Post by Josh Zinn.
There’s something about the holidays that disrupts my ability to smother the world with my hatred of things and I’m not entirely comfortable with that. Case in point: Garfield. Really, has there ever been a moment in this life when anyone has chuckled, chortled, or guffawed OUT LOUD at the antics, quips, and musings of America’s favorite lasagna-scarfing feline? A rather slovenly thing, Garfield exists on the periphery of popular culture not as an icon of hilarity, but rather as the comedic equivalent of Bugles corn snacks. He’s there; we ingest him; but he’s entirely forgettable (and doesn’t even, I might add, come in six unique flavors).
Come the yuletide, however, this tubby little marinara-soaked comic cat emerges from my cauldron of contempt and somehow finds a half-hour of redemption through the power of his poorly-animated holiday special, “A Garfield Christmas.” But why?
Surely, there is nothing in “A Garfield Christmas” that hasn’t been seen before: An elderly woman reminiscing of days gone by? Check. Brothers finding solace and camaraderie as they take holiday refuge from the industrialized age? Check. A dog and a cat discovering that perhaps-just perhaps-the hatred they hold for one another is unsustainable and spiritually unsound? Check, please!
Nay, “A Garfield Christmas” brings little to the table that hasn’t already been served. But it is that tepidness, that complete and utter lack of motivation (laziness, really) to reach beyond the usual Christmas cliché and aim for something profound and heartfelt, that for some strange reason makes the annual viewing of it a near-religious experience for me.
Oh no, I’m not going to lie and start calling this chicken a peacock, folks. This special isn’t very good. There are annoying songs; John’s mom has a scrunched-up face that make her look like a creepy panty-hose doll; Odie is just plain dumb; and Garfield continually breaks the fourth wall with comedic commentary that makes my stomach hurt. And yet, I find the whole December-themed debacle completely watchable.
You see, “A Garfield Christmas” is the kind of Christmas special that’s not cool to like and that, oddly enough, makes me want to act as its staunchest defender. Sure, it may lack the ironically hip stop-motion animation of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” is devoid of the severity of sincerity that permeates “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and cannot compete with the pomp and circumstance of the bizarre California Raisins-sponsored “Claymation Christmas Celebration,” but it is that inability to stand tall in a sea of giants that makes my heart yearn for only the best life can offer this seasonal special on a stick.
Like a wayward, rabid, odious opossum (I was going to say child, but that seemed too cruel) in search of a home, “A Garfield Christmas,” needs love precisely because there’s really not much to love about it—and that’s what makes it lovable!
Isn’t that what the holidays are truly about?
