Basically a lot of really unfortunate toxic masculinity and harassment and dysfunctional relationship stuff. And also some weird fat shaming and bad cat diet advice.
This one was rough. We honestly both remembered loving Garfield as kids, and by the time we’d finished watching this, we felt our souls had been rather crushed. However, the voice of Garfield, Lorenzo Music, was apparently a really nice guy. Here’s the obituary Julia mentioned.
Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday, too. We were both definitely raised with the happy pilgrims and Native Americans story, and while there was apparently a 3 day feast in 1621 (as John mentions while stalling for time so someone else can do the work he failed to do properly), that’s not really a reflection of how European colonists interacted with the native population as a whole. Many Native Americans today think of Thanksgiving as a day for solemn remembrance. If you want to learn more about the history of Thanksgiving and some of the complex ways different people feel about it, this article is a good place to start.
And if you want to think about what a more compassionate celebration of Thanksgiving looks like, consider reading this article by Sean Sherman, a Lakota chef, who offers that instead of fixating on allegedly happy narratives that erase centuries of suffering, “… we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude.”
That’s definitely a better way to spend the day than harassing a veterinarian into dating you and then making your grandmother secretly cook the meal at the last minute and then leave so that you can take credit for cooking while your grandmother is exiled from the Thanksgiving feast!
Anyway, happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it! We hope you take some time to enjoy food you like with people you love, and that you also take a moment to reflect on the actual history of Native Americans who were living in what is now the United States before European colonists arrived. In our area, that includes the Massachusett and Wampanoag tribes.
P.S. The kind of bracelets Julia was trying to describe from the 80s are jelly bracelets, and, uh… according to this page, there are apparently sex games about them now…?
Garfield's Thanksgiving