Happy Birthday, Garfield

Happy Birthday, Garfield
Directed by Jim Davis
Produced by Jim Davis
Written by Jim Davis
Starring Lorenzo Music
Gregg Berger
Thom Huge
Narrated by Carroll Spinney
Music by John Powell
Cinematography Michael Knapp
Edited by Harry Hinter
Production
company
Paws, Inc.
Distributed by Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Release dates
 17 May 1988 (USA)
Running time
 60 min.
Country United States USA
Language English

Happy Birthday, Garfield is an hour-long television dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Garfield comic strip, hosted by its creator Jim Davis. The special was first broadcast May 17, 1988 on CBS. It has only been released on VHS home video.

Synopsis

The program featured the people behind the strips and animated adaptations, a very brief animated short made in 1980 (two years before Here Comes Garfield) by Bill Meléndez and Lee Mendelson (more known for their Peanuts specials) featuring jokes from the strips of June 21 and August 2, 1978 and July 7, 1979, a recording session for the upcoming Garfield and Friends series (with Lorenzo Music, Gregg Berger and Thom Huge), apart from some footage from it and from Garfield's 9 Lives. Also Spanish- and German-dubbed clips of Here Comes Garfield and Garfield Goes Hollywood respectively were shown, apart from an sneak peek for the unproduced feature film Garfield's Judgment Day, a rehearsal for the theme song of Garfield's Babes and Bullets, and a chat Davis has with Dik Browne (Hägar the Horrible, Hi and Lois), Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm) and Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse). The last part of the program features the celebrations held for the strip's anniversary, most notably the one where fellow cartoonists drew their characters as their "presents", followed by man-in-the-street interviews about Garfield, before the camera shows him and Odie (both played by human actors) living the "good life" in Hollywood (even Garfield takes its time to kick Odie). Finally, Davis acknowledges the audience before getting off on a Garfield-shaped hot air balloon.

External links