Garfield’s Halloween Adventure
Explicit content warning
10/10/19 • 80 min
1 Listener
🎃 Put out the oars and surrender yourself to the mercy of the rivers of time as they take us back to Garfield’s terrifying 1985 Halloween special.
****
🎙 Guests:
Jeff Somogyi (@sommerjam, Talkin’ Chopp).
****
💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. Jim Davis wanted ‘Garfield’s Halloween Adventure’ to ‘at least scare 4-year-olds’ (The A.V. Club, 2014).
2. Samples of the comic book adaptation, Garfield in Disguise, from Rotten Ink and Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks, including even creepier drawings of the old man and pirate ghosts.
3. The first appearance of Binky the Clown!
4. Jon’s head going through the bottom of a falling jack-o’-lantern could have killed him at worst and concussed him at best.
5. How many kids in the history of trick-or-treating got suckered into getting double the candy for their siblings?
6. The time a raccoon broke into Jeff’s attic and left a hornet’s nest inside a Nativity scene shepherd.
7. Speaking of attics, the Pink Panther advertising Owens Corning fiberglass insulation.
8. The Roy Ogle of the very random passing reference “Roy Ogle’s roots” was a plant breeder at Clemson University. They’re sweet potatoes.
9. 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.
10. If ghosts are real, as this special establishes, was the ghost of Jon’s grandfather watching all the Christmas festivities in that special?
11. C. Lindsay Workman, the voice of the old man, and also Garfield’s grandfather in Garfield on the Town, and God in Garfield: His 9 Lives.
12. The “double burn” glowing effect used on the ghosts reminds us of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence of Fantasia.
13. We had to ask: Did Garfield an Odie really survive the night, or is everything thereafter really Garfield Minus Garfield?
****
📼 Retro Commercial Break:
McDonald’s Halloween Pumpkin Pails!
****
“Garfield’s Halloween Adventure” ©1985 United Feature Syndicate, Inc./Anderson Digital.
Closing Music: Witch’s Night Out, by Razoreater, written by Peter Rochon.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.
The Advent Calendar House is on the web at adventcalendar.house, on Twitter @adventcalhouse, and part of the Christmas Podcast Network.
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.
🎃 Put out the oars and surrender yourself to the mercy of the rivers of time as they take us back to Garfield’s terrifying 1985 Halloween special.
****
🎙 Guests:
Jeff Somogyi (@sommerjam, Talkin’ Chopp).
****
💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. Jim Davis wanted ‘Garfield’s Halloween Adventure’ to ‘at least scare 4-year-olds’ (The A.V. Club, 2014).
2. Samples of the comic book adaptation, Garfield in Disguise, from Rotten Ink and Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks, including even creepier drawings of the old man and pirate ghosts.
3. The first appearance of Binky the Clown!
4. Jon’s head going through the bottom of a falling jack-o’-lantern could have killed him at worst and concussed him at best.
5. How many kids in the history of trick-or-treating got suckered into getting double the candy for their siblings?
6. The time a raccoon broke into Jeff’s attic and left a hornet’s nest inside a Nativity scene shepherd.
7. Speaking of attics, the Pink Panther advertising Owens Corning fiberglass insulation.
8. The Roy Ogle of the very random passing reference “Roy Ogle’s roots” was a plant breeder at Clemson University. They’re sweet potatoes.
9. 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.
10. If ghosts are real, as this special establishes, was the ghost of Jon’s grandfather watching all the Christmas festivities in that special?
11. C. Lindsay Workman, the voice of the old man, and also Garfield’s grandfather in Garfield on the Town, and God in Garfield: His 9 Lives.
12. The “double burn” glowing effect used on the ghosts reminds us of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence of Fantasia.
13. We had to ask: Did Garfield an Odie really survive the night, or is everything thereafter really Garfield Minus Garfield?
****
📼 Retro Commercial Break:
McDonald’s Halloween Pumpkin Pails!
****
“Garfield’s Halloween Adventure” ©1985 United Feature Syndicate, Inc./Anderson Digital.
Closing Music: Witch’s Night Out, by Razoreater, written by Peter Rochon.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.
The Advent Calendar House is on the web at adventcalendar.house, on Twitter @adventcalhouse, and part of the Christmas Podcast Network.
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.
Previous Episode
The Muppets Valentine Show
Love and dynamite are in the air as I introduce 2 guests to an early pilot of what would eventually become The Muppet Show from 1974, guest-starring a pregnant Mia Farrow.
****
🎙 Guests:
Brian Arnold (@phillyradiogeek, Me and You and a Blog Named Boo).
Joey O. (@ImGonnaDJ24, Y-Not Radio, Words with Nerds).
****
💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. The Muppets Valentine Show on YouTube.
2. Muppet Wiki on The Muppets Valentine Show.
3. Jim Henson’s Red Book entry about getting this pilot green-lit by some guy at ABC named “Mike” Eisner.
4. We quickly touch on Crazy Harry’s original incarnation as “Crazy Donald” and then immediately drop it.
5. Before Miss Piggy, Kermit loved Miss Mousey. Corporate foreshadowing!
6. George the Janitor is simultaneously UHF’s Stanley Spadowski and WWE’s Perry Saturn.
7. George and Mildred in The Muppet Show “At the Dance” sketch.
8. Droop in the Cosby Show episode, Cliff’s Nightmare.
9. The first appearance of Kermit the Frog riding a bicycle.
10. “You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.”
11. Mia Farrow sings Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms, which I remember better from the recurring Looney Tunes musical bomb gag.
12. The first time I remember hearing the word “sex.”
13. Brian on The Candy Apple News Company.
****
“The Muppets Valentine Show” © 1974 The Jim Henson Company.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.
Next Episode
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
🎄 Season 3 of the Advent Calendar House kicks off with a new regular feature: Scrooge Sunday, celebrating the many adaptations of A Christmas Carol. We begin with Disney’s 1983 featurette, marking the big-screen debut of Scrooge McDuck playing his namesake.
****
🎙 Guests:
Lizzie Twachtman (@thelizzietea, Moorage Thrift House, Random Chatter).
Adam Pope (@hojukoolander, SequelQuest, 2 Goofs, Retro-Daze, Retro Detention).
****
💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. Mickey’s Christmas Carol on Disney+.
2. Almost all of this film is hiding at the end of Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.
3. Adam’s well-preserved VHS copy.
4. A 1974 Disneyland Records LP called Dickens’ Christmas Carol, Alan Young’s first recording as the voice of Scrooge.
5. Mickey Mouse’s very detailed, fanmade family tree.
6. Siskel and Ebert’s 2 Thumbs Down review.
7. Goofy as Marley’s ghost at Disneyland.
8. Mickey’s Christmas Carol animatronic window displays in the Magic Kingdom.
9. We identify every Disney background character at Fezziwig’s party and lament the absence of Pluto from this entire thing.
10. Quick shout-outs to Totally Minnie and Disney’s DTV Romancin’ Valentine special.
11. Willie the Giant as the Ghost of Christmas Present carefully wandering through the tiny streets of London calls back to the ending scene of Fun and Fancy Free, Disney’s 1947 package film featuring Mickey and the Beanstalk, which is also on Disney+.
12. Your now-annual reminder that Pete has been a cat this entire time.
****
Mickey’s Christmas Carol ©1983 Disney.
Opening Music: Christmas Was Better in the ’80s, by The Futureheads, ©2010 Nul Records.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.
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