The Daily Zeitgeist - Icon #35 - Garfield: The Cat, Not The President

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

In this edition of The Iconograph, Jack and special guest co-host Blake Wexler are joined by writer/comedian Joey Clift to talk about the only icon to be routinely found stuck to the inside of people’s car windows: Garfield! They’ll explore his creator Jim Davis, his staunchly apolitical rise to fame, how he may have perpetrated 9/11 and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dirtyly Zeitgeist. Which we're calling the iconograph instead of looking at the Zikeyes through current events. On Monday mornings, we're looking at the Zikeyes through the powerful pop cultural deities that are our icons. I'm Jack O'Brien, one of the founders of crack.com. And this week we're talking about one of the most profoundly iconic and I'd say diffusely iconic characters. He's everywhere if you're looking for him. And yet he's so omnipresent that he's kind of easy to not see.

In addition to lasagna, he loves donuts, hamburgers, pizza, and coffee, posing the horrendous question of what it must be like to clean the litter box of a cat that eats lasagna. and drinks coffee. He hates Mondays, though he's never worked a day in his life, which raises the question, does he hate them because he has an E.T. like bond with John? Or does he, as I suspect,

hate Mondays for us? That when we look back over a lifetime of Mondays and see only one set of footprints in the sand, it's because our today's icon was carrying us. This did give me, like with our dude from Big Lobowski episode,

episode. The research for this episode led me to believe that today's icon is a powerful and important philosophical figure for America over the last 50 years, sort of a necessary release valve to the American religion of achievement spanning the yuppie 80s to the modern grindset mindset. He's probably our most powerful patron saint of laziness. We're talking Garfield today. I'm thrilled to be joined in our second seat by today's special guest co-host, a very funny stand-up comedian. He only did this episode because he thought it was being made by one of the Cohen brothers. It's Blake Wexler!

This is Blake Wexler, aka Charles Gutow, a con man with mental illness. His bullet gave Garfield sepsis. Oh, I'm sorry, we're talking about the cat. I'm so sorry. You did so much preparation for the other Garfield. I have all these gutto facts and I fuck this. Tengentially, Guto will come up. We'll talk Guto.

Don't worry. He's the next week's icon. We're doing Garfield and Charles Guto. Charles Guto. In our third seat, a brilliant TV writer, performer, enrolled member of the Calitz Indian tribe who's written on shows for Nickelodeon Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, the Netflix animated series, Spirit Rangers. His interest in Garfield is what made me interested in doing this episode.

episode in the first place. I'm sorry. He communicated telepathically without moving his mouth for the first 10 years of his life. It's Joey Klee. Yeah. How's going, everybody? I usually do an AKA followed by a song, but this being a different kind of episode totally threw me off. So three seconds ago, I was panic Googling the lyrics to espresso by Sabrina Carpenter. It'd be like, oh, fuck, can I like make this about Garfield? Garfield loving coffee. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's about, okay, so just pretend that I did a really great parody of Sabrina Carpenter's espresso, but about how much Garfield drinks coffee or whatever. There we go. We did it. There it is. It's done. Switch. Um, it's, so those are two facts. I like to mix in a fact about Garfield and a fact about, uh, into my introductions of, uh, you guys and, uh,

thinking, uh, doing a thing, because they thought was being made by the Cohn brothers. refers to, uh, Bill Murray, as we'll get to. He thought, he thought the, uh, uh, Garfield movie was written by Joel Cohen. And then Garfield, I rewatched an old special that I watched as a kid with my kids. It was the Garfield Halloween special. Oh, I just rewatch that too. And he's talking without moving his mouth. And my kids were like, what the fuck is going on? And I was like, well, of course it's because he speaks in the strip with thought, thought bubbles. That's what we're hearing is his thoughts. And so. So they were like, so ergo, like, therefore, we'll just have him speak without moving his mouth.

But it is weird. And finally they were like, fuck it. He's just going to start moving his mouth because it doesn't really make sense otherwise. Fun fact about the Garfield Halloween special. There's actually a point in that special where he, where a Lorenzo music very loudly screams, oh, fuck on microphone. Really? Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's like near the end, when he, when Garfield, no, he gets scared and run out of the house.

He just screams like, oh, fuck. But it's like kind of low in the. thing. It rocks. Yeah. They have very good reason to be scared because they're being chased by pirate ghosts. They're very dark. There's a lot of darkness underlying Garfield, as we'll get into. I would say of the two categories I mentioned earlier, looking for Garfield or not,

I was in the not category. I was more of a Farside guy growing up, which, by the way, when Gary Larson quit at the height of Farside, that strip was bringing in $50 million a year. 500 million dollars a year. In 2014, which is years after I would have assumed Garfield Peak, Garfield was still bringing in 750 to $1,750 million to $1 billion. Unreal. Yeah.

And it was like that basically from the start. Garfield hit the streets like Bieber. He was invented in 1978 by 1982. He had made the fastest leap from one, from zero. to 1,000 newspapers in comic history, it took Peanuts 20 years to reach 1,000 papers. Maybe one of the reasons Charles Schultz hated Jim Davis.

In 1980, Ballantene Books published the first Garfield Collection, Garfield at large, and not only was that first book at the top of the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list for almost two years, by 1982, seven of the 15

books on the New York Times, bestseller list were Garfield book like two years after. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, we're at a point now where I feel like in some states you can get sworn in for public office not on a Bible but on a Garfield book. It's just as whole late.

Also, one thing I wanted to clarify really quick that I think is so funny is this is not an icon episode for Jim Davis. Fuck that guy. This is an icon episode for Garfield. Garfield, the man. Yeah. Because, I mean, some of my favorite stuff that's been created about Garfield is

the I'm sorry John subreddit. Oh, truly, yeah. Garfield minus Garfield. But yeah, I mean, I do feel like, you know, I feel like he was born almost involuntarily by Jim Davis. Like, the strip was originally called John. And someone had to be like, Jim, maybe you should make the comic about the cat that is serving, cunt and completely unforgettable. Like, nailing every punchline.

We talked... You know Batman was originally just called Bruce Wayne's dad? And then they were like, maybe you should focus actually on the vigilante fighting crime dressed as a bat. Bruce Wayne's dad. Not just a real short strip. Every one was just that scene where they get shot in the alleyway. We need to build this world a little bit.

Yeah. But I do like we talk with the podcast of other worlds, Jack Wagner. talked to him about, like, people who, uh, tell stories of, like, involuntarily conjuring some demonic character through a Ouija board. Um, and like, I, I don't believe those are actually demons. I think they're, these are like coming from the unconscious world, but like once they've been created and people believe in them, they have a sort of power. I feel like Garfield is like a powerful figure that like came from Jim Davis's unconscious and like brought into our, world just this deep, I don't know, there's like a darkness, but like also just, I think, a very

necessary, like, honoring of laziness and cuntiness and something that just like everybody finds undeniable in a very powerful way. I do think he's like a spiritual figure for a lot of people in America. Oh, yeah, he is my personal Jesus for sure. Yeah. Something I think is so funny about Garfield. And I think about this a lot with like old kind of comic and cartoon characters like at is there's a point where Garfield was like punk. There's a point where Garfield was like counterculture. In the same way, there was a point where like the Simpsons was counterculture and now it's kind of everywhere.

And it's like, it's so funny to think about how bland the 70s were. If somebody that was just like, you know what? Dieting kind of sucks. Yeah. You know what? Maybe no to dieting. Yeah. Or just like, you know what?

I hate going to work. And everybody's just like, you can't say that. Dude. My boss is going to be so mad that you just said that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It does key into a part of the human soul. Like, like, sloth is such a big part of us.

And, like, all we really want to do, you know? And I think that's why people identify with Garfield so much. And then I've seen it, this is a weird comparison, but, like, almost the antithesis of that, seeing gritty, the Flyers mascot, people are, like, identify with him so much or them because they are, like, this chaos agent. And people love, hey, sometimes I'm just going to fucking throw a chaos. somebody's face or whatever. And it's like, and they're both fluffy and like an off yellow color, which they have that in common as well. But no, you are right.

Like sloth is just so fun. Like overeating so fun. Being a brat is sick. You know, like we all pretend you like people. Yeah. Yeah. He's like always kicking a tiny yellow dog off a table. Rocks.

You all want to do. We all want to do it. Thursday. Yeah. So, all right, we are going to dip into Jim Davis's life real quick, and then we'll get into the evolution of course. Boring. Okay. Born July 28, 1945 in Marion, Indiana, and grew up on a beef and grain farm in Fairmont, Indiana.

Also where James Dean was born, very similar figures, James Dean, to the two gyms. Inside you, there are two gyms. dozens of cats lived on the family farm. Sometimes people cited as 25, but... Did he feed them lasagna? It's a good question. He says eventually that he kind of modeled Garfield after his grandparents' house cats.

Like, he describes them as cats who have chairs in the house. That's good. But he said, if you don't learn cat habits and personalities from that experience, you aren't paying attention. And I do feel like Garfield has the best like

sort of transposition, like personality of my experience with actual cats, which is that they're like not, they're like kind of annoyed by your presence unless it comes to yeah.

And also lazy, you know, and like food. He, he went to Ball State University at the same time as David Letterman and Joyce DeWitt. So Ball State University is just a powerhouse of culture at that time. So I have a small story there.

While he was at Ball State, he actually got a friend of mine's mom kicked out of her apartment. Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, like, I think that there was like a, I heard this kind of like secondhand, but there was like a house party happening at Ball State. And the people that were staying in this house had like,

there was like a, you know, a door that presumably people who own the house kind of stored all our stuff in. So there was a big sign on it saying, like, if you're renting this house, you can't go into this room. And let's just say, Jim Davis really wanted to know it was in that room and broke into the room and it got my friend's mom kicked out of the apartment. Davis. Yeah, so Jim Davis, he's a little shit too. Yeah, might be a little bit of a scam. He dropped out of college frequently jokes that he earned one of the lowest cumulative grade point averages in the history of the university. That's not funny. That's not, you know what? My grades aren't funny.

That's not funny. So that's not something you should joke around about. You see David Letterman making those jokes? No, he would never. He would never, actually. He would never ever do that. Sorry, Jack. Go ahead.

I had to step in for a second. Have you seen him with pencils? He's a pencil guy. It's a good student. Yeah. Yeah, that's why he has the pencil behind his ear. To honor his education history. That's right.

He won the 1976. I found this interesting. He won the 1970s. Indiana Theater League's best actor award for playing Will Stockdale. So in the same way that Shakespeare was an actor that like then went on to write and create from various points of view.

He like, he kind of did a single character and was satisfied with that, which is what he ended up doing in his career. He, his first strip that was like for public consumption was Norm Nat, G-N-O-R-M-G-N-A-T, about a group of insects that appeared in Indiana's Pendleton Times starting in 1973

and it was unpopular it's not the best drawn thing I'm calling up one norm Nat strip I've never heard of this okay one panel is it says Norm Nat for mayor on the left strip and then there's one character saying how will you curb over a population and then Norm Nat's responses

I will reinstate capital punishment. Second panel, other character than that's not Norm Nat. That won't make a difference. Norm Nat just kind of looks at him angry. And then the third panel is Norm Nat saying, for parking violations? Okay. Garfield was originally pronounced R-field,

because Jim Davis loves a silent G. Is there anything worse than a silent phone? fucking G in general. It's so ugly. It is ugly. I will say like the strip is kind of ugly. Partially it's that the characters are all bugs. But like,

Davis throughout his career is like, I'm not good at drawing. He kind of credits with like being part of Garfield's power. Like Garfield is easy to draw and therefore, you know, easy to recreate. And like in the same way that like musicians will be like hit songs tend to be like simpler songs that are easy to hum and easy to sing like i i wonder if

there's something like mickey mouse is another example yeah mickey mouse is like three circles you know um and so characters that a fourth grader can easily draw uh might be easier to like make iconic can go viral. Even his yearbook talks about him as an artist because he like submitted comics for his yearbook that weren't very good.

But the yearbook was like this is the quote about him. If this lad develops his artistic skill, his drawings will take care of any big bill. So they're like, yeah. What was that said? Like the 1920s or something?

I know. What an old-timey way to describe that? Hot damn. But yeah, we'll get into the invention of Garfield, but one interesting detail about Davis is once he becomes successful with Garfield, he never leaves Indiana. In 1987, Forbes estimated his annual income was $31 million, and he's still in Indiana. A researcher for this episode, Meredith Danko took a trip to, she's in Indiana and took a trip to Fairmont to the, quote, James Dean Museum. including Garfield and Fairmont history. Oh, God, I have to go there.

It's mainly James Dean, but we've somehow... Wait, can you do weddings there? Can I get married there? Only in the Garfield part, not the James Dean part. You got a book way out, but I think you still have time. Oh, thank God. The guy was like, oh, you're a Garfield person and was like a little scared. No, I'm just like doing this. She's like, oh, sorry, Garfield.

People are very in time. tense, but the guy did say that Jim Davis stops by the museum every once in a while. It's just like, ah, it's my museum. Like, drops off stuff that they might find interesting. Yeah, he doesn't take his garbage to the dump. He just drops up the museum. It's like, hey, you want a bunch of yogurt containers? Yeah.

It is interesting that he kept that money. Like, I feel like so many of these stories about artists early on are them getting fucked by like, oh, you know, they only kept like X amount of like they like signed a bad contract or something, but he was just getting $31 million a year and with no overhead whatsoever, you know? Very little overhead. And then he does grow pause ink into a bit of a jug or not. But even then, it's like a handful of employees.

It's not like, you know. Yeah. I think about that sometimes about how just like crazy rich, like successful comic strip people were in the 90s. Like Bill Waterson, I Googled him recently and it's like his net worth is like $100 million dollars or something like that. And he has not worked since 1994, you know? Yeah. But yeah, I do wonder how, like, if it was actually, he kind of talks about it, like, you know, I like to visit friends. I like to fish. I like to work primarily, like in terms of

just, you know, staying in Indiana. He's like, just the business of getting on with life is just very easy here. There are no hassles. We have to have a sense of humor to live here. I wonder if it is helpful for him to like stay bored and in the middle of the country to do a strip that like is as accessible and broad as Garfield is, you know, the like the only thing to do there are like very basic human experiences of like eating, drinking, visiting with people. Normally I disagree with you, but seeing, uh, how insane, uh, his college comic strips are, uh, Norm Nat for mayor, I'm like, no, that guy's got to stay in the small town. Yeah, he's got to take his foot off the gas.

Yeah. I will just say, Indiana was having a hell of an 80s. Michael Jackson, Jim Davis, David Letterman. But Michael Jackson and Jim Davis's career, I'm just saying like Garfield becomes syndicated. It's 78 right around the time of off the wall. And then like they both own the 80s. And then Axel Rose also Indiana. So just.

Bobby Knight. probably was around there. Bobby Knight was probably in there somewhere. Strangling kids. Yes. So he was unsuccessful in pitching Norm Nat to other papers. Newspaper syndicates were getting tens of thousands of submissions from hopeful cartoonists a year and taking one or two. He finally got the advice he needed.

A syndicate editor said, the gags are great. The art's good, but bugs, nobody can relate. That turned on the light, which is a trend we'll see throughout where, like, Like, the insights that come to him are like very basic, which is like simple but powerful. Um, so he ends Norm Nat in 1975, um,

by having his titular main character killed, uh, by a giant foot that comes out of this guy. Good bit. That's, it's a good bit. Joe, you wouldn't change that.

You would keep, you would keep it as this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No punchups, no notes. Um,

and he says, so he says, he he's like, all right, I'm going to develop a strip that would be good and marketable. What if I did one that was good and marketable? And he looks at the successful comics of the time, quote, I took a long, hard look at the comics and I thought dogs are doing really well. Snoopy, Marmaduke, Fred Bassett, lots of dogs, no cats. I thought, ha, if people like dogs in the comics, maybe people would like cats.

He does seem, in his quote, sometimes a little manic. I don't know. that's just my interpretation. He's chewing on a pencil rabidly whenever he speaks. But Meredith points out that like cats were some of the most popular

newspaper comic strip characters of the 20th century. But like crazy cat and Felix the comic the comic strip began in 1923 but I think was still running Sylvester the cat Tom from Tom and Jerry.

But the big one just kidding. the big one I think that is worth raising here is Heathcliff debuted in 1973 Heathcliff is an orange cat who

an orange striped cat that's like it is like a hydrox Oreo situation where there was an orange cat with stripes in very similar comics

that people it's kind of miraculous that people aren't like well you know how Garfield was ripping off Heathcliff, but everyone was just like, no, we like this guy. We like this guy so much better. Yeah.

Yeah, it is like, I do see that a lot in that people will say like, oh, clearly, like Heathbuff stole everything from Garfield. And it's like, no, no, that's the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta say modern Heathcliff is so fun if you all haven't read modern Heathcliff. It's become this like weird dada comedy thing. There's a character called the Garbage Ape, who like,

Chargabbit, Ham Helmets. Yeah. How much to just say the thing that Heathcliff likes on it? Yeah. The logic is very hard to parse, but it is, I definitely treat yourself and read a Heathcliff comic if you not in a while. Yeah. He's also like kind of a cool cat where Garfield is like a cat cat.

He's like a grump and unimpressed by you. And like, Heathcliff is is a little too like try hard. Like he's, there's one comic where he's, I'll put in the chat where he's like playing the radio for his owner and it says due to heavy snowfall the following schools will be closed for today and like so he's just like being helpful he's just doing the thing that his owner would want him to do whereas like Garfield would be yeah yeah Garfield would be like pranking his own you know Garfield doesn't sunny out and it would be the person's job and they would get fired from their job for not showing up because of the fake snow yeah yeah I think that a big

difference between the character is is that Heathcliff owns a leather jacket and Garfield doesn't own a single jacket. Yeah. No clothes. Yeah. Heathcliff is definitely like cool. And like I think like I truly do believe that having a character at this moment be pro laziness at a time when like that hippies had their run and hippies were like coming to an end and like hippies were like, uh, you know, let's be chill and like not be part of the machine man.

and everyone's like, fuck hippies. Let's like move on. But you still needed a world where you could reject the official like corporate sloganeering and like mainstream culture. It was just like created a mainstream, you know, thing that you could use to reject mainstream culture in some way. So I guess what you're saying is that Heathcliff fucks is what you're saying. Heathcliff fucks.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Garfield might. maybe a little bit. Yeah. Has that ever, I'm not that familiar with the strip.

Has that ever been a story? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was that 1980s, 1989 was a wild time where Chip Davis really did Garfield fucks a lot of art. That's why he's so tired.

It is interesting that both Garfield and Heathcliff have like kind of been anti, like had this anti-comedy like, uh, alt comedy afterlife where it's like,

uh, you did talk about the Heathcliff strip recently on T. easy and like how weird it's become. But, uh, you know, Garfield, as we'll get to has had like Garfield minus Garfield and, uh, a subreddit called I'm sorry John that is like takes things in a very lovecraftian direction. Yeah. What Heathcliff is now is like if the main Garfield strip just was, I'm sorry, John, where it's just like, where it's not, it's not like, it's not like fans doing it. It's just canon. Oh, I guess that what if, what if Heathcliff was a maniac?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. kind of a lot of fun. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back and talk about where Garfield got his name from. We'll be right back. That's the worst tease ever. You've been really sharp today until that point, actually.

You've been really like the intros were great. Yeah. What character is he got his name from? I don't know. A president? Yeah, he got his name from his grandfather was named after a president. Oh, shit. That was worth waiting back to the end's for.

The most tragic president. I will know. Are we back? We'll be right back. I hope we're back. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies?

Will the pasto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.za for details and to check availability.

Bell, connection is everything. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me? Can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head? How about we flip the script? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott.

This entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you.

I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, it's so stupid. Everyone's so dumb except for you. And fake.

Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the message. reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people. smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is

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Oh, man. People have been on the edge of their seats during the ad break. How did he get his name? How did he get his name going from? He's straight with us. Named his cat character after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis, himself named after President James Jacobsfield. Yeah.

Oh, sorry. Worth the way. President Jefferson Davis. Yeah. Abraham Lincoln. I did keep coming again. You know, when you Google Garfield or like search for books on Garfield. you get a lot of a lot on the president.

It is just, again, in keeping with this very benign character, who I think represents, like, the most mainstream comedy to a lot of people that there's, like, a darkness underlying it. Garfield, the president, was tragically shot, shot to death, but then, like, stabbed with unsterilized medical equipment for 80 days until he succumbed to his infection. I mean, because we know how Norm the number, that ended. I think I know how the Garfield

Strip's gonna get. He gets shot by Nirmal and then stab unsterized. It wasn't the bullet that killed Garfield. The cat. It was sterile. It was poor medical. Liz, the veterinarian, didn't wash your hands.

John's love interest, Liz. By the way, that show Death by Lightning, the Garfield, like the James Garfield show, I don't know if you say, it's one of the best, it's such a good show. it's so fucking funny. It's on Netflix, too,

where, like, Nick Offerman's in it. It's just so fun. It's so good. It's so good. Wait, it's James Garfield, the president? Is that true? Is that, hold on. Death by Lightning.

Did I get it wrong? There's a very strong chance. Yeah, did you make this? Oh, no. Okay, I was about to say, did you make this up? Or you never heard of this? No, no, no, no.

That's so, by the way, that's so scary because I've been doing that so much lately where I've imagined a thing, and it's not, It could have been about like JFK or so like not even close to that era. But no, it is James Garfield. And highly, highly, like Matthew McFadden plays Charles Guteau. And it's, it's so good.

Like Nick Offerman's Chester, Arthur, who's just like a drunk and like not good at anything. It's fantastic. Everybody was drunk. Because like that's something that gets left out of like Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln should have acknowledged that everybody was hammered the whole time. Yeah. Not a lot of people know this. water wasn't invented until 1905. Yeah.

The water that they had was killing everybody. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. So he invents John, the strip John, and then soon after, changes the DeGarfield. It's in the Pendleton Times for two years, just not doing shit. And then it debuts in syndication in 1978 in 41 American newspapers. Two years later, it's everywhere.

one month after his debut, Garfield first mentions his love of lasagna, calling it nature's most perfect food. John Davis was like, or Jim Davis was like, cats do like lasagna. So I guess the joke's on me. With all that meat and cheese, it makes sense.

Wait, also, does Jim Davis think that lasagna's a plant? Yeah. Nature's most perfect food? I think it's a bit. I think it's a bit. If I had to guess, I think it's Garfield be a bit of a rat.

Oh, old Jimbo's pulling our leg. And by the way, the first Italian didn't move to Indiana until 1970. So it's amazing. It had just been discovered. Yeah. Indiana had just discovered lasagna. It was pretty recent. He says he is a lasagna lover and his go-to recipe is the classic good housekeeping recipe in keeping with what you're saying.

Well, we only know one type of lasagna. It's the one from the good housekeeping. So just to be clear, Garfield and Jim Davis's cats are taking crazy shits. My cats do love lasagna. It's like, yeah, man. That's why we don't feed it to them. Yeah. I mean, I think the alderner, it's true.

I think that if a cat is eating a lot of cheese, they're probably taking no shit. Right. It's the opposite. It's even scarier. As for how he writes it, I just want to describe his method here real. quick. This is from Jim Davis. I'm excited about this. When I write, I watch Garfield in my head like I'm watching a TV set. I put them up a tree. I have them in a boat or staring out a window. And then I just watch him. And I ask myself, what would he do? Where would they go? And I just watch

until something funny happens. Then I back up three minutes, three frames and cut it off. It's like, have you ever heard like Cormac McCarthy talk about how when he wrote the road, it was just like dictated to him by the of God. What? Yeah. He's just like it's a, a voice just started telling me that story and I just start writing it down. There are like some creative people who like have that experience of it's just like, yeah, it's a thing that's happened in my head all the time and I just kind of look at it.

It's like, you can kill someone with a flare gun. Producer Catherine's like, it's an imaginary friend. Or more like a hallucination of, he, his, his, his, his thoughts. are so, like, you can see the accessibility of Garfield in the way he speaks as well, where it's, it's so uncomplicated. And, like, that's not an insult. It's just, this is how I, this is how I do it. There's no twist. There's no, you know, like snobbery to it. He's very, yeah, I mean, like, Garfield has all the snobbery, like, in his character. But, like, other than that, it is, like, very refreshing to be like, yeah, I just, I just think about it,

really. I just picture it. And then I do it. Yeah, I just picture. it and then it happens and then I'm like oh that was good the thing that just happened in my brain and then I go back three frames yeah and I write it down speaking of the like Garfield snobbery uh versus like kind of his energy um that just that seems to be the energy that like surround he's always in like for some reason there's a frost Nixon style interview between Walter Shapiro and Jim Davis. Like in 1982, Garfield's like fly like just flying high.

It's just become fastest to a thousand papers. Seven of the 15 paperbacks on the New York Times bestseller list. And I just want to read some excerpts from this. Davis is describing how he tries to like keep the strip accessible to everyone. He's like, it's a conscious effort to include everyone as readers. If you were to mention the football strike, you're going to be excluding everyone else in the world that doesn't watch pro football.

And so he's like, I don't use rhyming gags, plays on words, in an effort to make Garfield apply to virtually any society where he may appear in an effort to keep the gags broad, the humor general, and applicable to everyone. I deal mainly with eating and sleeping. That applies to everyone anywhere. And then Shapiro goes, don't I hear him what you're saying the word lowest common denominator? And Davis is like, yeah, well, I don't. mean, I distill everything. Garfield art is very, very simple. Nothing distracts the eyes. When Jim Davis does it, it's not illegal or whatever. There's as few words as possible. Garfield's expressions are very carefully drawn. There's not much space that we've only got about three inches

by seven inches, Shapiro, but there are cartoonists who fill it with a lot more than you do. Like, what's his problem? Drag her, honey. by the way Walter Shapiro Walter Shapiro is a like new Republic Washington Post writer and speech writer for Jimmy Carter

who's like coming in and being like I read all your Garfields and I've got like some shit some shit to tell you buddy it is ironic that Jim Davis talks about his process the way that Jay Leno

talks about comedy and he went to college with David Letterman is like the antithesis of that You know, like silly, you know, smart, edgy. Not that Garfield doesn't that. But yeah, it is interesting. As we'll get to.

Oh, we said. Yeah, Garfield fucks is what we're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Just from later in the interview, Davis. Garfield can do a lot of comments that I don't think a shallower character could do. He seems to be getting more depth to his character every day. Shapiro, forgive me.

I read the strip daily in the post and I'm not sure I see the depth. Yikes. And Jim Davis is like, okay, maybe there's a, the character's a bit static, but then all at once, a tiny little aspect of his personality. He just, he just like stays positive, and he's like, look, yeah, I kind of suck at art, but anyways. Did you lay off? Jesus Christ.

Yeah, did this end with Jim Davis just beating the shit out of this guy? No, it ended with him just being John Arbuckle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wait, question. Did this interview happen on a Monday? It's entirely possible that it did. And then Shapiro is.

completely embodying the character of Garfield, which he clearly is. All right. So we're going to go through some iconic notable Garfield strips. I'm going to give you the first one from syndication in the chat. Garfield used to look like shit. Garfield really evolved over time. He was big and jowly and hunched over. And the strip just says, hi there.

I'm John Arbuckleist and this is my cat Garfield and Garfield says, hi there, I'm Garfield. I'm a cat and this is my cartoonist, John. And then John says, our only thought is to entertain you and Garfield says, feed me. It's cute. Good bit, good bit. Yeah, good bit.

All right. Next, I'm going to show you a strip from September 10th, 2001. The day before 9-11. I love that. Has John Arbuckle picking up the phone saying, he what? and Garfield's just sitting there looking unimpressed. And then John said,

could you hold on for a moment? I have another call coming in. Thanks. Boop. Pee, what? Even, an even bigger, what?

An even more crazy face. And then Garfield says, I've been a busy boy. Oh, I don't like that. So, a question about this. I know that the date on it is September 10th,

but didn't it print on September 11th? I believe it did. Oh, my God. came out on 9-11 and it's got John getting two pieces of very bad news right on top of each other. Tomic-al, Jim Davis, you topical little bear. I just love the idea of Garfield looking at the camera and saying, I've been a busy bull-have-be about 9-11, about planning and executing 9-11. May 30th, 1990, take it a back, a smidge.

there's a comic where John appears to drink semen at the vet Yeah, specifically talk to. Let's skip this one. Let's skip this. I don't think we have to look at this one. Let's skip this. It's very graphic.

He says, have a cup of coffee, John. Why thanks? Don't mind if I do. He's like having a fun conversation with himself. Immediately pulls something off the vet's table and takes a long swig from it. And then the vet, his love interest, Liz says, congratulations Mr. Arbuckle. You're going to give birth to a fine, healthy litter of puppies,

at which point he looks like he's going to throw up. Jim Davis actually has been asked about this trip so many times that he went on record to say it is not dog com. But yes, I know. And he did use the word tom, by the way, which he thought was crazy. It wasn't guzzling dog. Don't worry, guys.

Yeah, I got you. Guzzling, a big mouth. full of dog come. Yeah, his explanation is on the farm we used to give first calf heifers a high protein supplement to help them deliver healthier calves.

The supplement was provided by our vet. I assume that there would be a similar supplement for dogs. So John is drinking a protein-enrich drink formulated for a pregnant dog. I will say, I don't think that subtext is all present in the script. Whatever happened to the accessibility of this fucking cartoon?

It's saying something that no one knows. No one knows that. Yeah. Nobody else can relate to planning 9-11, Jim Davis. Why that's not accessible? You're going to give birth to a fine, healthy litter of puppies after you drank something is, I don't know. I think it speaks for itself, Jim. And then there is the week of October 23rd, 1989 that I think is one of the most interesting runs of,

of any pop culture thing that I've ever seen because it's so kind of out of line with what Garfield usually does. Do you know this? Joey, are you familiar with? Hey, what is this?

This is the one where, okay, so it opens. Bur, there's a chill in here this morning. What an eerie sensation. And Garfield wakes up and goes to a glowing yellow door and says, this doesn't feel like my home. And it says to be continued, the next day.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. John, Odie, anybody home? And he's, like, walking around a completely empty house. And then he thinks, I'm alone. And then there's just a voice of God narration that comes in and says, you have no idea how alone you are, Garfield. Okay. Moving on to Wednesday's strip.

Steady Garfield, there must be a good reason why the house is empty. John must be at the grocery. pull out to the outside of the house and the house is abandoned and boarded it up and it says for sale and Garfield is in the window. Yeah, and then Thursday, Garfield is shot and then operated on with unclean cartooning.

Garfield next day. My home has been abandoned. No one has lived here for years. That means I haven't lived here for years. What's that? And you hear something in the other room runs towards it. John Odie, you're home.

And then John says, Hello, Garfield, have some food. And he reaches up and the food like disappears. And he finds himself in like a dilapidated, like abandoned room in the house. And it says, Locked fast within a time when he no longer exists. Garfield grapples with his greatest fear. Loneliness.

Yep. All super relatable. Everybody gets it. The final one. The final day. After years of taking life for granted, Garfield is shaken by a horrifying vision of the inevitable process called time.

He has only one weapon. And then it says, he has only one weapon. Denial. And he says, I don't want to be alone. And then suddenly John and Odie are back. And they say, want some breakfast, Garfield? And he says, who needs it?

I need you. So that implies that John and Odie are. And then there's like a long, thing, an imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice or terrify,

all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today. The end. That's the end. That's the end. And it's the so it says he has only one weapon denial and that's what brings Odie and John back. So it implies that

everything that has ever happened and will ever happen in Garfield, takes place in Garfield's mind, and the reality is a dilapidated house that he lives in by himself and is just like dying and imagining a warm, happy past is what I'm taking from it, which I just like, I want to know how he came back the next trip and was like, Monday is my right guy? Yeah, I fucking love lasagna. He's like, Jim Davis, like, I hire a ghost writer for one fucking week and this is what happens. You know, he's like, he goes back Friday.

He's like, what the hell did you do? He's just like, yo, Ellen Moore, can you handle the strip for a week? Yeah. Yeah, I think that one, yes, it is definitely implied that Garfield has been dead the whole time, which is very fun. It's a real sixth sense, a twist. But, yeah, I guess looking at stuff like this, I mean, we talk a lot about how, you know, Garfield is, like, really bland as a character.

And I think that looking at stuff like this, I'm like, oh, Jim Davis actually does have, like, a creative soul, you know? It's like, we talk shit, but it's like there's stuff like this that you look at and you're like, oh, you're like a weird man, you know, like there's something about you that's not just Garfield as a marketing entity, you know. Yeah. There's, yeah. I mean, we'll get it. We'll get to like Garfield minus Garfield later. But like there's a strip like the, I think the most famous Garfield minus Garfield is John just looking down at the at the table saying, I'm so depressed.

It's depressing. next thing he hasn't moved and it says I think I'll go out and shoot myself and then the next one is just not you know him not having moved and the real comic is so I was always like yeah but like how what are the

sassy Garfield one liners that are like saving just like this pumpkin pie I'm gonna shoot myself I'm so depressed it's depressing tell me about it says Garfield I think I'll go out and shoot myself Garfield says sure

And then the last one is just Garfield saying, you're just trying to cheer me up. But I think it works. It definitely works. But it is him being like, I welcome you taking your own life. Some of my favorite Garfield minus Garfield strips are when it's like, it's like a nine panel,

like a bigger one. And like the first four panels are just blank because presumably it was just Garfield in that strip. And then one panel of John just sighing. And then five four blank panels. I'm like, those rock. I love that. That's great.

So, quick Garfield merch history. Because I do think, like, that is kind of the thing that he's most known for. Like, he's in more places than maybe any other fictional character. Like, Snoopy's in a lot of places, but I feel like Garfield has really,

like, when you look at a list of all the merch, all the different shit, the Garfield's on the phone. the things that people used to like stick to windows that that was like a massive craze in the 80s like Garfields

with the suction cups on their hands that people put in car windows I wonder how many what percent of those people even read the comic strips too like I bet there was a massive percent where they're like I like this cat like it's just immediately like this cat is cool or cute

or like I like its vibe I'm going to put that up in my car. You know, like, I bet there's a big chunk that didn't even read the strips. I bet they knew at the very least that he hated Mondays and that he liked, he liked lasagna. That is, like, to this day, I ask my kids, like, what do you know of Garfield? And what do you know of Garfield? Every day. Every day.

In the morning, boy. Come, boy, sit by the fire. What do you know of Garfield? Of Garfield? Not about. Yeah. They both said Fat Cat loves lasagna hates Mondays. Yeah.

They're all wearing John Arbuckle shirts while they're saying this. I mean, you all eat lasagna with your hands as a family afterwards. And they convince me that I'm dead and this is all taking place in my imagination. But yeah, just a little bit more on the number of books. So Pausing says that Garfield has sold 100. This was in 2018 that Garfield had sold 135 million books. To put that into perspective. of The Chronicles of Narnia,

which are primarily books, have sold $120 million. Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, James Bond have sold $100 million. Winnie the Pooh has sold $70 million. So Garfield's like lapping Winnie the Pooh when it comes to just the number of books.

And I think Winnie the Pooh was originally a literary character. That's a good icon, by the way. Winnie the Pooh? Yeah. Well, he's, I would have thought so until this. Now I realize he's shit. Yeah, he's a fucking nobody.

get lapped by Garfield. Yeah, Winnie the Pooh loves honey. Who could relate to that? I don't know. I don't know. I can't be. Yeah, exactly. Give me some fucking lasagna, man.

Now we're talking. There we're from. Cultured. He's cultured. This is, I feel like maybe that's where the Washington Post thing is coming from. He sold a lot of books and they're like, well, we have to take him seriously as a literary character.

Yeah. There's another literary, there's another Washington Post article from around this time that says, he is thus the idea. the ideal psychic symbol of those adults trying to reconcile the me vanities of the me decade with the belligerent anxieties of the 80s, just as his pro-social rodent forebearer and the mouse served as the self-image of the 50s. Meanwhile, Jim Davis is sitting next to them just picturing like, what if Garfield

climbed into a giant coffee cup? Have they ever made jokes about how nasty, like how crazy Garfield shits must be? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1994. There was entire, like, two months. Two months on it. It was real graphic. Two months run. Yeah, two months run.

Real graphic. Really hurt the brand, but like, I'm glad he did it. Time around this time did a cover story on the cat boom in the U.S. For a second, I think you were going to say at the time, time to cover story on Garfield's shits. Massive shits. World record breaking shits. One of his shits was number A to time people of the year. Not even Garfield, but his shits.

Yeah. But this is also when cats, the musical, becomes very popular. So they're like, what the fuck is going on here? There's a rum tub tugging ass cat. Garfield should have been in cats. That is my one note about cats. Perfect play other than should have been Garfield. I mean, could have been to stop.

Literally is literally in play. Yeah. There's a, yeah, this is when the, um, Garfield stuck on you, suction cup, car wind. window cling became a massive craze in like 1986. By 1986, there are 3,000 different licensed products. But there are like stories. There's a LA Times article from that time about how like 40 vehicles recently had their

windows smashed in with all valuables ignored and only one item stolen, the Garfield cling. And I'm like, that story's bullshit. Like that's one of those stories that like the cops love to tell that, you know, make criminals sound stupid and like there's also stories. They didn't look or ask valuables were stolen there. It was like

how do we make this vaguely entertaining? There's an empty car clearly a baby was kidnapped and they're like just took the Garfield thing. It took the Garfield thing and then we planted some guns and drugs in there. Yeah. All right. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll talk about

Schultz v. Davis. Whoever wins, we all lose. He's back. Jack's back. Jack can throw into commercials again. He's back. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pasto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

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It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

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There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show.

I would never expect. Let go of that. I have, I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. It seems like you did. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding.

I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb.

And fake. Right. Fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I'm MungaShaegis shit together. and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain,

as opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five-year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bones smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works.

I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. What's that? So Garfield pretty quickly makes it over to TV doing some TV specials. And so there's one called Here Comes Garfield. It was written by Davis. There's also an amazing album called that.

Here Comes Garfield? Yeah, yeah, it's great. It's a banger. What year? Is that the one with like BB Kent from the early 90s? Yeah, it's like Lou Rawls. I think it was, I think that this special that you're talking about was a musical, but you can go on Spotify and listen to the entire album or like any whatever you're

shows the musical platform is. And it's like, it's, it's, it's what, what if Garfield was a musical? Yes. Uh, a reported 50 million people watched this special. Good God. Legit almost spat out water when you said that number. When, to put that in content, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, 16 million people were watching.

And after everyone found out that that happened and like turned the TV on 17 million people were watching, 50 million people watch here comes Garvey. Field. So around this time, he's Jim Davis, again, in keeping with the energy of him being John and everyone else being Garfield, he's trying to figure out how to make Garfield walk on two feet. And he's, he's like, I was working on Garfield's first special at Bill Melendez's studio in L.A. and Sparky, Schultz, was in the next room working on one of his specials.

I was doing the layout drawings and I said, look. at him, Garfield, he looks awkward. And Schultz said, that's because you gave him these little cat feet. He told me what he did with Snoopies. Snoopy used to walk on little dog feet. He said, here, do this. And he took my pencil and drew over the top of my drawing with these big feet like he has today.

He said, so there, now he's standing up. I go, that's it. I was blown away. Here was Charles Schultz drawing on my drawings. And it's like an adorable heartwarming story where he's like, my hero helped me make Garfield. And then I'm going to read this excerpt from Schultz and Peanuts, a biography by David Michaelis. Schultz took every opportunity in private to

belittled Davis as a cartoonist. Davis's smug cat celebrated laziness and cynicism and Sparky loathed it. Garfield, he often said in private, was the ugliest, most insulting and vicious character he had ever seen. To Davis, meanwhile, Schultz was a fatherly presence. an artistic conscience at the drumboard. Kind of like having a dad there, said Davis. Jim Davis told me like,

oh yeah, he drew new feet all by cat. And meanwhile, Schultz was like scratching it out, trying to like scribble all over the cat. That's fucking dick shit. It sounds like a real Mozart-Solari situation for sure. Yeah, exactly. When he found out that the Cindy which is a very ominous name, but it's just the people who like run the comics in,

in newspapers, let him know that Peanuts and Garfield would soon be sharing salespeople as well as an editor, uh, quote, he didn't just bristle. He was genuinely troubled. But again, it's kind of like they have a Garfield, John relationship where Jim is John being like, oh man oh geez and shultz and garfield are like get fucked you rub you know do you think that uh if shultz heard that we were saying that he was like garfield if he would turn over in his gray yeah i think so and rightly so because like clearly he did not realize like he what he was actually upset about which was the garfield fucking rocks and everybody loves them so one question i have for you joey as a as a garfield fan is

Garfield's voice. The, like, so one of the, uh, John was voiced at one point by Tom Hughes, one of Davis's fraternity brothers. It always feels to me like Garfield's voice is, do you, do you feel like anyone's ever totally nailed it? I feel like they've kind of landed on stoner,

which doesn't seem quite right to me. Uh, I feel like he has to be kind of more of a bitch, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I think that like, I guess that to me, I think that like Lorenzo Music, who was the guy that originally voiced Garfield in all the animated

Shorts really established what the Garfield voice is. And yeah, I think it is like kind of like a little slacker, a little stonery, and it feels to me like pretty much since then everybody is just trying to do the Lorenzo Music voice. In a way that like I think is really really like funny and interesting.

I mean, even like one of the one thing that is really fascinating about that is that Lorenzo Music actually when Bill Murray decided he did not want to voice his character in the Ghostbusters animated series, Lorenzo Music voiced that character and then Bill Murray was so mad about how good Lorenzo Music did that he got him fired from voicing that character. Wow.

And then Bill Murray later stole Lorenzo Music's job voicing Garfield in the Garfield movies. So not only he like copy his delivery, he also stole his voice role. Bill Murray has been known to be a bit of an asshole. Oh, yeah. For sure, for sure. Real villain. Also, also another thing about Lorenzo Music, he died like one month before 9-11. So I'm trying to, are those things related?

Maybe. I mean, I, so he is spiritually connected to Garfield as like the creator of his voice. And then Garfield, as we've already established, did 9-11. Was it a mastermind? Yeah, canonical. He did what? Yeah, the people on the other. There's a busy boy.

First plane has hit the tower. That's what the person on the phone is saying to John Arvuckle. He did what? That's why we invaded Iraq to find business. boys. He's been a busy boy. Yeah, the answer was right underneath our nose. Or some have been busy boy.

You were saying that you don't think that people have totally nailed the voice. I just, no, it just feels like a little too stonerish and not quite cunty enough to me. Okay, so do an impression of like, what do you think Garfield should sound like? Jack up Ryan voice.

Are you pitching yourself for the show? I'm a very talented voice actor who, yeah, yeah. No, I think I'm probably just not calling to mind the right Garfields. But I do just want to say that I think Jim Davis might be a little bit more of a competitive psycho than he likes to let on because multiple times he's been like, well, you'll never catch me doing that thing. And then like he goes on to like sell millions of that thing. This story about Garfield's Macy's Day balloon. I have never heard this and now I really want to hear this.

So in 1997, windy conditions caused his tail to tear and deflate. Then he eventually tore open and collapsed. Davis took issue when the team behind the parade published that their biggest balloon by volume of gas was Shamu the whale with over 18,000 cubic feet. The fact is that the Garfield balloon was filled with 18,907 cubic feet. feet of helium. So we just confirmed that the Garfield balloon, in fact, was the largest one by volume of gas. I just like being

like competitive with the shamu Macy's Dave balloon about like how big it is, is just funny. And you know that was personally Jim Davis calling the newspaper and being like, I need to set the record straight. Yes. But yeah, I think he's

driven a little bit in a way that like probably he doesn't like to let out in public. that much. Yeah, he's a crazy person. He wrote a week-long arc about Garfield's death. Garfield existing in, like, fucking, I don't know what, like a weird between death and life. Yeah, it's like a backroom situation.

Yeah, yeah, it's a total backroom situation, created backrooms. In 2004, Garfield, the movie was released starring Bill Murray as a CGI Garfield. that I think Bill Murray's voice is probably a decent fit. The art, like the character that they created for Garfield does not look like Garfield. Yeah, it's a bad look. But this is where 2010, so six years later, he's doing an interview for GQ. And the guy talking to him, fireman, says, well, how about Garfield? Can you explain that to me?

Did you just do it for the dough? And Murray said, no, I didn't make that for the dough. well, not completely. I thought it would be kind of fun because doing a voice is challenging. Plus, I looked at the script and I said, so-and-so, and Joel Cohen. And I thought, Christ, well, I love those

Cohen's, they're funny. And usually when you're, so later on he's talking about, like, doing the voiceover work. And he's like, usually it takes two days. That's a lot. I don't know if I should even tell this story because it's kind of mean, but what the hell? So I work all day and kept going.

That's the line? Well, I can't say that. and you sit there and go, what can I say that we'll make this funny and make it make sense? And I worked. I was exhausted, soaked with sweat and the lines got worse and worse. And I said, okay, you better show me the rest of the movie so we can see what we're dealing with. So I sat down and watched the whole thing and I kept saying, who the hell cut this thing? Who did this?

What the fuck was Cohen thinking? And then they explained it to me. It wasn't written by that Joel Cohen. This is so funny to me. Like all the way up through that point. He's just like, man, the Cohen brothers are really, like, they've gone in a very strange direction with their career. I don't know. My, okay, so my conspiracy theory on that story, I've definitely heard that story is like, I'm very curious about if that story is real or if that's just Bill Murray trying to, like, still be cool after being in a bad Garfield movie.

You know, it's like, is that like a Hollywood saving phase? He doesn't really mean that, but like, he allows him to throw them under the bus kind of thing. Sort of like what James Gordon did with the Cats movie, which we all agree was fantastic. Yes, of course. Absolutely. What did James Gordon do with it? He was like, ah, you know, it was just, it was a mistake. Yeah, he was complaining that it didn't take place in a car.

Yeah, he was like, why aren't all the songs karaoke while on a passenger seat of a car? Why are we in an alley and not in a car? I don't understand. No, he just like, whenever he did award shows or interviews after it came out, he was just like, yeah, I cast a paycheck for. from that piece of shit, you know, like, just throwing it under the bus so viciously in a way that's like, fuck you, man, you knew what this was. Yeah, yeah. That is Jim Davis's explanation. He said, he's a nutcase.

He is a nutcase, laughs. I'll tell you one thing. This is about Bill Murray. He said he thought that it was the Cohn brothers who were writing it actually. He's having fun with the press on that because if we were doing another one with Davis Entertainment, Bill Murray would do it again. And he did. Yeah. guilty is charged

yeah um the uh tale of two kitties that neither were critically lauded but they both earned a lot of money and uh roger ebert gave both um the first

garfield movie and tale of two kitties three stars and it was like they really kind of the casting was inspired and i feel like they kind of got Garfield right um i don't know if he was watching with his eyes closed I mean, those Garfield movies were so weird because, like, it really felt like other than, like, hyper-specific details, like, why is this a Garfield movie?

Like, nobody acts, like, how they're supposed to act. Like, Garfield isn't really written how he's supposed to sound. But, like, there are, like, there are little things like when John shows up at a day, the John O'Brien character, he's wearing the exact suit that he wears in comics when he shows up for a date, like the shitty 70s brown suit. So there's, like, some details like that where it's like, oh, the costume designer was excited about making a Gar-Bruffin. the one person. Yeah, they were like, nobody else was excited. The costume designer was just like, this is going to be the best Odie you ever seen in your life. This is also when a, in 2004, a ride launched at Kenywood Amusement Park in Pennsylvania,

which is an amusement park I've been to many times near where my, my wife grew up. And by the time I started visiting, this ride had closed. It's called Garfield's Nightmare. again it was like a weird it was a weird like you know dark ride but like also kind of dark in that like creepy shit was happening people were like why is why is this ride so scary um but this is it was a re-theme of a ride known for young people only riding the hookout like Kennywood's been around since the early 20th century and this ride was like the the uh defunct land as a podcast that like they did a whole episode about, uh, they call it the bizarre Garfield dark ride. And they get into the history of the ride and like before it was Garfield, it was like famous for people hooking up on it. And the stories are like, I was picturing like people in the 50s like necking down by, you know, the old overlook spot, um, going parking. Um, they talk about how the people who worked at the theme

park had a rule that like you, they would send people in there to police like, the people who were going on this ride. And if you saw people making out, fine. If they were doing more, you call it out by name. But if you saw a naked ass, they had a bat that they gave you. That was like the sex stopping bat. And people were like constantly having sex on this ride.

One of the things people said is that you'd see people go in and then their car would come back out empty. What the fuck does that? So they like jumped off the boat inside the dart, the like haunted boat ride. like had sex on a haunted island or something? I mean, look, as we've established, Garfield is a very sexual beast,

so all this makes sense. He's a real fertility icon. A bad is wild. Like a bad, like a swatter, I feel like would be good. Yeah, somebody's fucking beat the shoe out of the phone. That's like an open hand slap versus a close fist. One other detail.

Do you get, I remember the Garfield phone very, like, vividly. Beginning in the 1980s, pieces of plastic orange Garfield-shaped phones started washing up on beaches and France's coast. And then it kept happening for three decades. In 2018, alone, 200 Garfield fragments were found. And finally, in 2019, a farmer alerted an environmental activist group that in the 1980s, he'd discovered a shipping container full of the phones inside a cave that was accessible only during low tide. So the shipping container was like just sending out Garfield phones. Oh, my God.

Okay. These are awesome. Yeah, I love this story. Two, as like a noted online Garfield fanatic, I've probably been texted this story 500 times. Yeah. We're like, D.M. Being like, have you heard of this? And yes, yes, I know about the shipping container full of Garfield phones.

I'm going to France next week to find them. All right. This is the culmination of all the people. telling you about that. Yeah. But it, like he, Jim Davis is still making Garfields, but like the,

I feel like the afterlife of Garfield is this like dark, obviously the Garfield minus Garfield. Um, but also there's the, I'm sorry John read it, which I'm just gonna post a couple. Like they're all kind of in getting it the same thing as the strip that we talked about

that was actually Jim Day. Like I feel like everybody who saw that strip originally in 1989 was like is contributing art to I'm sorry Joe. But yeah. I do think there is

like a dark nut like just as like Garfield connected with something valuable like the you know, needing a patron saint of laziness. I do think there's also like something profoundly dark like in just coursing beneath the surface of the comic. Is that is that part of what appeals to you about Garfield, Joey? Yes, it is the darkness that is contained in every strip. That is my favorite thing.

Yeah. I don't know. I think that like it's just like such a fascinating thing that happens, I think, with anything that becomes like mainstream culture is like you go through this process of like, especially with comedy, something starts as counterculture. It's like commenting on the world around it. And it's like counter to kind of the normal things that are happening. And then it becomes like so mainstream that it's just like whatever it was counter to we kind of forget about. And I think that with I'm sorry John Garfield minus Garfield and all that stuff, it's sort of like a point where Garfield is just culture. And now people are creating counterculture to what originally was counterculture.

Right. And that's kind of what I look at like a lot of this stuff as, as like, it is like, it's like cool. And I think it does speak to like how clean of Jim Davis's original vision was that like you can parody it and you can do crazy shit with it. And it still kind of feels like Garfield. You know, it's like the core of what it is is really similar. Oh shit. I just a huge head rush before I said a whole bit.

Okay. I'm back. It's still feeling like Garfield is a really good is a really good point. Because I was thinking too about like so much stuff in pop culture, you know, if it's wholesome. people want to like make it filthy and like fucked up often you know it's like hey here's uh winnie the poo with tits or something you want i mean like people just want that that and what i mean that's what my new project that i'm going to promote yeah yeah but but you are right in that like this is different in that these like dear john things and like you know like the darkness of it does still feel garfieldian you know like it is still like tonally in that Totally it feels right. Yeah. It feels right for the strip

and for their relationship. Yeah, it's like, it's sort of like, it's like what is the punchline of a Garfield strip and how can you like multiply that by 12, you know, or something like that. Yeah, yeah. It's just like a more extreme version,

but it's like the same punchline, you know? You're still holding onto the string that's still attached to like the original cartoon vibe. Yeah. And it's like, we're all like the, I'm sorry, John, you know, the like best strips are all just making the same

joke that Jim Davis himself made in that original one where Garfield's like, everything is turning to ash in my mouth as I look around and realize that my life is a dream and my reality is a nightmare. Jesus Christ. Yeah, like one of the strips that you sent us was like, I'm sorry, John was like top left strip, John taking lasagna and spank with this is on you will be all mine today. next trip is like John has been uppercutted into like a bloody mess at the top of the screen next trip Garfield says

oh really how you don't even have a and then next trip is Garfield is a full monster saying mouth to consume as he's uppercutting John into a bloody mess right so it's like oh that is like the same thing as like Garfield likes lasagna and also he hates John but what if he did it as like an old rich beast you know yes yes

transcends time and space and matter. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, Garfield. Real fun. Real fun guy. Real fun guy who I feel like is, I will now start noticing that Garfield is fucking everywhere.

Yeah, that is. Yeah, Jim Davis does say that he just pictures in his head what he thinks Garfield's doing right now. And then he like finds the funny part and then like goes back three frames. So I've got to assume that all those other frames he's not including her Garfield fucking. So like, edit that out, edit that out. So right before every Garfield frame,

yeah, they're not ready yet. He's just fucking raw dog and normal. That's right. Joey, it's such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can people find, do you, follow you, read you? Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I always love talking about the garf. This was so fun.

The garf. Yeah, the garf. You know, when you say his name so much, you just got to shorten it to one syllable. You got it. the same time. But yeah, if you want to check me out, I actually wrote an entire op-ed about Garfield for a salon that came out like a year ago, so you could search that on my website. Something I'm really excited about is I'm actually releasing a book on October 6th. It's called We've Been Here

The Whole Time, Not So Sacred Guide to All Things Native America. It's like a comedy satire book about all the Native history, culture, and notable people that aren't taught in schools. Kind of like if The Onion or The Daily Show wrote a book about Indian country. And pre-orders are available now. Oh, thanks. Yeah, pre-orders are available now. There's an entire chapter about why Christopher Columbus is not invited to the powwow. And no, Garfield's not native. I talk about him a little bit in the book. He comes up here and there. And yeah, pre-orders are available now. Pre-orders are a really big help, getting us on things like bestseller lists and telling our publisher to, you know, allocate money toward marketing and funding. So, you know, a pre-order would be a big help. Actually, if I hit a certain

pre-order number or something I'm doing right now is I will do my physical book reveal on John Wayne's literal grave in Newport Beach. So if enough of you pre-order copies, I'll do that. You can find info on how to do that at joeycliff.com slash book. And if you buy it on Bookshop, using the link at that website, I get a nice kickback. So please do that. And then I also created an animated short that's coming out that should be out upon

listening to this on Dropout. It's called Off the Reservation as part of their tune-out series. And listening to it this week, I am on this week's episode of Smarty Pants on Dropout. So check that out. Nice. Do it. Go. Footnotes.

That sounds amazing. Let's get that book on the bestseller list. Yay, please, please do, please do. The Smithsonian. Domain. Yeah, the Smithsonian censoring native history. So please help. Please help.

You can help me beat the Smithsonian. Not my Smithsonian. The Smithsonian? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This version? Amazing. Blake, where can people find you?

Pre-order Joey's book. And then I am also at Blake Lekster on all social media. I will be performing live November 27th in Philadelphia. Those tickets are for sale now. And then January 14th, Empire Comedy Club in Portland, Maine. And January 15th, I will be at the hideout in Boston. Those tickets aren't on sale yet because those shows are in 2027. But just put it into your calendar.

Put it in your calendar. Just remember it. Do it right now. Start keeping out now. Right now. Yeah. All right. And you can find me coming back in a few minutes for the notebook.

and I'll talk to you guys in a bit. All right, that was Garfield. Thanks to Blake for taking a break from being a twin dad to talk to us about this very important subject. Thanks to Joey Cliff for guesting and for giving us the idea to Duke Garfield. And shout out to Meredith Danko for going above and beyond on the research on this one.

This is the No No Notebook dump. And this is a good one. This is one I recommend you stick around for. I gave myself goosebumps with this first point I'm about to make. So you may have noticed by now I have a bit of a weak spot for weird coincidences in location or time period kind of coming together to drive the zeitgeist. last week we talked about Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson being born in the Midwest within weeks of one another the same summer and then going on to dominate the 80s together. I've talked a lot about the axial age of history.

It's like my new coal gas study. It's a thing I can't stop mentioning. That's the theory where a bunch of the most important philosophers and thinkers all were alive around the same time in different parts of the world. An obvious one with an explanation would be like all these billionaire tech people coming out of Silicon Valley. And that's, you know, well, obviously they were the first ones to have access to that. That one is not as interesting to me because there's an obvious explanation. I find these more interesting, the harder they are to explain.

And this episode gave me one that is the hardest to explain. explain yet, and that is Indiana in the 80s. For no discernible reason, Indiana was the center of the pop culture universe in the 1980s. Tiny state, not known for its cultural output, and yet they gave us Michael Jackson, they gave us Garfield, as we just talked about in this episode, they probably just listened to. They gave us David Letterman, that is the best-selling album ever that comes out in the 80s from Michael Jackson, sort of the face of comedy in the 80s and sort of cutting edge avant-garde comedy with David Letterman, like mainstream avant-garde. And then Garfield, who I'd argue would make for a top five draft pick for being the mascot

of the decade, a mascot of the 80s. And then another icon we've covered who might make sense as the mascot of the 80s. Indiana Jones. Guy's freaking name is Indiana for no discernible reason other than that. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two masterful, you know, minors of America's shared consciousness were like, what do we call this guy? How about we name him after the state of Indiana,

a state that is not a name anyone has ever used for a person before? So that's very strange. I hadn't thought about that until the snowbook dump. And I'm just getting warm, guys. John Cougar Mellencamp is to Indiana, what Springsteen is to New Jersey, gives us hurt so good, Jack and Diane in 1982, pink houses in 1983. Popular songs, they're like number one songs that are portraits of life in Indiana. I mentioned Axel Rose was from Indiana, who locked down the late 80s.

80s, particularly with a song called Paradise City. So again, a location-based song. People in Louisville claim that it's about Louisville, Kentucky. So either it's about Indiana or it's about wanting to leave Indiana. Either way, that song is about Indiana. And then as Blake wisely brought up, they were the center of the basketball world and probably in the 1980s. They had Bobby Knight and Indiana University basketball win the national championship in

1981 and 1987, you know, he's famous for being like the real life whiplash teacher, just like literally violent with people and just really brutal with his players. And subsequent decades have proven like how weird it was for Indiana University to be the best basketball program. You know, they have not been good since the 80s really or like nearly as big of a powerhouse. Also, 1984 Bobby Knight coaches Michael Jordan to the 1984 gold medal. And then we have Larry Bird, who comes into the NBA at the very start of the 80s. And first of all, no basketball player more associated with the state he grew up in. Despite never playing in Indiana professionally, he played for the Celtics.

but his nickname was the Hick from French lick. And he was, you know, a major, like, he was one of the two superpowers of a bilateral power structure of 80s NBA basketball along with Magic Johnson. And then to top it all, they, like in the basketball front, they even had Hoosiers, which is like propaganda for a certain type of Indiana basketball, I'll say. I'm being told a Christmas story was said in Indiana. What a run for the state of Indiana in the 1980s and not at all since then. You know, that's what makes it so strange. So I don't know. Probably a lot to be said about race there.

It's the ultra white Reagan 80s. You've got Larry Bird and Hoosiers, which are the favorite basketball player and favorite movie of anyone who. claims that people like, oh, I don't know, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson don't play basketball the right way. You've got Indiana Jones stealing artifacts from brown people to put in museums. I won't get too deep into politics in the Garfield episode, but I was really on a role with this one. And then I thought about the randomness of them naming him Indiana Jones. I got fucking, I got goosebumps, you guys. I gave myself goosebumps. That's how. mind-blowing. I found this one. I'll probably be talking about this for weeks,

unfortunately, so sorry in advance. All right. Speaking of George Lucas and racism, one of the things that drove Jim Davis to make an apolitical comic strip, like rigorously a political comic strip about a cat was its political safety. He has this quote on developing his new strip. He said, As I was putting the strip together, I wanted to work with animals anyway because having worked on tumble weeds, it was a Western strip with cowboys and Indians. Tom Ryan was always getting grief from Native Americans' rights groups and women's groups, too. I thought, I'll work with animals. They don't pick on anyone. So, first of all, he clearly didn't ever have any run-ins with PETA.

But this also reminded me a lot of George Lucas's quote about the backlash to the racism of Temple of Doom. Just kind of the overall perspective that all these groups are picking on me. You know, if it just, if George Lucas had just taken the other, just been like, I don't know, maybe they're not being arbitrarily mean. Maybe they're not picking on me. Maybe they mean what they say. and maybe they mean that because they have a point. We might have been saved from Jar Jar Binks and the many other aliens from the prequels

who were lightly disguised racial stereotypes. What else? There's a short Vice Doc checking in with Jim Davis where they go to Pause Inc, the Pause Inc. compound, which is just like, you know, a Garfield-themed workplace. even more Garfield themed than most workplaces. And he describes the process of meeting with a licensee and deciding if they're worth doing business with.

And it basically involves bringing you into a room, basically something between a museum and a library, that has every Garfield product that they've ever made. And in addition to being like, welcome to Garfield Valhalla, don't fuck with me. It allows the licensee to pick something off the wall and be like, oh, yeah. So it's basically this in green.

And then they're like, yeah, okay. And then once they make the product, they will mail it to Jim Davis. And he sits there. And in his wisdom accepts or rejects it. He says he rejects something every day, which seems like something he's doing just to feel alive because it can't be that every day there's a bad product sent in or maybe there is. I don't know. It's surprising sometimes what he will approve.

There's a famous online story in 2019, a young Canadian entrepreneur named Nathan Mazri who launched Garfield Eats, which was like this fast casual restaurant and app. He was early on the, why don't you just sign up for an app and you'll get a deal at my restaurant and got a lot of attention. He was just like a hustler, grind set guy. And for some reason in his job as the Pope of Garfield, Jim Davis was like, yeah, sure, I don't give a fuck. And the dark, chaotic energy of the guy pulled him in.

And as we've discovered, he's the John. Jim Davis is the John. And he's very susceptible to a darkly chaotic Garfield. The Vice documentary does ask, him the question, like what future archaeologists will make of Garfield while digging through our landfills littered with more Garfield merch than maybe any other item? And they ask cheekily, will people think we worship Garfield? And I guess my answer would be, we did, man. We did worship Garfield. And lastly, I think Garfield fans are generally painted as being, you know, people who work

an HR where they're, you know, like they're just like people who are like, Mondays, it looks like someone's got a case of the Mondays. There's some pretty impressive devoted Garfield fans like Joey, but also Lin-Manuel Miranda is an avowed Garfield fan who wrote a glowing prologue to his, one of his more recent books and described Garfield as an ironic detached hat, who is mean, everyone and somehow all the more lovable for it, which I don't know, Limanwell Miranda has written some pretty great anti-heroes in his time with Maui and Burr. So I feel like that's pretty strong praise coming from him.

And then another genius Garfield fan who's in the news as we write this, Teen Miss USA's Miss Indiana, who one of her dresses that she wore, has giant Garfield comics from the waist down and also looks like she killed and is wearing Garfield as a hat. So we'll like off to that look in the footnotes, but very impressive work by her. All right. That is going to do it for this Garfield iconograph. We're back next week with another fictional drawing, four of them, that leapt off the page and into our world and started fucking shit up. We got a new app with our old friend,

the great Christy Yamaguchi, Maine, on next week's iconograph. More regular episodes of The Daily Zekeyesd until then. All right. Have a good one. Bye. The Daily Zykeyes is executive produced by Catherine Law. Co-produced by Victor Wright.

Co-written by J.M. McNab. And edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries. I'm Mungeshatekegular, and I'm back with a new season of my podcast Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, kermudgens, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know.

Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are with us. us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.