Monday, July 28, 2014

Rein-Toon-Ation: The Garfield Show (2008)

He's baaaaaaaack!

Garfield, Jim Davis' comic strip feline, returned to series television in The Garfield Show, which launched in 2008. There is talk that the series is still in production, but it's been at a snail's pace. Currently, Cartoon Network has farmed the show out to sister network Boomerang, which has the series running weekday afternoons and Sunday mornings (check listings).

As opposed to earlier animated incarnations, the use of computer animation allows the producers to enable Garfield, Nermal, and other cats to actually talk. Getting Odie, the dumbest dog on the planet, to actually say anything other than a bark, hasn't been tried yet. Anyway, Frank Welker, predictably, takes over the role of Garfield, mimicking the late Lorenzo Music, the original voice of Garfield for so many years. After two feature films and a couple of DTV's, it seems that Garfield has reasserted his iconic status. And you wonder why that other orange cat, Heathcliff, hasn't gotten another TV gig since DIC booted him light years ago?

Anyway, here's a sample episode, "The Perfect Pizza":



And you thought cats couldn't be that vain? Shame on you.

Rating: B.

No comments: