Before numerous live-action movies adapted theGarfield, Jon, and Odie characters to the big screen, the Garfield franchise existed primarily as a TV show and comic series. The crown jewel of the United Feature Syndicate stable of comics — only rivaled by Charles M. Schulz’sPeanuts —the egotistical tabby was on the warpath in the ’80s, branching out in all forms until he dominated every newspaper funny-page section, kid’s heart, and car window in the English-speaking world. There remained one more obstacle to his unstoppable march to shove Snoopy and Charlie Brown into obscurity … movies.
It’s a little hard to envision now where the IP has been reinvented multiple times, CGI morphing him across the decades as new celebrities are slotted in to bring the cynical personality to life, but once Garfield was too hard a sell to entice any studio. Around 1990, the whole franchise came to a screeching halt, its author reassessing the direction he was taking the comic. At arguably the height of the character’s appeal in pop culture, creator Jim Davis discovered there were strict limits to what you could do with a comic character. Compelling children to quiz their parents about fate, sentience, the ethics of owning animals, and the nature of god was one of them, it turns out.
Taking onvarious forms over the years, the gluttonous feline cemented his role in pop culture on his own CBS Saturday morning show,Garfield and Friends. The sad thing is, the one plotline barred from TV screens is arguably the cleverest cartoon plot twist of all time and easily the deepest piece of Garfield media, albeit not exactly a high bar to hop over. Ascertaining who is responsible for its disappearance, and what particular scene or line of dialogue caused it to vanish is challenging. Up to this point, no one’s been able to unearth so much as a single frame of the movie, nor even the workprint. If not for a lone statement from Davis, proving its existence, the banned Garfield-movie trope might have remained an urban myth.
Jim Davis Goes for Broke
The ’80s were good to animator and writer Jim Davis. In a10th anniversary specialcelebrating the landmark syndication success of the orange cat, Davis happily announced the upcoming feature-length film, already in progress. Behind-the-scenes footage showed singer Lou Rawls in the studio, preparing the score. The producers were sparing no expense to promote the ambitious jump from shorts to the full-length format.We aren’t entirely sure if the tentatively-titledGarfield’s Judgment Daywas meant to be a TV movie or a big-screen release, but it would have marked a major milestone for the character that had been stuck in shallow, 30-minute-long prime-time specials on CBS’s lineup.
After a decade as a trivial attraction on the back of the paper, Garfield was getting the spotlight he deserved, and Davis was not messing around with the subject material.In a departure from the typical shenanigans, Davis discarded the lasagna gags and jokes about Monday, going full Albert Camus.Why a cat with no job would despise Monday mornings, we still don’t fully comprehend, but for once, that’s the least distracting thing in aGarfieldstory. This film was beyond the standard Saturday morning cartoon time filler.
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The Bell Tolls For Garfield
In this more intense version of the show, the Arbuckle household stares down imminent death by an unavoidable cataclysm. In aninterview with GoComicsin 2024, Davis mentioned his simple secret to fame was making Garfield non-controversial. “I avoid social and political comments,” he said. “The lion’s share of his gags deal with eating and sleeping.“Judgment Daywas the edgiest he ever dared.
The narrative is propped up by the idea that the town’s pets are part of an ancient, interspecies conspiracy to conceal their ability to understand and speak human language, leveraging their persona as adorable, helpless companions to extract food and shelter from their supposed “owners.” Garfield, in his desperate bid to save the town’s human populace from annihilation, proposes that they temporarily break the taboo to protect humanity, warning them in plain English, risking it all to speak — animals before only communicating telepathically. Animals, as we learn in the Garfield universe in this story, also possess a sixth sense for forecastingimpending natural disasters. High-concept stuff for six-year-olds, then or now.
For this installment in his wacky adventures, Garfield’s signature sarcasm and selfishness surprisingly took a back seat.Judgment Dayappropriately took cues from Biblical themes, less escapism than an existential-laden odyssey through the mind of a laid-back cat witnessing his fantasy disintegrate, forced to break character.Meeting to discuss pet affairs, the town’s pets not only ruminate on the end of the world but also organize a scheme to avenge kittens who were just declawed.
Arlene, Garfield’s love interest, is revealed to be a shame-riddled stray with no home or owner, a fact she hides to prevent being ostracized by the other animals. Odie, when offered the possibility to finally express himself, share his grievances, and break the facade, opts instead to keep barking, having fully internalized the human-based image of a dog or losing his mind if he ever had one. In the end, the animals acquiesce to the reality that “it was time to act like pets again,” and return to living a lie. Yup,Davis goes deep in this one.
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Out of the Fire and into the Lost Media Files
We need to come clean.We can only speculate on this much of the plot of the non-existentGarfield’s Judgment Dayfrom secondary sources, not from official scripts nor available production notes. That synopsis is from the 1990 comic booklet published by Ballantine Books, bearing the same title, presumably the remnants of the aborted television/theatrical movie. Whatever footage or material that was assembled for Garfield’s film debut was scrapped,never to see the light of day.
But why? It has become fodder for internet sleuths, with little to show for it. It’s a logical guess that Lorenzo Music would reprise his role as the speaking voice of the titular obese cat and the animation team would have created the cartoon, but nothing of the movie remains. Documentation is minimal, and solid corroborating evidence is primarily limited to Davis’s short description in 1988.
Could it have worked? Of course.It might have left a good chunk of the audience wetting their beds for a month, but it isn’t substantially more terrifying than eitherBambiorOld Yeller. Instilling children with crippling fear and awareness of their own mortality is a cherished part of children’s entertainment.We surmise a CBS exec took one look at the storyboards and freaked out about angry parents lighting up the switchboard complaining about a despondent old man mourning his dog trapped under storm debris. If not that, the network probably didn’t want to scare away advertisers, let alone taint the profitable Garfield IP.
A torrent of Garfield films followed as the lost movie faded into obscurity. Billy Murray was eventuallyroped into the 2004Garfield: The Moviethrough suspicious means, and Chris Pratt jumped aboard the merchandising express in 2024 to some success inThe Garfield Movie, showing that the demand for Garfield-related content is deeper than the Grand Canyon. Appraisal for Davis’s work in general hasn’t been glowing, so it’s sad to know the guy poured his heart into an off-kilter project only to see the suits shut it down. Which explains why the remaining run of the strip and concurrent TV show was so bland.
Davis had no reason to rock the boat. Until (or if) the abandoned project pops up, fans new and old should have plenty of big-budget movies and animated shows to fill the void. Just don’t expect Chris Pratt to film this morbid, introspective drama anytime soon.
