Let's Watch This: "Garfield Gets Real" (2007)

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! I'm celebrating by doing a review of a movie that has nothing to do with Valentine's Day.

Much like Shrek, there once was a time when a certain fat orange cat ruled the world.

No, not that one.

Garfield made its debut in 1978, and people loved the fat cat. Merchandise with his image on it was being bought up the wazoo. He had TWO movies... that didn't get very good reviews. Apparently, they were even going to build a Garfield theme park at one point. Don't ask me what THAT would've been like.

At some point, however, popularity for Garfield began to go down. The general consensus seems to be that the strip "jumped the shark" so to speak in 2006, when Garfield's hapless owner Jon, who for years made us laugh by failing to get a date, suddenly gained a girlfriend in the form of a recurring character who for years thought of him as an annoying idiot. Some have theorized that Jon hijacked the strip and has been writing it ever since.

Oh, don't get me wrong - when the strip is funny nowadays, it's genuinely funny. For example...

But the new strips just lack something... I can't put my finger on what, they just do.

Now, over the years Garfield has been no stranger to animation, what with his TV specials and the classic Saturday Morning Cartoon show Garfield and Friends still fondly remembered to this day. But then came the 2000s, and everything went downhill for Garfield animation-wise with Garfield Gets Real.

I guess Paws Inc. knew that there wouldn't be a Garfield 3, so they decided to crap out a direct-to-video film completely unrelated to the theatrical ones. Bill Murray and Breckin Meyer aren't in this. Neither is Jennifer Love-Hewitt - in fact, her character doesn't show up at all. And the film isn't live action, it's CGI. Was anybody asking for a Garfield movie made entirely in CGI? I don't know, but this apparently sold well enough for them to make two sequels. It also led to the creation of THIS awful show:

I remember watching this back in 2007 and finding it crappy. But that was years ago. Who knows, maybe it's actually better than I remember? Let's find out...

The movie begins with the sun shining over the weird world that Garfield inhabits. In the comic strip, Garfield and Friends, and the specials, Garfield and his friends live in a generally "normal" (things like snowman aliens and dinosaurs being around in modern times notwithstanding) world. Here, they live in some sort of Comic Strip World that looks like the kind of world Dr. Seuss would design if he were a tad more boring. I guess they were trying to make it sort of like Toontown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (one building even has a face and yawns), but it just comes across as a pale imitation more than anything.

"Smile, darn ya, smile..."

In his house, Garfield tries desperately to avoid getting up as opposed to just going back to sleep. Alas, he can't stop morning from showing its ugly face. I think we can all relate to that.

Garfield is voiced in this movie by the great Frank Welker, and he does a very good job (not as good as Lorenzo Music but about on par with Bill Murray), so that's one positive thing I can say about this movie.

"PLEAAAAAAAAAAASE don't make me do this movie! The live action ones were
bad enough, don't drag down my career with THIS piece of crap!"

In the kitchen, meanwhile, Jon is hard at work on breakfast. While he's doing that, let's talk a little about the animation in this movie. No disrespect towards any of the animators who worked on this, but this is some baaaaaaaaaaad animation. I know a direct-to-video film isn't gonna have a super-high budget, so I shouldn't expect PIXAR-level CGI here, but this was made in 2007. Surely they had the budget for better CGI than this! Everything looks poorly-rendered, there are barely any textures at all, and the Garfield characters really do not translate well to CGI. I don't even know why they needed to make this CGI, couldn't they have just had it be hand-drawn? I know in 2007, people thought hand-drawn animation was unpopular, but still...

Jon's hair looks like poop. Poorly-rendered poop.

Jon is voiced by Wally Wingert. And he does a good job, too. No complaints about Wally Wingert's Jon. Wally is great.

We get an unfunny scene of crap falling off the wall and on top of Garfield (I like how he keeps a framed picture of himself walking into a dog's rear end, by the way), then Garfield joins Jon and Odie (Gregg Berger reprising his role from Garfield and Friends and the TV specials) for breakfast. He rants about how much he hates Mondays, just in case anybody watching this didn't know that about Garfield despite it being one of his most prominent character traits. Jon tells him to lighten up - after all, he's the star of a popular comic strip.

Something I should probably bring up here is that unlike in the comics, Garfield actually talks, with his mouth moving and everything. In the comics, Garfield doesn't talk, he just thinks things... which doesn't stop Jon from hearing his thoughts much of the time. Now, Garfield actually talking isn't too bad here because it's established that he's an Animated Actor who stars in a comic strip. But in The Garfield Show, which as we've established spun-off from these movies, Garfield isn't actually talking (I don't recall if Jon hears him or not, though) and yet his mouth still moves when he speaks. It's pretty awkward. I dunno, maybe if, again, these things were hand-drawn it wouldn't look as weird to have Garfield's mouth move, but it takes some getting used to.

I wonder if Heinz paid them for the Product Placement...

Mondays suck even more for Garfield in this movie, however, because unlike in the strip he actually has a job.

I know this is just a nitpick, but why is the road orange? Is it a reference to
the fact that Garfield is orange?

So from what I can gather, this town is where all sorts of comic strip characters live. Like this superhero guy...

Hey, look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Generic Cartoon Superhero
Because We Don't Have the Rights to Superman and We Don't Want DC Comics Suing Us!

Two ugly cartoon mice being chased by an ugly cartoon cat...

Those are some hideous-looking mice...

And two more characters from the Garfield franchise, Nermal (Jason Marsden) and Arlene (Audrey Wasilewski). Who Jon, Garfield and Odie pick up in their bubble-spewing car.

Whoever owns that house they're in front of really needs to get their roof painted.
Unless they WANT it to look like a giant piece of cheese...

Nermal annoys Garfield by taunting him over the fact that it's Monday, and then they arrive at the Comic Studio, where they make the comic strips that all of these characters star in.

What, you thought comic strips were drawn by some guy at a desk or something?
Pfff. Next you'll probably be telling me that there really IS a place called "Turkey".

They go inside and see all sorts of other comic strip characters hanging around doing stuff. For example, meet Billy Bear (Fred Tatasciore) and Randy Rabbit (Stephen Stanton).

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, Boo-Boo!"
"Meh... what's up, doc?"

Among the comic strip characters employed here are none other than Blondie's husband Dagwood and Grimmy from Mother Goose and Grimm. They don't have any lines, but they're there. Alas, no other non-Garfield comic strip characters show up (as in, ones from actual comic strips) - no Charlie Brown, no Hagar the Horrible, no Family Circus kids, no Calvin and Hobbes, no Opus, nada. Snoopy is mentioned, but he doesn't actually show up. We don't even get appearances from the characters from Jim Davis' OTHER comic strip, US Acres. I know they likely didn't have the rights to use characters from other comic strips, but you couldn't have at least thrown Orson, Roy, and Wade in there as supporting characters? Wasted opportunity!

Oh, look. Dagwood doesn't translate into CGI very well either.

Garfield chats with the studio caterer, NOT Irma from the comic strip (in fact, I don't think Irma's shown up in ANY of the animated Garfield productions) but rather some woman named Zelda (also Audrey Wasilewski).

There's also these two, named Bonita (Jennifer Darling) and Wally (Neil Ross). Wally is the stereotypical henpecked husband while Bonita is the stereotypical naggy wife. With an enormous nose that even Toucan Sam would be jealous of. Also, Wally kind of looks like one of the Little People.

Come to think of it, he also kind of looks like a muffin...

Wally, as it turns out, is also an inventor. Today, he's invented an accordion with a small robotic arm attached to it that allows him to swipe Bonita's cookies. Garfield asks him where he can get one of those. Meanwhile, Billy (who kind of sounds like Bullwinkle, by the way) is demonstrating how, um, blowing your nose is actually an art. We get a whoopie cushion gag (are you laughing yet?), and then Garfield throws his cup into the mouth of the sentient frog-shaped trash can.

Did I mention that said sentient frog-shaped trash can really freaks me out?

Garfield admits to Arlene that he's tired of being a comic strip character. For twenty-nine years it's been nothing but "snarky cat"/"dumb dog"/"also dumb but not quite as dumb as the aforementioned dog owner"/"fat cat"/"cat who eats a lot"/"cat who is also incredibly lazy" jokes and he thinks that a change of scenery would be wonderful.

This woman who works at the Comic Studio named Betty (Audrey Wasilewski) receives the scripts for today's comics, and everybody heads off to the sets.

I already showed you what Dagwood looks like in this low-budget CGI, but here's
Grimmy. He, too, looks crappy but at least slightly less crappy than Dagwood.

The director (Neil Ross) says that today, Garfield and Odie are the only characters appearing in that day's Garfield strip, much to Nermal's frustration... though he still looks like he's smiling as he storms off. There's also this guy named Keith (Frank Welker) who looks like the Swedish Chef if he took steroids and then let his entire appearance go to pot.

Ugh, these character designs...

The Prop Boy (Frank Welker) rushes off to fetch (no pun intended) a bone for Odie, and some dude named Eli (Greg Eagles) pushes a button that causes a set that looks like a park to appear.

This is Eli.

Garfield and Odie do their strip, which isn't funny at all and ends in a bad pun as Garfield kicks Odie off the table. Odie dashes off to hide the bone from the Prop Boy, and we see Billy and Randy doing their strip, which isn't funny at all either. Garfield pays a visit to Eli and admits that he's in a rut. Eli points out that Garfield is extremely popular and has adoring fans, but Garfield just shrugs this off as all Eli does is sit around pushing buttons all day. Then he slips under Eli's desk for a nap.

Wally and Bonita do their strip, which - you guessed it - isn't funny at all and then they're done for the day. Apparently this Comic Studio only does three comic strips despite the fact that I'm preeeeeeeeeeetty sure most newspapers have more than three comics in their "Funny Papers" section (maybe Dagwood and Grimmy did theirs while Garfield was talking to Eli, I don't know).

Seeing Garfield as his usual 2D self here just makes the CGI model used for him
in this film look even crappier.

Also, Wally and Bonita's strip is called "Life Stinks"? Not exactly a very cheery strip, is it*?

Eli presses a button that prints the comics onto a newspaper in the real world, which is just as poorly-rendered as the Comic Strip World. And there's also a button that allows all the comic strip characters to watch the folks in the real world reading their comics. Because that's not creepy at all, is it?

However, Garfield doesn't really care until Eli pulls up a picture of a hot dog stand on the screen. Then this happens...

Yeah, I don't know either.

After whatever the heck THAT was, we cut to Odie, still trying to find a place to hide his bone. He eventually finds a panel of the wall with "DANGER! DON'T TOUCH!" written on it and, because this is Odie we're talking about here, decides to open it up and stick his bone through the opening that the panel hides. As a result, the bone winds up in the real world.

This screencap is only here because we haven't had a screencap of the Prop Boy yet.

Eli warns everyone that if THEY go through the patch in the screen, they'll wind up in the real world, with no way back. This gives Garfield an idea, and he promptly escapes through the patch in the screen to the real world, much to everyone's horror.

"Wow, I'm just as poorly-rendered in the real world as I am in the comic strip world!"

(Hey, if the comic can reuse jokes, then I see no reason why I can't)

"I'm in the real world!" Garfield exclaims. "Look! I'm a real cat! This is the real deal! Ah, man, this is just the change I needed!"

Back in the comic strip world, Eli explains to the others that the screen separates the comic world from the real world. "The comic world is pressurized, like an airplane," he says. "If you get sucked into the real world, there's no way back." Uh, yeah. You just said that a few minutes earlier. After some WHACKY SHENANIGANS, Odie winds up getting sucked into the real world too. Garfield tries to send him back, but to no avail. Arlene announces that she's going to join Garfield, but Jon and Nermal stop her. "This is where we belong. Garfield, too," Jon says. "He's just a little confused right now. And if you stay, Garfield will have one more reason to find a way back."

Odie winds up getting into MORE WHACKY SHENANIGANS involving some ugly-looking chihuahuas, and then Garfield meets this cat named Shecky (Gregg Berger). It's really weird how the animals in the "real world" look just as cartoony as the ones in the "comic strip world". For the "real world", it's not all that realistic-looking.

Look at those teeth...

Meanwhile, Jon asks how they're going to do Garfield without, y'know, Garfield. Well, Jon, if Garfield Minus Garfield has taught us anything it's that you can carry the strip pretty well on your own. But then Nermal suggests they make HIM the main character, with Arlene as his idiot sidekick. Arlene has to be restrained from beating him up (which is a shame, because I find this version of Nermal rather grating).

As Odie continues getting into WHACKY SHENANIGANS with the chihuahuas, Shecky invites Garfield to dinner and a show. That night, Shecky introduces Garfield and Odie to his friends Waldo (Fred Tatasciore), a big dumb dog, and Shelia (Rajia Baroudi), a "sexy" female cat. Waldo looks like the sort of dog one would see in the comics (even with the really bad CGI), but Shelia? Not even close.

Still not comfortable with them trying to make animated non-anthropomorphic animals
"sexy". I guess Lola Bunny was just the tip of the iceberg...

As it turns out, what Shecky meant by "dinner and a show" is that he, Waldo and Shelia sing and then people throw food at them to shut them up. Y'know, just like what Garfield does in the comics. This "real world" isn't all that different from the "comic strip world". Just sayin'.

Oh, and did I mention that Shecky has a bad Brooklyn accent?

Seriously, that's just Jon with a different hairstyle. There's little to no difference
between the real world and the comic strip world.

After the "show", Shecky takes Garfield and Odie back to his home in an abandoned building. Garfield drinks some coffee and then burps. We get a surprisingly tender moment involving Garfield reassuring Odie that tomorrow will be a better day, then he says good-night to Arlene via the newspaper. Alas, the goofy-looking CGI animation makes the scene hard to take seriously. Still, I appreciate the effort.

The next morning, Garfield reads in the newspaper that they're cancelling his strip, much to his shock. "This wasn't supposed to happen!" he exclaims. But then he sees that the newspaper is having a contest to replace his strip and tells the guys back in Comic Strip Land that he has an idea - he and Odie will head down to the newspaper headquarters and make sure they don't replace the strip. While they're doing that, the guys in Comic Strip Land can figure out a way to get them back home. But first, more WHACKY SHENANIGANS involving Odie and the Chihuahuas! Because if it was funny the first time, surely repeating it will make it even funnier! Or at least it would if it was funny the first time, which it wasn't. And it's not getting any funnier. Sorry.

Back in the Magical Land of Comic Strips, Wally suggests that they build an interdimensional escape hatch, but Bonita demonstrates how unlikable she is by telling him that his inventions never work and they never will. Just give him a chance, Bonita - they said the same thing about Flik from A Bug's Life, but he showed them.

So what exactly do the winners of the contest "win"? Besides a comic strip,
I mean...

At the newspaper place, a bunch of different people pitch their ideas for comic strips, which all get rejected by the higher-ups because they all suck. One of them doesn't even have an idea, she just prances around in a flower costume singing and throwing petals everywhere. Sorry, but only Jon can pull prancing around in a flower costume off.

Yes, that is indeed the infamous fan-made edit of this strip in the background.
They try to cover it up by plastering clip art of Garfield and Odie on it, but it's there.
Wonder how THAT came about...

When it's Garfield and Odie's turn, the higher-ups don't believe that they're the real Garfield and Odie, nor do they want to give them a strip because they think Garfield and Odie are offensive towards overweight people and dogs respectively. To convince them, Garfield and Odie re-enact the "Garfield kicking Odie off the table" routine, but Odie winds up getting hurt; because they forgot that unlike in Comic Strip Land where he's just fine, Odie can actually be in pain from falling onto the floor. The higher-ups dub this too violent.

Then this guy shows up with a muscular cat and dog named Hale (Gregg Berger) and Hardy (Frank Welker). They do some stock "muscular dude flexing his muscles" poses as the guy yammers on about how they're positive role models and how the merchandise will sell itself. He claims that they'll inspire readers to start dieting and exercising, as well as buying "Hale and Hardy Mineral Water", "Hale and Hardy Leotards", and "Hale and Hardy Dumbells" in one of their franchised "Hale and Hardy Wellness Centers". Despite the fact that a muscular cat and dog exercising and dieting doesn't sound to me like a particularly funny comic strip, the higher-ups are hooked.

Yes, they do indeed sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's sort of a rule
that muscle-bound cartoon characters have to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But one of the higher-ups wants to give Garfield one more chance - he has twenty-four hours to get back to the Comic Strip World. But if the strip isn't back by morning, Hale and Hardy take his place. Now all Garfield and Odie have to do is find a way back home. They try jumping into the newspaper multiple times, but it doesn't work. Then they try sitting on a newspaper as a steamroller comes their way, but wisely chicken out before they can be flattened.

A depressed Garfield speaks to his friends through the comics page. As it turns out, Arlene is the only one who hasn't fallen asleep by now. He sadly says that he needs help getting back. Arlene gives him a signal that he's not talking to nobody by sending a rose through the patch in the screen. "Arlene, Eli, I'm sorry. I can't believe that I even gave a thought towards coming here," Garfield says. "You know what? This isn't the real world. Reality is where your heart is. And my heart is in the comics. With you guys. And if there IS a way back, I promise you I'll find it." "Looks like you've finally got it figured out, Garfield," Eli points out. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Garfield and Odie then come across a gypsy woman playing an accordion, which gives Garfield an idea. He reminds Wally of his accordion machine thing from before, which he used to steal Bonita's cookies, and says that all he has to do is build a bigger one to rescue them. "Put doors in each end and stretch it through the screen," he continues. Wally dubs the idea brilliant. Bonita, meanwhile, is enraged by Wally stealing her cookies.

"Why, no, I have no idea why my arms aren't attached to my body!"

Everybody gets to work building the machine. There's a scene where they pull the tires off Jon's car and in the process destroy it, much to his horror, which should be funny but isn't. They tear folding doors off the walls, and we get another Dagwood cameo. Meanwhile, Garfield and Odie return to the abandoned building to get some sleep, unaware that they're being followed - by Hale and Hardy, who tie them and Shecky up so that they can't get their strip back.

"De comic readers of America will be so amused by us! Dey really go for
musclebound cartoon characters who sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger!"

"You won't get away with this!" Garfield tells them as they leave the room, and as if things couldn't possibly get any worse then a candle falls over, and we all know what happens when a candle falls over inside of a building in cartoons...

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yup.

Fortunately, the guys in Comic Strip Land see that Garfield, Odie and Shecky are trapped in a burning building on the screen. Arlene announces, "I'm going through the screen! I don't care if I ever make it back!" Jon stops her by saying that they're going to go through the screen to save them with Wally's machine, even though Wally is worried that it won't work (he hasn't tested it yet). Randy points out that it's Wally's chance to be a hero, giving him the confidence to finish the machine and save the day.

Soon, the machine is done. It looks like this...

Wally calls it "the Bonitavator". Take a wild guess why. No really, guess.

Billy and Randy move it into position, the Prop Boy anchors down the back end, and then into the machine - and the real world - Jon, Wally and Billy go!

Once they arrive, Billy tries to knock down the building's boarded-up door... and Epically Fails at it. Wally points out that they can squeeze through the small hole in the wall that Garfield, Odie, and Shecky used to get in, so they do that and untie the cats and dog. Oh, and we get a reprisal of Billy's nose-blowing gag despite it not even being funny the first time.

It's kinda depressing that the FIRE is the best-rendered thing in the movie...

By now, the whole place is a-blazing. Shecky shows them that there's conveniently a fireproof trash cart nearby that they can ride through the flames with. But Odie just CAN'T RESIST jumping out of the cart for his bone and winds up on top of a chandelier. Garfield tells him to get the chandelier swinging, they'll grab him from the second floor balcony. But when they try that, Odie accidentally pulls Garfield onto the chandelier with him. D'oh. Jon tells them to swing to the main staircase so they can grab them THERE. Fortunately, eventually the chandelier comes loose, and Garfield and Odie are able to rejoin Jon, Wally, Billy, and Shecky in the cart.

I swear I've seen a shot like this before... I think it might have been in EVERY
SINGLE ACTION MOVIE EVER.

They all wind up flying into the machine and arrive back in the comic world.

"I'm back, baby!"

Garfield awkwardly makes out with Arlene (Arlene slaps him first, by the way) and then everybody celebrates. Back in the real world, Hale and Hardy are mad that their plan to stop Garfield failed. Suck it up, guys, you still got off pretty easily.

And the movie ends with... what else? Everybody dancing! It's an animated film from the 2000s, even if it's direct-to-video it's gotta end with everybody dancing. Oh, and the chihuahuas (remember them?) followed them back through the machine and still want Odie's bone. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The end.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

The best thing I can say about Garfield Gets Real is that it's not the worst animated movie I've ever seen. But you know what? It's still bad. For one thing, it's not funny. Again, I mean no disrespect towards the animators or the studio that animated this, but the animation is god-awful, even for a direct-to-video release. Jon, one of the comic strip's most prominent characters, is basically a non-entity until the admittedly kind of cool climax. The original characters are dull and uninteresting. Frank Welker, Wally Wingert, Fred Tatasciore, Neil Ross, and Stephen Stanton are doing their best but their talents are wasted on this phenomenally unfunny script. Even the tender moments are bogged down by how weird-looking the animation is, making it impossible to take them seriously.

Just... don't watch it, okay? Again, it's not the worst animated movie in the world, in fact I doubt it would even make the Top Ten... but it's bad. Watch Garfield and Friends instead. Or one of the TV specials. And no, I'm not reviewing either of the sequels.

* I also considered saying here "Little known fact, 'Life Stinks' is what Charles Schultz was originally going to call Peanuts."