{"id":136944,"date":"2020-12-04T18:50:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T18:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/garfield-christmas-special-forgotten-television-classic\/"},"modified":"2020-12-04T18:50:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T18:50:03","slug":"a-garfield-christmas-special-is-a-forgotten-television-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/12\/04\/a-garfield-christmas-special-is-a-forgotten-television-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"A Garfield Christmas Special Is A Forgotten Television Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What\u2019s the ultimate children\u2019s TV Christmas classic? Some might say Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer<\/em>. Or Frosty the Snowman<\/em>. Or A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>. For many that grew up in the late \u201880s and \u201890s, A Garfield Christma<\/em>s Special<\/em> just might claim the title.<\/p>\n

Originally airing on December 21, 1987, A Garfield Christmas<\/em> would be a network television staple for the next 13 years. It even got a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program in 1988. While it usually aired together with A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>, CBS stopped airing it after 2000. Did America\u2019s original grumpy cat deserve to be canceled or is A Garfield Christmas<\/em> truly a forgotten Christmas treasure<\/a>?<\/p>\n

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A Garfield Christmas<\/em> tells the story of Garfield, Jon, and Odie as they travel to Jon\u2019s family farm on Christmas Eve. While Garfield looks forward to the binge-eating and present-getting that surrounds the holiday, he\u2019s unenthusiastic about spending the holiday with the Arbuckles and Christmas in general.<\/p>\n

The Arbuckles spend the holiday like many other families: they put up the Christmas tree<\/a>, cook a big meal, and sing carols. Garfield forms a quick bond with Jon\u2019s Grandma, who\u2019s the only other member of the family with some sass. Grandma reveals to Garfield that Christmas Eve is the hardest night of the year for her because her dead husband\u2019s favorite day of the year was Christmas. It was the only day he felt like he could outwardly express love to his children.\u00a0Spoiler: Garfield ends up switching gears and finding the true meaning of Christmas. After stumbling upon some old love letters written to Grandma from Grandpa, he gives them to her and makes her yuletide gay.<\/p>\n

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While it may seem like a conventional children\u2019s Christmas special on the surface, there\u2019s a lot here worth discussing. Firstly, is the music. The characters sing several original songs<\/a> throughout the special and more are used in the background. While a couple are catchy, most of them are just\u2026 weird choices for Christmas songs. There\u2019s a reason no one is singing \u201cYou Can Never Find an Elf When You Need One” or \u201cA Good Old-Fashioned Christmas” years later.<\/p>\n

Speaking of weird, the tone here is very atypical for a children\u2019s Christmas special<\/a>. Garfield\u2019s whole shtick\u00a0is that he thinks everything is stupid, including Christmas. Much of the special is him making fun of Jon\u2019s Christmas traditions. It\u2019s the only Christmas special to have the line, \u201cWhoever invented Christmas trees should be drug out into the street and shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of having America\u2019s favorite fat cat have a change of heart through a series of light events, A Garfield Christmas<\/em> gets pretty dark, having Grandma feel depressed on Christmas, missing her dead husband. This is a stark difference from the light parables contained in Frosty<\/em> or Rudolph<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Of course, it still ends with everyone happy. The family has a great Christmas, Odie gets Garfield a gift he actually likes, Grandma gets her love letters, and Garfield has his religious moment and realizes he was wrong about Christmas all along. But even then, his change of heart happens in the last minute of the special and doesn\u2019t amount to much more than a quick admission he was wrong: \u201cChristmas. It\u2019s not the giving. It\u2019s not the getting. It\u2019s the loving. There, I said it. Now get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Garfield Christmas<\/em> focuses on the importance of love and family instead of faith, religious or otherwise. This is very different from something like A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>, which can feel preachy in parts. In fact, the only mention of religion in the whole thing occurs when Doc Boy waxes poetic while giving the family prayer and Grandma whacks him on the head with a spoon. Maybe it\u2019s no surprise then that this seemingly sarcastic and secular Christmas special last aired on network TV the Christmas before 9\/11.<\/p>\n

For many people, A Garfield Christmas<\/em> is the ultimate Christmas special. It has enough originality and heart for families to keep it in their holiday viewing traditions year after year. While finding a physical copy has been somewhat challenging and expensive over the last few years, it\u2019s currently streaming for free on YouTube.\u00a0If there was ever a time for the world to be reminded of what really matters at the holidays, it’s now.<\/p>\n

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Despite having an Emmy nomination and a 13 year run, A Garfield Christmas Special hasn’t aired on network television in 20 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":880,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"A Garfield Christmas Special Is A Forgotten Television Classic - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Despite having an Emmy nomination and a 13 year run, A Garfield Christmas Special hasn't aired on network television in 20 years."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136945,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136944\/revisions\/136945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}