Advent Calendar House - TV Holiday & Christmas Specials
TV & Film:TV Reviews
Put out the oars and surrender yourself to the mercy of the rivers of time as they take us back to the terrifying 1985 TV special, Garfield’s Halloween Adventure.
On This EpisodeMike Westfall (@fallwestmike), 110-year-old cabin boy turned living nightmare.Jeff Somogyi (@sommerjam), Talkin’ Chopp podcast co-host wearing a mask over his face depicting a perfect replica of his actual face.Topics and Tangents“Jim Davis wanted Garfield’s Halloween Adventure to ‘at least scare 4-year-olds,’” a 2014 interview with the A.V. Club with some insight into the making of this special.Samples of the comic book adaptation, called “Garfield in Disguise,” from Rotten Ink and Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks, including even creepier drawings of the old man and pirate ghosts.The first appearance of Binky the Clown!Jon’s head going through the bottom of a falling jack-o’-lantern could have killed him at worst and concussed him at best.We ponder how many kids in the history of trick-or-treating got suckered into getting double the candy for their siblings.The time a raccoon broke into Jeff’s attic and left a hornet’s nest inside a Nativity scene shepherd.Speaking of attics, here’s the Pink Panther advertising Owens Corning fiberglass insulation, in example.The Roy Ogle of the very random passing reference “Roy Ogle’s roots” was a plant breeder at Clemson University. Those are sweet potatoes in Jon’s attic.The black cat pajamas may be a callback to the killer panther from 1984’s Garfield in the Rough, another good special to put on if you want to give your kids nightmares.If ghosts are real, as this special establishes, was the ghost of Jon’s grandfather watching all the Christmas festivities in that special?A commercial break featuring McDonald’s Halloween Pumpkin pails in memory of my dearly departed original McPunk’n, which I’d kept for 20 years but later cracked during my move to Florida.C. Lindsay Workman, the voice of the old man, previously appeared as Garfield’s grandfather in Garfield on the Town, and later as the voice of God in Garfield: His 9 Lives.The “double burn” glowing effect used on the ghosts reminds us of the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence of Fantasia.We had to ask: Did Garfield an Odie really survive the night, or is everything thereafter really Garfield Minus Garfield?Previous Episodes of This Podcast ReferencedSeason 2, Episode 6: A Garfield Christmas SpecialSeason 1, Bonus: Witch’s Night OutGarfield’s Halloween Adventure, ©1985 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. / Anderson Digital.
Closing Music: Witch’s Night Out, by Razoreater, written by Peter Rochon.
The Advent Calendar House is on the web at adventcalendar.house, on Twitter @adventcalhouse, and part of the Christmas Podcast Network.
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