Icon #35 - Garfield: The Cat, Not The President

In this edition of The Iconograph, Jack and special guest co-host Blake Wexler are joined by writer/comedian Joey Clift to talk about the only icon to be routinely found stuck to the inside of people’s car windows:

Garfield!

They’ll explore his creator Jim Davis, his staunchly apolitical rise to fame, how he may have perpetrated 9/11 and much more!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spinoff episode of
Dirt Daily Zeitgeist, which we're calling The Iconograph. Instead of
looking at the zeitgeist through current events, on Monday mornings,
we're looking at the zeitgeist through the powerful pop cultural
deities that are our icons. I'm Jack O'Brien, one of
the founders of crack.com. And this week, we're talking about

(00:23):
one of The most profoundly iconic and I'd say diffusely
iconic characters. He's everywhere if you're looking for him. And
yet he's so omnipresent that he's kind of easy to
not see. In addition to lasagna, he loves donuts, hamburgers,
pizza and coffee. Posing the horrendous question. of what it

(00:45):
must be like to clean the litter box of a
cat that eats lasagna and drinks coffee. He hates Mondays,
though he's never worked a day in his life, which
raises the question, does he hate them because he has
an E.T.-like bond with John? Or does he, as I suspect,
hate Mondays for us? that when we look back over

(01:07):
a lifetime of Mondays and see only one set of
footprints in the sand, it's because our today's icon was
carrying us. Um, this did give me like with our dude, uh,
from big Lebowski episode. Um, this, this, the research for
this episode led me to believe that today's icon is
a powerful and important philosophical figure for America over the

(01:27):
last 50 years. Um, sort of a necessary release valve to, um,
the American religion of achievement spanning the yuppie 80s to
the modern grindset mindset. He's probably our most powerful patron
saint of laziness. We're talking Garfield today. I'm thrilled to
be joined in our second seat by today's special guest co-host,

(01:50):
a very funny stand-up comedian. He only did this episode
because he thought it was being made by one of
the Coen brothers.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's Blake Wexler! This is Blake Wexler, a.k.a. Charles Guto,
a con man with mental illness. His bullet gave Garfield sepsis. Oh,
I'm sorry. We're talking about the cat. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
You did so much preparation for the other Garfield. I
did so much.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
I have all these Guto facts and I fucked this.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Tangentially, Guto will come up. We'll talk Guto. Don't worry.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
He's the next week's icon. We're doing Guto. Garfield and
Charles Guto.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Charles Guto. In our third seat, a brilliant TV writer, performer,
enrolled member of the Cowlitz Indian tribe who's written on
shows for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, DreamWorks, the Netflix animated series
Spirit Rangers. His interest in Garfield is what made me
interested in doing this episode in the first place.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
He communicated telepathically without moving his mouth for the first
10 years of his life. It's Joey Cliff!

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah, how's it going, everybody? I usually do an AKA
followed by a song, but this being a different kind
of episode totally threw me off. So three seconds goes...
panic googling the lyrics to Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter and being.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Like, oh fuck, can I make this about Garfield?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
About Garfield loving coffee?

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, it's about, okay, so just pretend that I did
a really great parody of Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso, but about
how much Garfield drinks coffee or whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
There we go, we did it.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
There it is. It's done. Switch. Done. So those are
two facts. I like to mix in a fact about
Garfield and a fact into my introductions of you.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
And doing a thing because they thought it was being
made by the Coen brothers refers to Bill Murray, as
we'll get to. He thought the Garfield movie was written
by Joel Coen. And then Garfield, I rewatched an old
special that I watched as a kid with my kids. Um,
it was the Garfield Halloween special.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh, I just rewatched that too.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
And he's, he's talking without moving his mouth. And my
kids were like, what the fuck is going on? And
I was like, well, of course it's because he, he
speaks in the strip with thoughts, but thought bubbles. That's
what we're hearing is his thoughts. And so they were like, ergo, like,
therefore we'll just have him. speak without moving his mouth

(04:18):
but it is weird and finally they were like fuck
it he's just gonna start moving his mouth because it
doesn't doesn't really make sense otherwise uh.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Fun fact about the garfield halloween special there's actually a
point in that special where he where lorenzo music very
loudly screams oh fuck on microphone really yeah yeah it's
like it's like near the end when he when they
get when garfield know to get scared and run out
of the house he just screams like oh fuck but
it's like kind of low in the thing yeah it rocks.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah um they're very they have very good reason to
be scared because they're being chased by pirate ghosts um
they're very dark there's a lot of darkness underlying garfield
as we'll get into um i would say of the
two categories i mentioned earlier looking for garfield or not
i was in the not category i was more of
a far side guy growing up which uh by the

(05:06):
way when gary larson quit at the height of far
side That strip was bringing in $ 50 million a year,
or sorry, $ 500 million a year. In 2014, which is
years after I would have assumed Garfield peaked, Garfield was
still bringing in $ 750 million to $ 1 billion a year.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Unreal.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Uh, yeah. And it was like that basically from the
start Garfield hit the streets like Bieber. Um, he was
invented in 1978 by 1982. Uh, he had made the
fastest leap from one, uh, from zero to 1000 newspapers
in comic history. It took peanuts 20 years to reach
a thousand papers. Maybe one of the reasons Charles Schultz, uh,

(05:50):
hated Jim Davis, uh, in 19, 1980, uh, Ballantine books
published the first Garfield collection, uh, Garfield at large. And
not only was that first book at the top of
the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list for almost
two years, by 1982, seven of the 15 books on

(06:10):
the New York Times bestseller list were Garfield books. Like
two years after.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
I mean, it makes sense.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, we're at a point now where I feel
like in some states you can get sworn in for
public office, not on a Bible, but on a Garfield book.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
It's just as holy.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Although, one thing I wanted to clarify really quick that
I think is so funny is this is not an
Icon episode for Jim Davis.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Fuck that guy.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
No.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
This is an Icon episode for Garfield.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Garfield, the man. Yeah. Because, I mean, some of my
favorite stuff that's been created about Garfield is the I'm
Sorry John subreddit.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Oh, truly, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Garfield minus Garfield. But, yeah, I mean, I do feel like,
you know... I feel like he was born almost involuntarily
by Jim Davis. Like the strip was originally called John
and someone had to be like, Jim, maybe you should
make the comic about the cat that is serving cunt

(07:05):
and completely unforgettable. Nailing every punchline. We talked.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know, Batman was originally just called Bruce Wayne's dad.
And then they're like, maybe you should focus actually on
the vigilante fighting crime dressed as a bat.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Bruce Wayne's dad must have been a real short strip.
Every everyone was just that scene where they get shot
in the alleyway.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
And now we need to build this world a little bit.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah. But I do like we talk with the podcast
of Otherworlds, Jack Wagner. We talked to him about like
people who. tell stories of like involuntarily conjuring some demonic
character through a Ouija board. And like, I don't believe
those are actually demons. I think they're, these are like

(07:56):
coming from the unconscious world, but like once they've been
created and people believe in them, they have a sort
of power. I feel like Garfield is like a powerful
figure that like came from Jim Davis's unconscious and like
brought into our world just this deep i don't know
there's like a darkness but like also just i think

(08:17):
a very necessary like honoring of laziness and cuntiness and
uh something that just like everybody uh finds undeniable in
a very powerful uh way that i do think he's
like a spiritual figure for a lot of people in america.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Oh yeah he is my personal jesus for sure um
yeah something i think is so funny about garfield and
i think about this a lot with like old kind
of comic and cartoon characters like that is there's a
point where Garfield was like punk. There's a point where
Garfield was like counterculture in the same way. There was
a point where like the Simpsons was counterculture and now
it's kind of everywhere. And it's like, it's so funny

(08:52):
to think about how bland the seventies were. If somebody
that was just like, you know what? Dieting kind of sucks.
Maybe no to dieting.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Or just like, you know what? I hate going to work.
And everybody's just like, you can't say that.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Dude, my boss is going to be so mad that
you just said that.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
It does key into a part of the human soul. Like,
like sloth is such a big part of us. And like,
all we really want to do you know and yeah
it reminds and i think that's why people identify with
garfield so much and then i've seen it this is
a weird comparison but like almost the antithesis of that
seeing gritty the flyers mascot people are like identify with

(09:33):
him so much or them because they are like this
chaos agent and people love hey sometimes i'm just gonna
fucking throw a cake somebody's face or whatever and it's
like and they're both fluffy and like an off yellow
color which they have that in common as well but
no you are right like sloth is just so fun
like overeating so fun being a brat is sick you

(09:58):
know like not being a brat.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Is like people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah. Like always kicking a tiny yellow dog off a table.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Rocks. We all want to do it.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
We all want to do it. Thursday.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
So. All right. We are going to. dip into Jim
Davis's life real quick, and then we'll get into the evolution.
Born July 28th, 1945 in Marion, Indiana, and grew up
on a beef and grain farm in Fairmont, Indiana. Also
where James Dean was born. um with very similar figures

(10:35):
james dean to to the two gyms inside there are
two gyms um uh dozens of cats lived on the
family farm uh sometimes people cite it as 25 but did.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
He feed them lasagna.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
It's a good question he says eventually that he uh
kind of modeled garfield after his grandparents' house cats. Like he,
he describes them as cats who have chairs in the house. Um, but, uh,
he said, if you don't learn cat habits and personalities
from that experience, you aren't paying attention. And I do

(11:12):
feel like Garfield has the best, like sort of transposition,
like personality of a actual, of my experience with actual cats,
which is that they're like not, they're like kind of
annoyed by your presence and like, unless it comes to, yeah.
And also lazy, you know, and, and like food. He,

(11:36):
he went to Ball State University at the same time
as David Letterman and Joyce DeWitt. So Ball State University
is just a powerhouse of culture at that time.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
So I have a small story there. While he was
at Ball State, he actually got a friend of mine's
mom kicked out of her apartment.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Jesus.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
So basically, like, I think that there was like a,
I heard this kind of like secondhand, but there was
like a house party happening at Ball State. And the
people that were staying in this house had like, there
was like a, you know, a door that presumably the
people who own the house kind of stored all their
stuff in. So there was a big sign on it
saying like, If you're renting this house, you can't go
into this room. And let's just say Jim Davis really
wanted to know what was in that room and broke

(12:18):
into the room and it got my friend's mom kicked
out of the apartment.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yeah. So Jim Davis, he's a little shit, too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Might be a little bit of a scam. He dropped
out of college, frequently jokes that he earned one of
the lowest cumulative grade point averages in the history of
the university. That's not funny. That's not. You know what?
Bad grades aren't funny. That's not funny. Absolutely. So that's
not something you should joke around about.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
You see David Letterman making those jokes? No, he would never.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
He would never.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
He would never ever do that. Sorry, Jack, go ahead.
I had to step in for a second.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Have you seen him with pencils? He's a pencil guy.
He's a good student.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Yeah, that's why he has the pencil behind his ear,
to honor his education history.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Um, he won the 1976. I found this interesting. He
won the 1976 Indiana theater league's best actor award for
playing Will Stockdale. Um, so in the same way that
Shakespeare was an actor that like then went on to
write and create from various points of view, he like,
he kind of did a single character and was satisfied

(13:25):
with that, which is what he ended up doing in
his career. Um, he, his first strip that, uh, was
like for public consumption was, Norm Nat, G-N-O-R-M-G-N-A-T, about a
group of insects that appeared in Indiana's Pendleton Times starting
in 1973. And it was unpopular. It's not the best

(13:53):
drawn thing.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
I'm pulling up one Norm Nat strip. I've never heard
of this. Okay.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
One panel is, it says Norm Nat for mayor on
the left strip. And then there's one character saying, How
will you curb overpopulation? And then Norm Nat's response is,
I will reinstate capital punishment. Second panel, other character that's
not Norm Nat, that won't make a difference. Norm Nat
just kind of looks at him angry. And then the

(14:19):
third panel is Norm Nat saying, for parking violations?

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Just so I know. Garfield was originally pronounced our field
because Jim Davis is there anything worse than a silent
fucking G in general? It's so ugly.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
It is ugly. I will say, like, the strip is
kind of ugly. Partially it's that the characters are all bugs. But, like,
Davis throughout his career is like, I'm not good at drawing.
He kind of credits with, like, being part of Garfield's power. Like,
Garfield is easy to draw and therefore... you know, easy

(15:03):
to recreate and like in the same way that like
musicians will be like hit songs tend to be like
simpler songs that are easy to hum and easy to sing. Like,
I wonder if there's something like.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Mickey Mouse is another example. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Mickey Mouse is like three circles, you know? Um, and
so characters that a fourth grader can easily draw, uh, might, uh,
be easier to like make iconic and go viral. Um,
even his yearbook would like has talks about him as
an artist. Cause he like submitted comics for his yearbook

(15:39):
that weren't very good. Um, but the yearbook was like, uh,
this is the quote about him. If this lad develops
his artistic skill, his drawings will take care of any
big bill.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
So, Um, they're like, yeah, that said like the 1920s
or something old timey way to describe that.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Um, but yeah, we'll get into the invention of Garfield.
But one interesting detail about Davis is once he becomes
successful with Garfield, he never leaves Indiana. Um, in 1987,
Forbes estimated his annual income was $ 31 million and he's
still in Indiana. Um, a researcher for this episode, Meredith Danko,

(16:20):
took a trip to, she's in Indiana and took a
trip to Fairmont to the, quote, James Dean Museum, including
Garfield and Fairmont history.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Oh, God, I have to go there.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
It's mainly James Dean, but we've somehow... Wait, can you
do can you do weddings there?

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Can I get married?

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Only in the only in the Garfield part, not the
James Dean part.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
You got a book way out, but I think you
still have time.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Oh, thank God.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
It's very good.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
I was like, oh, you're a Garfield person and was
like a little scared. I'm just like doing this. She's like, oh, sorry, Garfield.
People are very intense. But the guy did say that
Jim Davis stops by the museum every once in a while.
It's just like, ah, it's my museum. Like drops off
stuff that they might find interesting. He doesn't take his
garbage to the dump. He just drops it off the museum.

(17:12):
It's like, hey, you want a bunch of yogurt containers?

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
It is interesting that he kept that money. Like, I
feel like so many of these stories about artists early
on are them getting fucked by like, oh, you know,
they only kept like X amount of like they like
signed a bad contract or something. But he he was
just getting thirty one million dollars a year and with
no overhead whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
You know, very, very little overhead. And then he's he
does grow pause ink into a bit of a juggernaut.
But even then, it's like a handful of employees. It's
not like, you know.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
That's i think about that sometimes about how just like
crazy rich like successful comic strip people were in the
90s like bill watterson i googled him recently and it's
like his net worth is like 100 million dollars or
something like that and he has not worked since 1994
you know yeah um.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
But yeah i do wonder how like if it was
actually he kind of talks about it like you know,
I like to visit friends. I like to fish. I
like to work primarily like in terms of just, you know,
staying in Indiana. He's like, just the business of getting
on with life is just very easy here. There are
no hassles. Uh, we have to have a sense of
humor to live here. I wonder if it is helpful

(18:25):
for him to like stay bored and in the middle
of the country to do a strip that like is
as accessible and broad as Garfield is, you know, the, like,
the only thing to do there are like very basic
human experiences of like eating, drinking, visiting with people.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Um, normally I would disagree with you, but seeing, uh,
how insane, uh, his college comic strips are, uh, Norm
Nat for mayor.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
I'm like, no, that guy's got to stay in a
small town. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Um, I will just say that Indiana was having a
hell of a hell of an eighties, uh, Michael Jackson,
Jim Davis, David Letterman, Um, the, uh, but Michael Jackson
and Jim Davis's career, I'm just saying like Garfield becomes
syndicated at 78, right around the time of off the wall. Um,

(19:16):
and then like they both own the eighties, um, and
then Axl Rose also Indiana. Uh, so just probably was
around there. Bobby Knight was probably in there somewhere.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Um, yes.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Um, so, He was unsuccessful in pitching Norm Nat to
other papers. Newspaper syndicates were getting tens of thousands of
submissions from hopeful cartoonists a year and taking one or two.
He finally got the advice he needed. A syndicate editor said,
the gags are great, the art's good, but bugs? Nobody
can relate. That turned on the light, which is a

(19:52):
trend we'll see throughout where like the insights that come
to him are like very basic, just like simple, but powerful. Um,
so he ends norm that in 1975, um, by having
his titular main character killed, uh, Uh, by a giant
foot that comes out of the sky. That's a good bit.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Joe, you wouldn't change that. You would keep it as is.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
And he says, so he says he he's like, all right,
I'm going to develop a strip that would be good
and marketable. What if I did one that was good
and marketable? Um, and he looks at the successful comics
of the time. quote, I took a long, hard look
at the comics and I thought dogs are doing really well. Snoopy, Marmaduke,
Fred Bassett, lots of dogs, no cats. I thought, ha!

(20:45):
If people like dogs in the comics, maybe people would
like cats. He does seem, in his quote, sometimes a
little manic. I don't know if that's just my interpretation.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
He's chewing on a pencil rabidly whenever he speaks.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
But Meredith points out that like cats were some of
the most popular newspaper comic strip characters of the 20th century. Um,
but like crazy cat and Felix, the comic, uh, the
comic strip began in 1923, but I think was still running, uh, Sylvester,
the cat, uh, Tom from Tom and Jerry, but the

(21:20):
big one, just kidding. The big one, I think that is,
that is worth raising here is Heathcliff debuted in 1973. Um,
Heathcliff is an orange cat who, um, an orange striped cat.
That's like, it is like a Hydrox Oreo situation where

(21:40):
there was an orange cat with stripes in very similar comics, um,
that people, it's kind of miraculous that people aren't like, well,
you know, I'll, Garfield was ripping off Heathcliff, but everyone
was just like, no, we like this guy. We like
this guy so much better. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
It is like, I do see that a lot in
the people will say like, Oh, clearly like Heathcliff stole
everything from Garfield. And it's like, no, no, that's the
other way around.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Yeah. I gotta say modern Heathcliff is so fun.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
If y'all haven't read modern Heathcliff, it's become this like
weird Dada comedy thing. There's a character called the garbage
ape who like shows up all the time.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Helmets to just say the thing that Heathcliff likes on it.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
The logic is very hard to parse, but it is, uh,
I definitely treat yourself and read a Heathcliff comic.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
If you've not in a while. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
He's also like kind of a cool cat where Garfield
is like a cat cat. He's like a grump and
unimpressed by you. And like, Heathcliff is a little too, like, try-hard. Like,
there's one comic where he's... I'll put in the chat.
Where he's, like, playing the radio for his owner. And

(22:52):
it says, due to heavy snowfall, the following schools will
be closed for today. And, like... So, he's just, like,
being helpful. He's just doing the thing that his owner
would want him to do. Kind of Snoopy-esque.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Garfield would be, like... pranking his own, you know, it would.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Be sunny out and it would be the person's job
and they would get fired from their job for not
showing up because of the fakes.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
No.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
I think that a big difference between the characters is
that Heathcliff owns a leather jacket and Garfield doesn't own
a single jacket.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
No clothes.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Heathcliff is definitely like cool. And like, I think like,
I truly do believe that having a character at this moment,
be pro laziness at a time when like that hippies
had their run and hippies were like coming to an
end and like hippies were like, ah, you know, let's
be chill and like not be part of the machine, man.

(23:48):
And everyone's like, fuck hippies. Let's like move on. But
you still needed a world where you could reject the official,
like corporate sloganeering and like mainstream culture. Um, and it
was just like created a mainstream, uh, uh, you know,
thing that you could use to reject mainstream culture in

(24:10):
some way.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
So I guess what you're saying is that Heathcliff fucks is.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
What you're saying. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Garfield might maybe a little bit.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah. I'm not that familiar with the strip. Has that
ever been a story?

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Yeah, there was a 1980s, 1989 was a wild time
where Jim Davis really did a Garfield fucks a lot
of art.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
That's why he's so tired.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
It is interesting that both Garfield and Heathcliff have like
kind of been anti, like had this anti-comedy, like, uh,
alt comedy afterlife where it's like, uh, you know, we
did talk about the Heathcliff strip recently on TDZ and
like how weird it's become, but, uh, you know, Garfield
as we'll get to has had like Garfield minus Garfield and,

(24:55):
a subreddit called i'm sorry john that is like takes
things in a very lovecraftian direction.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah what heathcliff is now is like if the main
garfield strip just was i'm sorry john where it's just
like where it's not it's not like it's not like
fans doing it it's just canon oh i guess that
what if what if heathcliff was a maniac.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Right yeah that's kind of a lot of fun uh
all right let's take a quick break we'll be right
back uh and talk about where garfield got his name
from We'll be right back. That's the worst tease ever.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
You've been really sharp today until that point, actually. You've
been really like the intros were great.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
What character did you get his name from? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
A president? Yeah, he got his name from his grandfather
was named after a president. Oh, shit. That was worth
waiting back for the answer. The most tragic president. I will.
I will know.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Are we back?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
We'll be right back. I hope we're back. And we're back.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Oh, man. People have been on the edge of their
seats during the ad break.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
How did he get his name?

Speaker 1 (26:10):
How did he get his name?

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Where did his name come from? Be straight with us.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Named his cat character after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis.
Himself named after President James Garfield. Oh, sorry.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Worth the wait.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Worth the wait.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
President Jefferson Davis.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Abraham Lincoln. I did keep... coming again, you know, when
you Google Garfield or like search for books on Garfield,
you get a lot of, uh, lot on the president. Uh,
it is just again, in keeping with this very benign
character who I think represents like the most mainstream comedy

(26:46):
to a lot of people, that there's like a darkness
underlying it. Garfield, the president, was tragically shot, shot to death,
but then like stabbed with unsterilized medical equipment for 80
days until he succumbed to his infection.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
I mean, because we know how Norm the gnat ended,
I think I know.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
How the Garfield strip's gonna end.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
He gets shot by Nermal and then stabbed with unsterilized...
It wasn't the.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Bullet that killed Garfield, the cat. It was the.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Old sterile medical. Liz, the veterinarian, didn't wash her hands.
John's love interest, Liz.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
By the way, that show, Death by Lightning, the Garfield,
like the James Garfield show. I don't know if it's
one of the best. It's such a good show. It's
so fucking funny. It's on Netflix, too. We're like Nick Offerman's.
And it's just so fun. It's so good. It's so good.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Wait, it's James Garfield, the president.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Is that true?

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Hold on. Death by lightning. Did I get it wrong?
There's a very strong chance.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Did you make Garfield?

Speaker 3 (27:52):
OK, I was going to say, did you make this
up or you never heard of this?

Speaker 2 (27:55):
That's so by the way, that's so scary because I've
been doing that so much lately where I've imagined a
thing and it's not it could have been about like
JFK or so, like not even close to that era.
But no, it is James Garfield and highly, highly like
Matthew McFadden, for example. plays charles guto and it's it's
so good like nick offerman's chester arthur who's just like

(28:17):
a drunk and like not good at anything it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Everybody was drunk because it like that's something that gets
left out of like steven spielberg's lincoln should have acknowledged
that everybody was hammered the whole time yeah not a
lot of.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
People know this water wasn't invented until 1905 yeah the
water that.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
They had was killing everybody yeah yeah um yeah All right.
So he invents John, the strip John, and then soon
after changes it to Garfield. It's in the Pendleton Times
for two years, just not doing shit. And then it
debuts in syndication in 1978 in 41 American newspapers. Two
years later, it's everywhere. One month after his debut, Garfield

(29:03):
first mentions his love of lasagna, calling it nature's most
perfect food. Jim Davis was like, cats do like lasagna.
So I guess the joke's on me. With all that
meat and cheese, it makes sense.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
Wait, also, does Jim Davis think that lasagna is a plant?
Nature's most perfect food.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
I think it's a bit. I think it's a bit.
If I had to guess, I think it's Garfield being
a bit of a rascal.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Old Jimbo's pulling our leg.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
And by the way, the first Italian didn't move to
Indiana until 1971. It's amazing. It had just.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Been discovered, yeah. Indiana had just discovered lasagna.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
It was pretty recent.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
He says he is a lasagna lover and his go-to
recipe is the classic good housekeeping recipe, in keeping with
what you're saying. Well, we only know one type of lasagna.
It's the one from the good housekeeping recipe. um so
just to be clear garfield and jim davis's cats are
taking crazy shits um my cats do love lasagna it's

(30:11):
like yeah man that's why we don't feed it to
them yeah i.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
Mean i think the alternate's true i think that if
a cat is eating a lot of cheese they're probably
taking no shits right.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's the opposite it's even scarier yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
As for how he writes it, I just want to
describe his method here real quick. This is from Jim Davies.
I'm excited about this. When I write, I watch Garfield
in my head like I'm watching a TV set. I
put him up a tree. I have him in a
boat or staring out a window. And then I just
watch him. And I ask myself, what would he do?
Where would they go? And I just watch until something

(30:46):
funny happens. Then I back up three minutes, three frames
and cut it off. It's like, have you ever heard
like Cormac McCarthy talk about how when he wrote The Road,
it was just like dictated to him by the voice
of God?

Speaker 3 (30:59):
What?

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah. He's just like, it's a voice just started telling
me that story and I just start writing it down. Um,
there are like some creative people who like have that
experience of, it's just like, yeah, it's a thing that's
happening in my head all the time. And I just
kind of look at it and wait for.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Something funny to flare gun.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
It's an imaginary friend or more like a hallucination of he, his,
his thoughts are so like, you can see the accessibility
of Garfield in the way he speaks as well, where it's,
It's so uncomplicated. And like, that's not an insult. It's just,
this is how I, this is how I do it.

(31:41):
There's no twist. There's no, you know, like snobbery to it.
He's very, yeah. I mean, like Garfield has all the snobbery,
like in his character, but like, other than that, it
is like very refreshing to be like, yeah, I just,
I just think about it.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Really?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
I just picture it and I do it.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah. I just picture it and then it happens. And
then I'm like, oh, that was good. The thing that
just happened in my brain. And then I go back
three frames. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I write it down.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Speaking of the like Garfield snobbery versus like kind of
his energy that just that seems to be the energy
that like surround. He's always like for some reason there's
a Frost Nixon style interview. between Walter Shapiro and Jim Davis,

(32:29):
like Brett, like in 1982, Garfield's like fly, like just
flying high. It's just become fastest to a thousand papers, uh,
seven of the 15 paperbacks on the New York times
bestseller list. And I just want to read some excerpts
from this. Uh, Davis is describing how he tries to
like keep the strip accessible to everyone. He's like, it's
a conscious effort to include everyone as readers, uh, If

(32:52):
you were to mention the football strike, you're going to
be excluding everyone else in the world that doesn't watch
pro football. And so he's like, I don't use rhyming gags,
plays on words in an effort to make Garfield apply
to virtually any society where he may appear in an
effort to keep the gags broad, the humor general and
applicable to everyone. I deal mainly with eating and sleeping

(33:13):
that applies to everyone anywhere. And then Shapiro goes, don't
I hear in what you're saying the word lowest common denominator?
And Davis is like, yeah, well, I mean, I distill everything.
Garfield art is very, very simple. Nothing distracts the eye.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
When Jim Davis does it, it's not illegal or whatever.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
There's as few words as possible. Garfield's expressions are very
carefully drawn. There's not much space. We've only got about
three inches by seven inches, Shapiro. But there are cartoonists
who fill it with a lot more than you do.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Like, what's his problem? Drag her, honey.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
By the way, Walter Shapiro is a like New Republic
Washington Post writer and speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, who's like
coming in and being like, I read all your Garfields
and I've got like some shit, some shit to tell you, buddy.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
It is ironic that jim davis talks about his process
the way that jay leno talks about comedy and he
went to college with david letterman like the david letterman
is like the antithesis of that you know like silly
you know smart edgy uh not that garfield isn't that
um but yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
It is interesting as we'll get to oh it's like
yeah garfield fucks is what we're saying yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah uh just from later in the interview Uh, Davis
Garfield can do a lot of comments that I don't
think a shallower character could do. He seems to be
getting more depth to his character every day. Shapiro. Forgive me.
I read the strip daily in the post, and I'm
not sure I see the depth.

Speaker 5 (34:48):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
And Jim Davis is like, okay, maybe there's a character
that's a bit static, but then all at once, a
tiny little aspect of his personality. He just stays positive,
and he's like, look, yeah, I kind of suck at art,
but anyways.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Did you lay off? Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Did this end with Jim Davis just beating the shit
out of this guy?

Speaker 1 (35:07):
No, it ended with him just being John Arbuckle.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Wait, question. Did this interview happen on a Monday?

Speaker 1 (35:16):
It's entirely possible that it did. And Shapiro is completely
embodying the character of Garfield, which he clearly is.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
All right.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
So we're going to go through some iconic, notable Garfield strips.
I'm going to give you the first one from Syndication
in the chat. Garfield used to look like shit. Like really,
really evolved over time. Um, he had, he was big
and jowly and a hunch over and the strip just says,

(35:49):
hi there. I'm John Arbuckle. I'm a cartoonist and this
is my cat Garfield. And Garfield says, hi there. I'm Garfield.
I'm a cat. And this is my cartoonist, John. Uh,
and then John says, our only thought is to entertain you.
And Garfield says, feed me. It's cute.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
It's perfect.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Good bit.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Um, all right. Next, I'm going to show you a
strip from September 10th, 2001. The day before 9-11. I
love this. Has John Arbuckle picking up the phone saying,
he what? And Garfield's just sitting there looking unimpressed. And
then John says, could you hold on for a moment?
I have another call coming in. Thanks.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Boop.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
He what? An even bigger what? An even more crazy
face than Garfield says. I've been a busy boy.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Oh, I don't like that.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
So a question about this. I know that the date
on it is September 10th, but didn't it print on
September 11th?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I believe it did. I believe in some places it
came out on 9-11.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
And....

Speaker 1 (36:49):
It's got John getting two pieces of very bad news
right on top of each other.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Topical Jim Davis, utopical little bear.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I just love the idea of Garfield looking at the
camera and saying, I've been a busy boy about 9-11,
about planning and executing 9-11. May 30th, 1990, take it
back a smidge. There's a comic where John appears to
drink semen at the vet. let's skip this.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
One let's skip i don't think we have to look
at this one let's skip this it's very graphic he
says have a cup of coffee john why thanks don't
mind if i do he's like having a fun conversation
with himself uh immediately pulls something off the vet's table
and takes a long swig from it and then the
vet his love interest liz says uh congratulations mr mr

(37:43):
arbuckle you're going to give birth to a fine healthy
litter of puppies at which point he looks like he's
going to throw up.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Jim Davis actually has been asked about this trip so
many times that he went on record to say it
is not dog cum.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
But yes, I know.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
And he did use the word cum, by the way,
which we thought was crazy.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
It wasn't guzzling dog cum.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Don't worry, guys. He's not guzzling a big mouthful of
dog cum. Yeah, his explanation is on the farm we
used to give first calf heifers a high-protein supplement to
help them deliver healthier calves. the supplement was provided by
our vet, I assumed that there would be a similar

(38:26):
supplement for dogs. So John is drinking a protein-enriched drink
formulated for a pregnant dog. I will say, I don't
think that subtext is all present in the script.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Whatever happened to the accessibility of this fucking cartoon? It's
saying something that no one knows. No one knows that.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Nobody else can relate to planning 9-11 Jim Davis. Why
is that accessible?

Speaker 1 (38:49):
You're going to give birth to a fine, healthy litter
of puppies after you drank something is, uh, I don't know.
I think, I think, I think it speaks for itself. Um,
and then there is the week of October 23rd, 1989
that I think is one of the, one of the
most interesting, uh, runs of any pop culture, uh, thing

(39:13):
that I've ever seen because it's so, uh, kind of
out of line with what Garfield usually does. Do you
know this, Joey? Are you familiar with?

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Hey, what is this?

Speaker 1 (39:24):
This is the one where, okay, so it opens. Brr,
there's a chill in in here this morning. What an
eerie sensation. Uh, and Garfield wakes up and goes to
a glowing yellow door and says, this doesn't feel like
my home. And it says to be continued the next day.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
John Odie, anybody home? And he's like walking around a
completely empty house. And then he thinks I'm alone. And
then there's just a voice of God narration that comes
in and says, you have no idea how alone you are, Garfield.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
Moving on to Wednesday's strip. Steady, Garfield. There must be
a good reason why the house is empty. John must
be at the grocery store. pull out to the outside
of the house and the house is abandoned and boarded up.
And it says for sale and Garfield is in the window. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
And then Thursday Garfield is shot and then operated on
with unclean.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Um, Garfield next day, my home has been abandoned. No
one has lived here for years, but that means I
haven't lived here for years. What's that? And he hears
something in the other room runs towards it. John Odie,
your home. And then John says, hello, Garfield, have some food.
And he reaches up and the food like disappears and

(40:43):
he finds himself in like a dilapidated, like abandoned room
in the house. And it says locked fast within a
time when he no longer exists. Garfield grapples with his
greatest fear, loneliness. Yep.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
All super relatable. Everybody gets it.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
The final one, the final day. After years of taking
life for granted, Garfield is shaken by a horrifying vision
of the inevitable process called time. He has only one weapon.
And then it says, he has only one weapon, denial.
And he says, I don't want to be alone. And

(41:21):
then suddenly John and Odie are back and they say,
want some breakfast, Garfield? And he says, who needs it?
I need you. So that implies... That John and Odie are,
and then there's like a long thing, an imagination is
a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past,
shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so

(41:42):
vivid that it can entice or terrify, all depending upon
how we conduct ourselves today.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
The end. That's the end.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
That's the end. And it's the, so it says he
has only one weapon denial and that's what brings Odie
and John back. So it implies that everything that has
ever happened and will ever happen in Garfield takes place
in Garfield's mind. And the reality is a dilapidated house

(42:11):
that he lives in by himself and is just like
dying and imagining a warm, happy, uh, past is, is
what I'm taking from it, which I just like, I
want to know how he came back the next strip
and was like, Monday is my right guy.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah. I fucking love lasagna.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
It was like, I hire a ghostwriter for one fucking
week and this is what happens. You know, he's like Friday.
He's like, what the hell did you do?

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Like, yo, Ellen Moore, can you handle the strip for
a week?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Um, yeah, it's, I think that, uh, One, yes, that
is definitely implied that Garfield has been dead the whole time,
which is very fun. It's a realistic sense twist. But yeah,
I guess like looking at stuff like this, I mean,
we talk a lot about how, you know, Garfield is
like really bland as a character. And I think that
looking at stuff like this, I'm like, oh, Jim Davis
actually does have like a creative soul, you know, it's like.

(43:04):
It's like we talk shit, but it's like there's stuff
like this that you look at and you're like, oh,
you're like a weird man. You know, there's something about
you that's not just Garfield as a marketing entity, you know?

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, there's yeah. I mean, we'll get it. We'll get
to like Garfield minus Garfield later. But like there's a
strip like the I think the most famous Garfield minus
Garfield is John just looking down at the at the
table saying, I'm so depressed. It's depressing. Next thing he
hasn't moved and it says, I think I'll go out

(43:36):
and shoot myself. And the next one is just not,
you know, him not having moved. And the real comic is.
So I was always like, yeah, but like how what
what are the sassy Garfield one liners that are like saving?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
It's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
I'm going to shoot myself.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
I'm so depressed. It's depressing. Tell me about it, says Garfield.
I think I'll go out and shoot myself. Garfield says, sure.
And then the last one is just Garfield saying, you're
just trying to cheer me up.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
But I think it works.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
It definitely works, but it, it is him being like,
I welcome you taking your own life. This is actually.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
Some of my favorite Garfield, my Garfield strips are when
it's like, it's like a nine panel, like a bigger one.
And like the first four panels are just a blank.
Cause presumably it was just Garfield in that strip. And
then one panel of John just sighing. And then five
more blank panels.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
I'm like, those rock. I love that.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
So, uh, quick Garfield merch history because I do think
like that is kind of the thing that he's most
known for or like it is like he's in more
places than maybe any other fictional character like Snoopy's in
a lot of places but I feel like Garfield has

(44:56):
really like when you look at a list of all
the merch all the different shit that Garfield's on the
phone the the things that people used to like stick
to windows and Um, that, that was like a massive, uh,
craze in the eighties, like Garfield's that with the suction
cups on their hands, um, that people put in car windows.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
I wonder how many, what percent of those people even
read the comic strips too. Like, I bet there was
a massive percent where they're like, I like this cat. Like,
just immediately, like, this cat is cool or cute or, like,
I like its vibe. I'm going to put that up
in my car. You know? Like, I bet there's a
big chunk that didn't even read the strips.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
I bet they knew, at the very least, that he
hated Mondays and that he liked lasagna.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
That is, like, to this day, my.
Ask my kids like what do you know of garfield
and what.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Do you know every day every day come.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Boys sit by the fire what do you know of
garfield not about yeah they both said fat cat loves
uh lasagna hates mondays um yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
They're all wearing john arbuckle shirts while they're saying this
i mean you all eat lasagna with your hands as
a family afterwards And.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
They convinced me that I'm dead and this is all
taking place in my imagination. But yeah, just a little
bit more on the number of books. So Pausing says
that Garfield has sold 100. This was in 2018 that
Garfield had sold 135 million books. To put that into perspective,
the Chronicles of Narnia, which are primarily books, have sold

(46:34):
120 million. Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, James Bond have
sold 100 million. Winnie the Pooh has sold 70 million.
So Garfield's like lapping Winnie the Pooh when it comes
to just the number of books. And I think Winnie
the Pooh was originally a literary character.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's a good icon, by the way.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Winnie the Pooh?

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Well, I would have thought so until this. Now I
realize he's shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Fucking nobody.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Getting lapped by Garfield. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Winnie the Pooh loves honey. Who could relate to that?

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah. I'm not a fucking bee. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Give me some fucking lasagna, man.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Now we're talking.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Cultured. He's cultured. Um, this is, I feel, I feel
like maybe that's where the Washington post thing is coming
from is that like, He sold a lot of books
and they're like, well, we have to take him seriously
as a literary character. There's another Washington Post article from
around this time that says he is thus the ideal
psychic symbol of those adults trying to reconcile the mellow

(47:33):
vanities of the me decade with the belligerent anxieties of
the 80s. Just as his pro-social rodent forebearer and the
mouse served as the self-image of the 50s.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Uh, meanwhile, Jim Davis is sitting next to them just
picturing like, what if Garfield climbed into a giant coffee cup?

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Have they ever made jokes about how nasty, like how,
how crazy Garfield shits must be?

Speaker 4 (47:58):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah. 1994.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
There was entire like two months, two months on it.
It was a two month run, two months run, real graphic, really,
really hurt the brand.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
But like, I'm glad he did it.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Time around this time did a cover story on the
cat boom in the U.S.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
I thought you were going to say at the time,
Time did a cover story on Garfield's shits.

Speaker 6 (48:16):
Garfield's massive shits. World record-breaking shits. One of his shits
was number eight in Time People of the Year. Not
even Garfield, but his shits.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah. But this is also when Cats, the musical, becomes
very popular. So they're like, what the fuck is going
on here?

Speaker 2 (48:34):
It's a rum-tub tugging ass cat.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Rum-tub. Garfield should have been in cats. That is my
one note about cats. Perfect play. Other than should have
been Garfield.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
I mean, literally, literally in play.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Um, there's a, yeah, the, this is when the, um,
Garfield stuck on you suction cup car window cling became
a massive craze in like 1986. Um, by 1986, there
are 3000 different licensed products. But there are like stories.
There's a LA Times article from that time about how
like 40 vehicles recently had their windows smashed in with

(49:13):
all valuables ignored and only one item stolen, the Garfield clang.
And I'm like, that story's bullshit. Like that's one of
those stories that like the cops love to tell the,
you know, make criminals sound stupid. And like, but there's
also a story.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
They didn't look or ask valuables were stolen.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
They were just like, how do we make this vaguely entertaining?

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
There's an empty car seat. Clearly a baby was kidnapped.
And they're like, just took the Garfield thing.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
It took the Garfield thing. And then we planted some
guns and drugs in there.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
All right. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back.
We'll talk about Schultz v. Davis. Whoever wins, we all lose.
He's back.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Jack's back. Jack can throw the commercials again. He's back.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
And we're back. What's up? So Garfield pretty quickly makes
it over to TV, doing some TV specials. And so
there's one called Here Comes Garfield. It was written by Davis.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
There's also an amazing album called that.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Here Comes Garfield?

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
It's a banger.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
What year? Is that the one with like B.B. Kent
from the early 90s?

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, it's like Lou Rawls. I think it was.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
I think that this special you're talking about was a musical,
but you can go on Spotify and listen to the
entire album or like anyone, whatever your musical platform is.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
And it's like it's it rocks.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
It's just it's like it's what if Garfield was a musical?

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
A reported 50 million people watched this special. Good God.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Legit almost spat out water when you said that number.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
When to put that in context, when Will Smith slapped
Chris Rock at the Oscars, 16 million people were watching.
And after everyone found out that that happened and like
turned the TV on 17 million people were watching 50
million people watch here comes Garfield. Um, so around this time,
he's Jim Davis again, uh, in keeping with the energy

(51:21):
of him being John and everyone else being Garfield, uh,
He's trying to figure out how to make Garfield walk
on two feet. And he's like, I was working on
Garfield's first special at Bill Melendez's studio in L.A. And
Sparky Schultz was in the next room working on one
of his specials. I was doing the layout drawings and

(51:43):
I said, look at him, Garfield. He looks awkward. And
Schultz said, that's because you gave him these little cat feet.
He told me what he did with Snoopy's. Snoopy used
to walk on little dog feet. He said, here, do this.
And he took my pencil and drew over the top
of my drawing with these big feet like he has today.
He said, so there, now he's standing up. I go,
that's it. I was blown away. Here was Charles Schultz

(52:06):
drawing on my drawings. And it's like an adorable, heartwarming
story where he's like, my hero helped me make Garfield.
And then I'm going to read this excerpt from Schultz
and Peanuts. a biography by david michaelis schultz took every
opportunity in private to belittle davis as a cartoonist davis's

(52:27):
smug cat celebrated laziness and cynicism and sparky loathed it
garfield he often said in private was the ugliest most
insulting and vicious character he had ever seen to davis
meanwhile schultz was a fatherly presence and an artistic conscience
at the drawing board kind of like having a dad
there said davis.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
Jim Davis tells it like, oh, yeah, he drew new
feet on my cat. Meanwhile, Schultz was like scratching it out,
trying to scribble all over the cat.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
That's fucking bullshit.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Sounds like a real Mozart Solari situation for sure. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
When he found out that the syndicate, which is a very...
ominous name but it's just the people who like run
the comics in in newspapers let him know that peanuts
and garfield would soon be sharing salespeople as well as
an editor uh quote he didn't just bristle he was
genuinely troubled but again it's kind of like they have

(53:33):
a garfield John relationship where Jim is John being like,
oh man, oh geez. And Schultz and Garfield are like,
get fucked you Rube. You know?

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Do you think that if Schultz heard that we were
saying that he was like Garfield, if he would turn
over in his grave?

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Yeah, I think so. And rightly so, because like, clearly
he did not realize like he, what he was actually
upset about, which was the Garfield fucking rocks and everybody
loves them. So, one question I have for you, Joey,
as a, as a Garfield fan is Garfield's voice. The like,
so one of the, uh, John was voiced at one

(54:16):
point by Tom huge, one of Davis's fraternity brothers. It
always feels to me like Garfield's voice is, do you,
do you feel like anyone's ever totally nailed it? I
feel like they've kind of landed on stoner, which doesn't
seem quite right to me. I feel like he has
to be kind of more of a bitch, you know?

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
I think that like, I guess that to me, I
think that like Lorenzo Music, who was the guy that
originally voiced Garfield in all the animated shorts, really established
what the Garfield voice is. And yeah, I think it
is like kind of like a little slacker, a little stonery. Um,
and it feels to me like pretty much since then,
everybody is just trying to do the Lorenzo music voice
in a way that like, I think is really, uh,

(54:54):
really like funny and interesting. I mean, even like one
of the, one of the things that I think is
really fascinating about that is that, um, uh, Lorenzo music actually,
when Bill Murray decided he did not want to voice
his character in the Ghostbusters animated series, Lorenzo music voice
to that character, uh, And then Bill Murray was so
mad about how good Lorenzo Music did that he got
him fired from voicing that character. And then Bill Murray

(55:17):
later stole Lorenzo Music's job voicing Garfield in the Garfield movies.
So not only did he copy his delivery, he also
stole his voice role.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Um, Bill Murray, uh, has been known to be a
bit of an asshole.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Oh yeah, for sure. For sure.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Real villain.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Also, also another thing about Lorenzo music, um, he died
like one month before nine 11.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
So I'm trying to, are those things related? Maybe.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
I mean, So he is spiritually connected to Garfield as
like the creator of his voice. And then Garfield, as
we've already established, did 9-11.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
Was it mastermind?

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Canonically. He did what? The people on the first plane
has hit the tower. That's what the person on the
phone is saying to John Arbuckle. He did what?

Speaker 5 (56:05):
What?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
That's why we invaded Iraq, to find busy boys.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
To find busy boys. Busy boy. Yeah, the answer was
right underneath our nose the whole time.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Osama bin busy boy. You were saying that you don't
think that people have totally nailed the boys?

Speaker 1 (56:23):
I just know it just feels like a little too
stonerish and not quite cunty enough to me.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
OK, so do an impression of like, what do you
think Garfield should sound like?

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Are you pitching yourself?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
I'm a very talented voice actor. Yeah, yeah. No, I
think I'm probably just not calling to mind the right
the right Garfield. But I do just want to say that.
I think Jim Davis might be a little bit more
of a competitive psycho than he likes to let on

(56:55):
because multiple times he's been like, well, you'll never catch
me doing that thing. And then like he goes on,
he goes on to like sell millions of that thing.
This story from about Garfield's Macy's Day balloon.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
I have never heard this and now I really want.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
To hear this. So in 1997, windy conditions caused his
tail to tear and deflate. Then he eventually tore open
and collapsed. Davis took issue when the team behind the
parade published that their biggest balloon by volume of gas
was Shamu the whale with over 18,000 cubic feet. The
fact is that the Garfield balloon was filled with 18,907

(57:33):
cubic feet of helium. So we just confirmed that the
Garfield balloon, in fact, was the largest one by volume
of gas. I just like being competitive with the Shamu
Macy's Day balloon about how big it is. It's just funny.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
And you know that was personally Jim Davis calling the
newspaper and being like, I need to set the record straight. Yes.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
But I, yeah, I think he's, he's driven a little
bit that in a way that like, probably he doesn't
like to let out in public that much. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
He's a crazy person. He wrote a week long arc
about Garfield's death.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Garfield being existing in like fucking, I don't know what,
like a, a weird between death and life.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
It's like a backroom situation.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
It's total backroom situation, created backrooms. Um, in 2004 Garfield,
the movie was released starring Bill Murray as a CGI
Garfield that, that I think Bill Murray's voice is probably
a decent fit. The art, like the character that they
created for Garfield does not look like Garfield.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
It's a, it's a bad look. Um, But this is
where 2010, so six years later, he's doing an interview
for GQ. And the guy talking to him, Fireman, says, well,
how about Garfield? Can you explain that to me? Did
you just do it for the dough? And Murray said, no,
I didn't make that for the dough. Well, not completely.
I thought it would be kind of fun because doing

(59:02):
a voice is challenging. Plus, I looked at the script
and I said, so-and-so and Joel Cohen. And I thought, Christ, well,
I love those Coens. They're funny. And usually when you're, uh,
so later on, he's talking about like doing the voiceover
work and he's like, usually it takes two days. That's
a lot. Um, I don't know if I should even
tell this story because it's kind of mean, but what
the hell? So I worked all day and kept going.

(59:26):
That's the line? Well, I can't say that. And you
sit there and go, what can I say that will
make this funny and make it make sense? And I worked.
I was exhausted, soaked with sweat, and the lines got
worse and worse. And I said, okay, you better show
me the rest of the movie so we can see
what we're dealing with. So I sat down and watched
the whole thing, and I kept saying, who the hell
cut this thing? Who did this? What the fuck was

(59:47):
Cohen thinking? And then they explained it to me. It
wasn't written by that Joel Cohen. This is so funny
to me. Like, all the way up through that point,
he's just like, man, the Cohen brothers are really, like,
they've gone in a very strange direction with their career.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
Okay, so my conspiracy theory on that story, I've definitely
heard that story, is like, I'm very curious about if
that story is real or if that's just Bill Murray
trying to like still be cool after being in a
bad Garfield movie. You know, it's like, is that like
a Hollywood saving face? He doesn't really mean that, but
like it allows him to throw them under the bus
kind of thing. Sort of like what James Corden did

(01:00:29):
with the Cats movie, which we all agree was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yes, of course.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Absolutely. What did James Corden do with it? He was like,
you know, it was just it was a mistake.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Yeah, he was complaining that it didn't take place in
a car.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Yeah, he was like, why aren't all the songs karaoke
while in a passenger seat of a car?

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Why are we in an alley and not in a car?
I don't understand.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
No, he just like whenever he did award shows or
interviews after it came out, he was just like, yeah,
I cashed a paycheck from that piece of shit. You know,
just throwing it under the bus so viciously in a
way that's like, fuck you, man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
You knew what this was.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Yeah, yeah. That is Jim Davis's explanation. He said he's
a nutcase. He is a nutcase.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Laughs.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
I'll tell you one thing. This is about Bill Murray.
He said he thought that it was the Coen brothers
who were writing it, actually. He's having fun with the
press on that because if we were doing another one
with Davis Entertainment, Bill Murray would do it again. And
he did. Guilty as charged. Yeah. The Tale of Two Kitties.

(01:01:31):
Neither were critically lauded, but they both earned a lot
of money. And Roger Ebert gave both... Um, the first
Garfield movie and tale of two kitties, three stars. And
it was like, they really kind of, the casting was
inspired and I feel like they kind of got Garfield.

Speaker 6 (01:01:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Um, I don't know if he was watching with his
eyes closed.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
I mean, those Garfield movies were so weird because like,
it really felt like other than like hyper specific details,
like why is this a Garfield movie? Like nobody acts
like how they're supposed to act. Like Garfield isn't really
written how he's supposed to sound. But like, uh, there
are like, there are little things like when John shows
up at a day, the, the John Brockman character, he's
wearing the exact suit that he wears in comics when

(01:02:17):
he shows up for a date, like the shitty seventies
Brown suit. So there's like some details like that where
it's like, Oh, the costume designer was excited about making
a one person.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Yeah. Nobody else was excited. The costume designer was just like,
this is going to be the best. Oh, do you
ever seen in your life?

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Um, This is also when a in 2004, a ride
launched at Kennywood Amusement Park in Pennsylvania, which is an
amusement park I've been to many times near where my
my wife grew up. And by the time I started visiting,
this ride had closed. It's called Garfield's Nightmare. Again, it

(01:02:54):
was like a weird nightmare. It was a weird, like,
you know, dark ride, but like also kind of dark
in that, like, creepy shit was happening. People were like,
why is this ride so scary? But this is, it
was a re-theme of a ride known for young people
only riding the hookah. Like, Kennywood's been around since the

(01:03:15):
early 20th century, and this ride was like The defunct
land is a podcast that like they did a whole
episode about they call it the bizarre Garfield dark ride.
And they get into the history of the ride. And
like before it was Garfield, it was like famous for
people hooking up on it. And the stories are like,

(01:03:37):
I was picturing like people in the fifties, like necking
down by, you know, the old overlook spot going parking.
They talk about how the people who worked at the
theme park, had a rule that, like, they would send
people in there to police, like, the people who were
going on this ride. And if you saw people making out, fine.

(01:03:58):
If they were doing more, you call it out by name.
But if you saw a naked ass, they had a
bat that they gave you that was, like, the sex-stopping bat.
And people were, like, constantly having sex on this ride.
One of the things people said is that you'd see
people go in and then their car would come back
out empty. LAUGHTER The fuck does that? So they like

(01:04:19):
jumped off the boat inside the dark, the like haunted
boat ride and like had sex on a haunted island
or something.

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
I mean, look, as we've established, Garfield is a very
sexual beast. So all of this makes sense. He's a
real fertility icon.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
A bat is wild. Like a bat, like a swatter,
I feel like would be good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Just a slap. That's like an open hand slap versus
a close fist.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
One other detail. I remember the Garfield phone very vividly.
Beginning in the 1980s, pieces of plastic orange Garfield-shaped phones
started washing up on beaches in France's coast, and then
it kept happening for three decades. In 2018 alone, 200
Garfield fragments were found. And finally, in 2019, a farmer

(01:05:10):
alerted an environmental activist group that in the 1980s, he'd
discovered a shipping container full of the phones inside a
cave that was accessible only during low tide. So the
shipping container was like just sending out Garfield phones. Oh
my God.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
These are awesome. Yeah, I love this story too.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
As like a noted online Garfield fanatic, I've probably been
texted this story 500 times. We're like DM being like,
have you heard of this?

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
And yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
I know about the shipping container full of Garfield phones.
I'm going to France next week.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
To find them. All right. This is, this is the
culmination of all the people telling you about that. Um, yeah. Uh,
but it like he, Jim Davis is still making Garfield,
but like the, I feel like the afterlife of Garfield
is this like dark, obviously the Garfield minus Garfield. Um,

(01:06:10):
but also there's the, I'm sorry, John read it, which
I'm just going to post a couple. Like they're all
kind of in getting it the same thing as the
strip that we, uh, talked about. That was actually Jim day. Like,
I feel like everybody who saw that strip originally in

(01:06:30):
1989 was like, is contributing art to, I'm sorry, Joe,
but yeah, I, I, I do think there is like
a darkness, like just as like Garfield connected with something valuable,
like the, you know, neat needing a patron saint of laziness.

(01:06:51):
I do think there's also like something profoundly dark, like
in just coursing beneath the surface of the comic. Is that,
is that part of what appeals to you about Garfield, Joey?

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
Uh, yes, it is the darkness that is contained in
every strip.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
That is my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah. Uh, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
I think that like, it's just like such a fascinating
thing that happens. Uh, I think with anything that becomes
like mainstream culture is like, you go through this process
of like, especially with comedy, something starts as counterculture. It's
like commenting on the world around it. And it's like
counter to kind of the normal things that are happening.
And then it becomes like so mainstream that it's just like,

(01:07:30):
whatever it was counter to, we kind of forget about.
And I think that with I'm sorry, John Garfield minus
Garfield and all that stuff, it's sort of like a
point where Garfield is just culture. And now people are
creating counterculture to what, what originally was counterculture.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
And that's kind of what I look at. Like a
lot of this stuff as, as like, it is like,
it's like cool. And I think it does speak to
like how clean of Jim Davis's original vision was that
like you can parody it and you can do crazy
shit with it. And it's still kind of feels like Garfield,
you know, it's like, the core of what it is, is, um,
really similar.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
Um, Oh shit. I just a huge head rush before
I said all of that. Okay. I'm back.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
It's still feeling like Garfield is a really good, is
a really good point. Cause I was thinking too about
like so much stuff in pop culture, you know, if
it's wholesome, people want to like make it filthy and
like fucked up often, you know, it's like, Hey, here's
a Winnie the Pooh with tits or something. You know
what I mean? Like people just want that. I mean,
that's what my new project that I'm going to promote.

Speaker 5 (01:08:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Winnie the Pooh with tits. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Winnie the Pooh with tits.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
But but you are right in that like this is
different in that these like Dear John things and like,
you know, like the darkness of it does still feel Garfieldian,
you know, like it is still like totally in that totally.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
It feels right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
It feels right for the strip and for their relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
It's like it's sort of like it's like what is
the punchline of a Garfield strip and how can you
like multiply? that by 12, you know, or something like that?

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
It's just like a more extreme version, but it's like
the same punchline.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
You know, you're still holding onto the string that's still
attached to like the original cartoon vibe.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
And it's like, we're like the, I'm sorry, John. you know,
the like best strips are all just making the same
joke that Jim Davis himself made in that original one
where Garfield's like, everything is turning to ash in my
mouth as I look around and realize that my life
is a dream and my reality is a nightmare.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
Like one of the strips that you sent us was like,
I'm sorry, John was like top left strip, John taking
lasagna and saying, this lasagna will be all mine today.
Next trip is like John has been uppercutted into like
a bloody mess at the top of the screen.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Next trip, Garfield says, oh, really? How? You don't even
have a. And then next.

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
Trip is Garfield is a full monster saying mouth to
consume as he's uppercutting John into a bloody mess.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
So it's like, oh, that is like the same thing
as like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
Garfield likes lasagna and also he hates John, but what
if he did it as like an old rich beast,
you know?

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Transcends time and space and matter.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Yeah. Anyways, Garfield, uh, real fun, real fun guy, fun
guy who, uh, I feel like is, uh, I will
now start noticing that Garfield is fucking everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
Yeah, Jim Davis does say that he just pictures in
his head what he thinks Garfield's doing right now, and
then he finds the funny part and then goes back
three frames. So I've got to assume that all of
those other frames he's not including are Garfield fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:48):
So like right so right before every are they ready
yeah they're not ready yeah yeah he's.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Just looking raw dog and normal.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
That's right um joey such a pleasure having you on
the show um where can people find you follow you
read you uh.

Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
Yeah thanks so much for having me i always love
talking about the garf uh this was so fun the
garf yeah the garf you know when you say his
name so much you just gotta shorten it to one
syllable it's just the same time but um Yeah, if
you want to check me out, I actually wrote an
entire op-ed about Garfield for a salon that came out
like a year ago. So you could search that on
my website. Something I'm really excited about is I'm actually
releasing a book on October 6th. It's called We've Been

(01:11:27):
Here the Whole Time, A Not-So-Sacred Guide to All Things
Native America. It's like a comedy satire book about all
the Native history, culture, and notable people that aren't taught
in schools. Kind of like if The Onion or The
Daily Show wrote a book about Indian country. And pre-orders
are available now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
Oh, thanks.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
Yeah, pre-orders are available now. There's an entire chapter about
why Christopher Columbus is not invited to the powwow.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
And Luke Garfield's not Native.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
I talk about him a little bit in the book.
He comes up here and there. And yeah, pre-orders are
available now. Pre-orders are a really big help getting us
on things like bestseller lists and telling our publisher to...
you know allocate money toward marketing and funding so um
you know a pre-order would be a big help um
actually if i hit a certain pre-order number or something
i'm doing right now is i will do my physical

(01:12:09):
book reveal on john wayne's literal grave in newport beach
so if enough of you pre-order copies i'll do that
um you can find info on how to do that
at joeycliff.com book and if you buy it on bookshop
using the link at that website i get a nice
kickback so please do that and then um I also
created an animated short that's coming out that should be
out upon listening to this on Dropout.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
It's called Off the Reservation. It's part of their tune-out series.
And listening to it this week, I am on this
week's episode of Smarty Pants on Dropout. So check that out.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
Do it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Go footnotes that sounds amazing let's get let's get uh
let's get that book on the bestseller list yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
Please please do please do the.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
Smithsonian domain yeah smithsonian censoring native history so please help
please help this is you can help me beat the
smithsonian not.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
My smithsonian the smithsonian really yeah this version uh amazing
uh blake where can people find you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Pre-order Joey's book. And then I am also at Blake
Wexler on all social media. I will be performing live
November 27th in Philadelphia. Those tickets are for sale now.
And then January 14th, Empire Comedy Club in Portland, Maine.
And January 15th, I will be at the Hideout in Boston.

(01:13:23):
Those tickets aren't on sale yet because those shows are
in 2027. But just put it in your calendar. Put
it in your calendar. Just remember it. Do it right now.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
Start capping out now. Right now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
And you can find me coming back in a few
minutes for the notebook dump. And I'll talk to you
guys in a bit. All right. That was Garfield. Thanks
to Blake for taking a break from being a twin
dad to talk to us about this very important subject.

(01:13:55):
Thanks to Joey Cliff for sharing. and for giving us
the idea to do Garfield. And shout out to Meredith
Danko for going above and beyond on the research on
this one. This is the no, no, no, no book dump.
And this is a good one. This is one I
recommend you stick around for. I gave myself goosebumps with

(01:14:20):
this first point I'm about to make. So you may
have noticed by now I have a bit of a
weak spot. for weird coincidences in location or time period
kind of coming together to drive the zeitgeist. Last week,
we talked about Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson being born
in the Midwest within weeks of one another the same

(01:14:44):
summer and then going on to dominate the 80s together.
I've talked a lot about the axial age of history.
It's like my new coal gas study. It's like a
thing I can't stop. mentioning that's the theory where a
bunch of the most important philosophers and thinkers all were
alive around the same time in different parts of the world.

(01:15:08):
An obvious one with an explanation would be like all
these billionaire tech people coming out of Silicon Valley and Um, that's,
you know, well, obviously they were the first ones to
have access to that, but that one is not as
interesting to me because there's an obvious explanation. I, I
find these more interesting, the harder they are to explain.

(01:15:29):
And this episode gave me one that is the hardest
to explain yet. And that is, uh, Indiana in the
eighties for no discernible reason. Indiana was the center of
the pop culture movement. universe in the 1980s. Tiny state,

(01:15:49):
not known for its cultural output, and yet they gave
us Michael Jackson, they gave us Garfield, as we just
talked about in this episode that you probably just listened to.
They gave us David Letterman, that is, you know, the
best-selling album ever that comes out in the 80s from
Michael Jackson. Sort of the face of comedy in the

(01:16:11):
80s and sort of cutting-edge avant-garde comedy with David Letterman
like mainstream avant-garde and then Garfield who I'd argue would
make for a top five draft pick for being the
mascot of the decade a mascot of the 80s and
then another icon we've covered who might make sense as

(01:16:32):
the mascot of the 80s Indiana Jones guy's fricking name
is Indiana for no discernible reason. Other than that, Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas, two masterful, you know, minors of
America's shared consciousness. We're like, what do we call this guy?
How about we name him after the state of Indiana,

(01:16:54):
a state that is not a name anyone has ever
used for a person before. Um, So that's very strange.
I hadn't thought about that until this notebook dump. And
I'm just getting warm, guys. John Cougar Mellencamp is to
Indiana what Springsteen is to New Jersey. Gives us Hurt
So Good, Jack and Diane in 1982, Pink Houses in 1983.

(01:17:18):
Popular songs. They're like number one songs that are. portraits
of life in Indiana. I mentioned Axl Rose was from Indiana,
who locked down the late 80s, particularly with a song
called Paradise City. So again, a location-based song. People in
Louisville claim that it's about Louisville, Kentucky. So either it's

(01:17:42):
about Indiana or it's about wanting to leave Indiana. Either way,
that song is about Indiana. And then as Blake wisely
brought up, they were the center of the basketball world.
And probably in the 1980s, they had Bobby Knight and
Indiana University basketball win the national championship in 1981 and 1987.
You know, he's famous for being like the real life

(01:18:06):
whiplash teacher. Just like like literally violent with people and
just really brutal with his players. And subsequent decades have
proven like how weird it was for Indiana University to
be the best basketball program. You know, they have not
been good since the 80s, really, or like nearly as

(01:18:29):
big of a powerhouse. Also, 1984, Bobby Knight coaches Michael
Jordan to the 1984 gold medal. And then we have
Larry Bird, who comes into the NBA in at the
very start of the 80s. And first of all, no
basketball player. more associated with the state he grew up

(01:18:52):
in um despite never playing in indiana professionally he played
for the celtics but his nickname was the hick from
french lick and he was You know, a major like
he was one of the two superpowers of a bilateral
power structure of 80s NBA basketball, along with Magic Johnson.

(01:19:17):
And then to top it off, they like in the
basketball front, they even had Hoosiers, which is like propaganda
for a certain type of Indiana basketball. I'll say I'm
being told a Christmas story was set in Indiana. What
a run. for the state of Indiana in the 1980s

(01:19:37):
and not at all since then. You know, that's what
makes it so strange. So I don't know. probably a
lot to be said about race there it's uh the
ultra white reagan 80s you've got um larry bird and
hoosiers which are the favorite basketball player and favorite movie
of anyone who claims that people like oh i don't

(01:20:00):
know michael jordan and magic johnson don't play basketball the
right way um You've got Indiana Jones stealing artifacts from
brown people to put in museums. I won't get too
deep into politics in the Garfield episode, but I was
really on a roll with this one. And then I
thought about the randomness of them naming him Indiana Jones.

(01:20:23):
I got fucking, I got goosebumps, you guys. I gave
myself goosebumps. That's how mind blowing I found this one.
I'll probably be talking about this for weeks, unfortunately. So
sorry in advance. All right. Speaking of George Lucas and racism,
one of the things that drove Jim Davis to make

(01:20:43):
an apolitical comic strip, like rigorously apolitical comic strip about
a cat was its political safety policy. He has this
quote on developing his new strip. He said, as I
was putting the strip together, I wanted to work with
animals anyway, because having worked on tumbleweeds, it was a
Western strip with cowboys and Indians. Tom Ryan was always

(01:21:06):
getting grief from Native Americans rights groups and women's groups, too.
I thought, I'll work with animals. They don't pick on anyone. So,
first of all, he clearly didn't. ever have any run-ins
with PETA. But this also reminded me a lot of
George Lucas's quote about the backlash to the racism of

(01:21:26):
Temple of Doom. Just kind of the overall perspective that
all these groups are picking on me. You know, if
George Lucas had just taken the other, just been like,
I don't know, maybe they're not being arbitrarily mean. Maybe
they're not picking on me. Maybe they mean what they say,

(01:21:47):
and maybe they mean that because they have a point.
We might have been saved from Jar Jar Binks and
the many other aliens from the prequels who were lightly
disguised racial stereotypes. What else? There's a short Vice doc
checking in with Jim Davis where they go to Paws Inc.,

(01:22:08):
the Paws Inc. compound, which is just like you know,
a Garfield themed workplace, even more Garfield themed than most workplaces.
And he describes the process of meeting with a licensee
and deciding if they're worth doing business with. And it

(01:22:28):
basically involves bringing you into a room, basically something between
a museum and a library that has every Garfield product
that they've ever made. And in addition to being like,
welcome to Garfield Valhalla, don't fuck with me. It allows
the licensee to pick something off the wall and be like, oh, yeah.

(01:22:50):
So it's basically this in green. And then they're like, yeah, OK.
And then once they make the product, they will mail
it to Jim Davis. And he sits there and in
his wisdom accepts or rejects it. He says he rejects
something every day, which sucks. Seems like something he's doing

(01:23:11):
just to feel alive because it can't be that every
day there's a bad product sent in. Or maybe there is.
I don't know. It's surprising sometimes what he will approve.
There's a famous online story in 2019, a young Canadian
entrepreneur named Nathan Mosry who launched Garfield Eats, which was
like this fast, casual restaurant and app. that he was

(01:23:37):
early on the, why don't you just sign up for
an app and you'll get a deal at my restaurant,
and got a lot of attention. He was just like
a hustler, grindset guy. And for some reason in his
job as the Pope of Garfield, Jim Davis was like, yeah, sure,
I don't give a fuck. And the dark, chaotic energy

(01:23:57):
of the guy pulled him in. And as we've discovered,
he's the John Jim Davis is the John, and he's
very susceptible to a darkly chaotic Garfield. The Vice documentary
does ask him the question, like, what future archaeologists will
make of Garfield while digging through our landfills littered with

(01:24:20):
more Garfield merch than maybe any other item? And they
ask cheekily, will people think we worship Garfield? And I
guess my answer would be, we did, man. we did
worship Garfield. And lastly, I think, I think Garfield fans
are generally painted as being, you know, people who work

(01:24:40):
in HR, uh, where they're, you know, like they, they're
just like people who are like, Hmm, Mondays, it looks
like someone's got a case of the Mondays. There's some
pretty impressive devoted Garfield fans like Joey. Um, but, uh,
also Lin-Manuel Miranda is an avowed Garfield fan who wrote

(01:25:01):
a glowing prologue to his, one of his more recent
books and described Garfield as an ironic detached cat who
is mean to everyone and somehow all the more lovable
for it. Which, I don't know, Lin-Manuel Miranda's written some
pretty great anti-heroes in his time with Maui and Burr,

(01:25:23):
so I feel like that's pretty strong praise coming from him.
And then another genius Garfield fan who's in The news
as we write this, Teen Miss USA's Miss Indiana, who
one of her dresses that she wore has giant Garfield
comics from the waist down and also looks like she

(01:25:46):
killed and is wearing Garfield as a hat. So we'll
link off to that look. in the footnotes but um
very impressive work by her uh all right that is
going to do it for this garfield iconograph uh we're
back next week with another uh fictional drawing four of
them that leapt off the page and into our world

(01:26:09):
and started fucking shit up uh we got a new
app with our old friend the great christy yamaguchi main
on uh next week's iconograph more regular episodes of The
Daily Zeitgeist until then. All right. Have a good one. Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Law.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Co-produced by Victor Wright.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
Co-written by J.M.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
McNabb.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
And edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries.