Happy Birthday, Garfield is an hour-long television special dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Garfield comic strip, hosted by its creator
Jim Davis.[1] It uses both live-action and animation.
The special was first broadcast on May 17, 1988, on
CBS and February 24, 1989, on
CITV. When it comes to home video, it has only been released on
VHS in the United Kingdom.
Synopsis
The program featured the people behind the strips and animated adaptations, which include
A very brief animated short made in 1980 from The Fantastic Funnies (two years before Here Comes Garfield) by
Bill Melendez and
Lee Mendelson (well known for their Peanuts specials) featuring jokes from the strips of June 21 and August 2, 1978 and July 21, 1979.
A chat Davis has with
Dik Browne (Hägar the Horrible, Hi and Lois),
Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm) and
Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse). The last part of the program features the celebrations held for the strip's anniversary, most notably the one where fellow cartoonists drew their characters as their "presents", followed by man-in-the-street interviews about Garfield, before the camera shows him and Odie (both played by human actors) living the "good life" in
Hollywood (even Garfield takes his time to kick Odie). Finally, Davis acknowledges the audience before flying off on a Garfield-shaped
hot air balloon.