Happy Birthday, Garfield

Synopsis

The program featured the people behind the strips and animated adaptations, a very brief animated short made in 1980 (two years before Here Comes Garfield) by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson (more known for their Peanuts specials) featuring jokes from the strips of June 21 and August 2, 1978 and July 7, 1979, a recording session for the upcoming Garfield and Friends series (with Lorenzo Music, Gregg Berger and Thom Huge), apart from some footage from it and from Garfield's 9 Lives. Also Spanish- and German-dubbed clips of Here Comes Garfield and Garfield Goes Hollywood respectively were shown, apart from a sneak peek for the unproduced feature film Garfield's Judgment Day, a rehearsal for the theme song of Garfield's Babes and Bullets, and 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 its time to kick Odie). Finally, Davis acknowledges the audience before getting off on a Garfield-shaped hot air balloon.