Swine Trek is the second segment from the twenty-ninth episode of Garfield and Friends.
Synopsis
While suffering from fever, Orson has a dream about the barn being a space ship flying through outer space.
Plot
Having caught a fever, Orson is resting in bed before Wade gives him a glass of orange juice as remedy for the cold. Orson states, that such a remedy, is useless due to viral nature of cold. Bo brings Orson a platter of soup, while Booker and Sheldon argue about handling diseases - Booker states that you "Starve a cold; feed a fever,", while Sheldon claims that its "Feed a cold; starve a fever". Lanolin covers Orson up with a blanket and adjusts his bed in rather ungentle way, which ends up with Orson having his pillow tied around his head.
Wade is frightened by Orson's warning about the possible germ infection caused by presence of the sick; the rest of the animals leave Orson in the barn to rest. Roy is expressing his disapproval of Orson's lack of gratitude, while Booker explains such conduct with Orson's current health state.
Meanwhile, Orson is falling asleep and his dream begins with a phrase from Star Trek series about the space being the final frontier. The barn is imagined as U.S.S. Enterprise-like space ship named "US. CO.OP." , with characteristic engines mounted on external pylons, cruising through landscapes such as a sausage nebula, asteroid belts, and a Limburger Planet. The crew of the barn-spaceship is composed of farm animals associated with the original Star Trek characters: Orson as Captain Kirk, Sheldon as Spock, Lanolin as Uhura, Wade as McCoy, Bo as Scotty, Roy as Sulu and Booker wearing thick beard and ushanka fur hat (as a parody of Chekov).
Captain Orson receives quite difficult-to-understand report from the engineer Bo-Scotty, while Lanonlin-Uhura attempts to establish radio contact, which turns out to be a prank call. Sheldon-Spock detects a signal from a planet named Dheneb-92 before Orson decides to investigate it. The entire crew teleport to the surface, though Orson decides, that he will take Wade and Sheldon for scouting, while the rest of the crew has to stay on the ship's board if with photon tomatoes prepared in case of attack.
It turns out, that the distress signal was emitted by Porkons - alien pigs who resemble Orson's brothers, who prepared an ambush with their new weapon. Despite being surrounded, Orson manages to call the backup from the space ship - Booker launches the photon tomatoes from the US. Co.Op. and the orbital bombardment repels the aggressors. The Porkons left-over weapon is taken onto the ship for analysis. Back on US Co.Op.'s deck, Bo accidentally opens the vacuum-flask-like object, releasing a space virus, which infects the crew.
Suddenly, Orson wakes up having fully recovered from his fever. The rest of the farm animals visit him in the barn and they seem having caught the fever from Orson. Orson then looks after the animals, using an astronaut suit.
Characters
Major Characters
Minor Characters
Songs
Trivia
Cultural References
- Above Orson’s bed is a poster of a character called Piggy, who appears to be a parody of comic strip character Ziggy.
- Orson's dream sequence is a parody of original 1960s Star Trek series. The characters wear outfits based on original Star Fleet uniforms - mustard yellow for command, red for engineers/security and blue for scientific personnel.
- Gort, Mort and Wart as Porkons are a parody of the Klingons from the Star Trek movies.
- Orson's toupee is often momentarily dislodged, sometimes in dramatic fashion, similar to Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek.
- Similar to Dr. Rumack from Airplane!, a running gag through out the episode involves Orson telling Roy to stop calling him Shirley after the latter says "surely".
Goofs
- One of the Porkons has his eye retinas visible through his nose.
- Lanolin is missing her eye shadow in one of the latter scenes.