Perhaps, once upon a time, a long time ago, the fact that the movie is never as good as the book was the basis for a fresh and original observation. In the days before any text which sold more than a dozen copies was immediately adapted and produced as a made-for-TV costume drama starring Richard E. Grant, what is now a passé statement may have been a blinding piece of insightful commentary, worthy of Barry Norman himself. Nowadays, though, to expect plaudits for identifying the shoddy nature of most book-adaptations is tantamount to cinematic suicide, and worthy only of scorn and derisive snickers. But what, then, is there left to say about Garfield?

As a comic-strip, Garfield relied heavily on structure, ordinarily of 3 cartoon frames. Introduction, Complication and BANG! Punchline! Fantastic stuff it was too, and certainly not just for kids. What, then, happened to the TV series?

Well, a lot of things. Occasional musical interludes happened to it. Severe dumbing down for a kiddy audience happened to it. The punchlines lost their ZAP!, the characters lost their...... well...... character. The show couldn't make up its mind whether to be a series of quick-sketches or a properly-developed narrative, and so failed to be either. And, worst of all, the utterly lamentable "Orson's Farm" slipped surreptitiously into the show under the all-encompassing and insufferably vague umbrella term 'and Friends'. The show had TWO theme tunes (The worst of which is included here: trust me, you're not missing much), spawned a number of 'movie specials', all of which were absolutely dismal, and was the inspiration for the equally bad "Heathcliff", with which it competed for the attention of brain-dead primary school kids all across the country. Plus points? Well, in the "Garfield Goes to Hawaii" special, the islanders had a slightly amusing mantra...... And, all things told, the show wasn't quite as bad as Heathcliff. Maybe if you hadn't ever read any Garfield comic strips, and didn't know what you were missing out on, the show wasn't as bad as all that but, for the rest of us it was, quite frankly, unwatchable pap.