Garfield is one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the entire world, standing up against the likes of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. His fame and name have put the overweight tabby in the spotlight for decades now, including a recent animated movie with Chris Pratt voicing the character. Garfield’s animated adventures began in 1982, but it’s his quest for candy that many kids still remember today. Not because it had an engaging plot or quotable jokes (athough it did), but Garfield’s Halloween Adventure is notorious for sneaking in some of the biggest scares and legitimate creeps that one could get away with on a show aimed at 4-8 year old children.
Debuting on October 30, 1985, Garfield’s fourth animated outing was surprisingly scary considering its main cast was a sarcastic cat and a drooling dog. It lived on for many years as a seasonal repeat on CBS’ October line-up, but everybody who saw it always remembers their first time the best. It was almost like a bait and switch, where we expected something cute and humorous, and instead had nightmares wondering about what just happened to our favorite cartoon cat. If Garfield’s Halloween Adventure isn’t part of your spooktacular viewing for the scary season, we’ve got a few reasons why it should be something both kids and adults can enjoy.
Garfield’s Halloween Adventure focuses on our titular feline gearing up for a night of grabbing free candy from his neighbors, informing viewers that lasagna isn’t the only motivating factor in getting this cat out of bed. He and Odie dress up as pirates to blend in with the kiddies and Trick or Treat around town. Not once does the special explain how people hear either of these animals speaking despite their mouths never moving, or why nobody seems to question a cat and dog blending in with costumed humans. My biggest concern is somebody giving Odie a chocolate bar, but since they are cartoons, we can overlook that for now.
After a successful evening of candy hunting, Garfield greedily decides to trek across a nearby river to the other side of town, hoping to increase his candy horde. This is where the cartoon starts to take a turn to the dark side, shifting from the big orange cat’s funny antics into something more grim. The duo finally reach unfamiliar land and the front steps of a dilapidated house. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing at first, as the animals walk into what seems to be a deserted (and totally not haunted) house, complete with a warm living room and a cozy fire. As they warm themselves by the hearth, a sudden jump scare introduces us to the old man in the chair who has been watching them this entire time, telling them the secret of the island they are currently exploring.
The old man explains how pirates buried treasure somewhere on this very island 100 years ago, and this Halloween night marks the moment when they will return from the dead to collect. Garfield is dubious about this claim, until a flash of lightning makes the old man disappear from the room. Across the water, a spectral pirate ship floats towards the house, and within seconds our heroes have a crew of angry ghost pirates to contend with. After narrowly making their escape, Garfield and Odie return home to enjoy their candy, wrapping up their story with a twist ending that we wouldn’t want to spoil for you!
The network censors were extremely concerned this Halloween special was going to be too scary for younger viewers, but Garfield creator Jim Davis fought hard to keep his vision from falling apart like a rotten pumpkin. Many compromises were made along the way, such as allowing the ghosts to be spooky but they couldn’t do anything threatening to the living characters, nor could any other characters to do anything that put them beyond the world of cartoon slapstick and into something that could be imitated as physical abuse. But ultimately, the battles were worth it, and Davis ended up with something he was happy with, including a visit to a haunted house.
“I wanted to start it with something very familiar,” Jim Davis explained in an interview with the AV Club in 2014. “Garfield going into the day being Garfield with the “candy, candy, candy”—going out trick-or-treating, things like that. Then I wanted to turn it. I wanted to go somewhere that would at least scare 4-year-olds. The only way I could do that was to get [Garfield and Odie] away from the house and the neighborhood—so that’s what the boat represented: if they lost control and then the boat took them somewhere else. Wherever they end up, it’s going to be a lot more believable than it would be if it was in Garfield’s house.”
Most kids who grew up watching Garfield’s Halloween Adventure remember the final segment with the creepy old man. The way he was drawn was a stark contrast compared to the typical animation style of Garfield, and this was done on purpose by Davis to make him feel even more menacing than he already was. Animation was done in-house in Davis’ Indiana-based production studio so they could have better control of achieving their scarier than usual visual effects. Today, adding a glow around a ghost is a few clicks of a mouse, but it required many more tricks in 1985, and the animation crew worked tirelessly to make Davis’ dream of a Garfield nightmare come to life. Even the sound and music needed special attention, including a thumping heartbeat during the encounter with the old man that elevated the tension to a place that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud.
Garfield’s Halloween Adventure has endured through the internet and home releases, but those who grew up watching this on TV’s with bunny ear antenna were forever changed by how jarring and unsettling that final ghost story was. If my therapist wonders why I have trust issues, I can blame it on Jim Davis for making me think I was watching a cute cartoon about Garfield going Trick or Treating, and instead went to sleep with a boatload of mild trauma. For many younger kids growing up in the 80’s, this special might have been their first taste of what a jump scare was like. If somebody had told them Garfield was going to be responsible for that, they would have never believed you if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes.
Do you remember watching Garfield’s Halloween Adventure when it first came out, and were you creeped out by the final segment? Let us know your Garfield memories in the comments below.
