Garfield in Disguise AKA Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, 1985
Welcome to a surprise installment of Saturday Night Movie Sleepover’s October Halloween Horror Movie Extravaganza! J. Blake and Dion Baia decided to do an impromptu episode and look back at their childhoods, particularly during the Halloween season. More specifically, they wanted to cover a television special that has endeared itself to an entire generation of cat-lovers, who secretly would love nothing more than to sit around all day watching TV, while being served pasta and lasagna. That’s right, the boys are talking about everyone’s favorite orange & black house cat, Garfield and his cult classic, Emmy award-winning primetime special, Garfield in Disguise, or more widely known as Garfield’s Halloween Special, from 1985.
Another special near and dear to Dion‘s heart, the boys start off by discussing their memories of the Jim Davis comic strip. They discuss other popular comic strip stars, Garfield‘s primetime television specials, and the many other holiday specials of the era. The boys reminisce about their own childhood Halloween memories, the old costumes they wore, and what other thoughts come to mind when discussing this spooky Autumn holiday. They get into creator Jim Davis‘ original inception of Garfield the cat, the evolution from newspaper comic strip to book form, Davis’ genius in merchandising his creation and Garfield‘s journey to Primetime television. They chat about the eerie narrative theme recur in the various Garfield specials–where a child is lulled into a false sense of security until the third act goes completely off the rails, and becomes anything BUT what you’d think would wind up in a children’s cartoon special. So how scary was this for children growing up? Did this special actually push the limits of what the CBS Broadcast’s Standards and Practices would allow in a children’s cartoon? And how do the boys feel about this compared to the other holiday specials of the era? Well you better get your Halloween costume’s together, make sure you have your partner to go trick-or-treating with, and be careful not to trespass on any small islands that contain abandoned houses with cursed pirate treasure…on the exact night when said pirates’ ghosts are rising from the dead to claim what is their’s…because Blake and Dion are back with a special surprise edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers’ October Halloween Horror Movie Extravaganza!
EXTRAS:
Here is Garfield’s Halloween Special minus the commercials, in HD, again courtesy of YouTube.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
I’ve been saving this and the Hocus Pocus episodes for today and tomorrow. Just finished this episode and it brought back a lot of memories…also, I remember the special itself lol
Bringing up the Scholastic Book form…oh man, it’s been so long since I’ve seen one of those. Everyone got so jazzed when those came out. It might have been the rare time when you could get kids so into books. And when the Goosebumps books came out, forget about it! We all went nuts for those.
That GI Joe costume with the smock and the mask…I totally had that! I think it was the first of those costumes I remember picking out.
And as for the making your own toys, I ABSOLUTELY remember doing that. I had toys growing up, but unless I used my own allowance, I only really got them on special occasions like my birthday or Christmas. The one thing I really wanted was a sewer playset for my Ninja Turtles. My parents had three kids and no way in hell were they gonna spend that kind of money on a playset if we didn’t need it. So I took an old shoe box and put it on it’s side, then I cut a circle on the top for a manhole cover and I made another circle on the side where I could put two paper towel rolls I cut in half and taped together to make my own sewer playset. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing thing in the world, but it was creative and it was mine. I had more fun with that than any store-bought plastic playset…then again, it’s not like I had much of a choice, but still.
Hey Jose! Glad you liked the cast. That special in particular holds a special place in my heart, along with a handful of order Garfield primetime specials….
I think alot of people waited and loved the scholastic papers being passed around- you’re right, it really did get kids into reading. And yes, I used to my parents records to make apartment buildings for my GiJoes or C.O.P.S. to raid and blow up… hehehe. And you’re sewer play set almost sounds better than the real thing! Ha. Thanks for listening and as always, thanks dropping us a line. -Dion
It gives me memories of the movie.LOL
Still a classic!