Jim Davis must find the idea of inanimate objects yodeling intrinsically funny. As an improbable image it works much better here than it did last time, though compared to what used to go down in Pee-Wee Herman's fridge, yodeling baloney is nothin'. It's always been a running gag that the Arbuckle refrigerator is a museum of horrors. I don't know that it jibes with Garfield's tendency to eat anything, including raw pancake mix and bottles of condiments, but it allows a lot of good jokes about the behavior of bachelor slobs.
Though Garfield and Jon are both ineffectual in their own ways, the performances demonstrate the great comic divide between them, even in attitudes toward cleaning the fridge. Neurotic, easily frazzled Jon looks so shell shocked he's not going to be able to confront the mess by himself. Garfield lounges in his most blatantly worthless signature posture. Normally Garfield posed on his back like this is reserved for gags about his laziness. At it's heart, that's what this is: though the rancid food situation has gotten well out of hand, he suggests procrastinating... for no reason. The usual excuse for procrastinating is that a problem will solve itself, or at least not worsen. Garfield fully acknowledges that the olives already have eyeballs in them, and will further mutate. And he just doesn't want to get up.
Fine. That's Garfield. Why does he care if Jon wants to clean the fridge himself? As long as you're going to try to be worthless as possible, the only way to truly achieve the goal is to drag someone down with you.
6 comments:
Digression!
So do you like the *new* "Parent Trap" better, or the *old* one?
whoa!
can of worms-- opened!
I haven't even read the whole article yet so maybe this point gets raised, but as soon as it's suggested that the decaying food in the fridge not consistent with Garfield's eating habits, I thought that it's because the cat can't really get into the fridge. I've always thought of Garfield as basically a cat, possessing a cat's physical limitations. Most of what Garfield communicates is attitude. It's kind of funny that a guy who doesn't eat much has this cat that totally eats everything.
One more thing! The olive joke has to do with the pimento, I think. That's the 'eye' of the olive, and when it blinks, well, then you have something akin to yodeling baloney.
Aah! my favorite Garfield position? him lying on his back, feet soles propped up towards ya. I wanna use them as a pillow.
Well, if you're thinking of Garfield as having a real-world cat's limitations, I hate to break it to ya, but this blog has already covered a strip in which he does get into the refrigerator and stuff his mouth with hot dog fixings before going to ask Jon if he has a spare wiener. Garfield is clearly not so limited.
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