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"Halt! Officer Odie orders you to stop and help!"
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The Automated, Animated Adventure is the first segment from the seventy-third episode of Garfield and Friends.
Synopsis
When Jon wants to make a cartoon series about Garfield, an animator uses the opportunity to demonstrate new computer animation.
Plot
At the Arbuckle residence, Jon thinks of the idea of a cartoon show about a cat. He asks Garfield to model for him. Garfield does various non-cat like poses, prompting Jon to go find a picture of a typical cat. Jon, Garfield and Odie go to Mr. Sprocket's Animation Studio to show Mr. Sprocket the idea. Mr. Sprocket expects the character to do extraordinary things; when Jon tells him what the cat actually does (which are all of Garfield's hobbies), he tells Jon that his idea is boring and children do not want to watch shows about cats. Mr. Sprocket offers to show Jon the animation studio. Jon asks if they have artists doing drawings. Sprocket tells them that instead of cells and drawings, they make cartoons digitally on a computer, as it is more modern, efficient and cheap. Jon asks if it makes the cartoons better, to which Sprocket replies that it does not. Mr. Sprocket goes to the computer, where hands appear and drag Garfield into a glass case to digitize him.
Garfield appears on a screen as a computer image. Mr. Sprocket changes Garfield's design, with Jon and Odie disliking every one. Jon asks Mr. Sprocket to change Garfield back to normal, much to Sprocket's annoyance. In a scenario, Garfield is shown with choppy, slow animation before Mr. Sprocket fixes it. Mr. Sprocket tells Jon that he will change the premise for the show to make Garfield more interesting. Garfield appears in space as "Space Feline", a futuristic cartoon about a cat saving the galaxy from space aliens. He is shot at before he goes to his own giant laser, which apparently operates on batteries. The laser is destroyed as Garfield starts to flee from the martians. Jon orders that Garfield be changed to another cartoon, which Mr. Sprocket heeds.
Sprocket then sends Garfield to a scenario in the jungle, with Garfield as an explorer. After Jon realizes that Garfield is in a lost valley, Mr. Sprocket reveals that dinosaurs are in the scenario. Garfield flees, before Jon begs Mr. Sprocket to change it again. Mr. Sprocket suggests different concepts before Jon tells him that he just wanted a cartoon about a normal cat. The machine starts to break down as different scenarios start flashing while Mr. Sprocket tries to stop it. The machine's arms pick up Mr. Sprocket and put him in the glass case. The machine eventually explodes with Garfield outside the computer. Jon phones the police. When the police come, they can find no trace of Mr. Sprocket as Jon tries to explain what happened. A policeman tells Jon to go home as they will phone him if they find anything.
Jon complains that the police did not believe him before deciding that maybe the idea for the cartoon was not that great. As they walk past, two children are watching a cartoon from in front of a TV shop. They are bored at the cartoon as Mr. Sprocket is revealed to be in the cartoon as he runs from a dinosaur.
Characters
Major Characters
Minor Characters
- Announcer (voiced by Gregg Berger)
- Uncle Ed (mentioned)
- The Buddy Bears (cameo appearance)
- Cop (voiced by Brian Cummings)
- Firefighter
- Boy (voiced by Thom Huge)
- Girl (voiced by June Foray)
Trivia
- The plot of the episode would be reused, in updated form, for "The Non-Garfield Show".
Cultural References
- When Garfield is being reformatted into a new cartoon look, among the models used are Felix the Cat, Bart Simpson from The Simpsons, and He-Man from Masters of the Universe.
Garfield as He-man.
- At one point, Mr. Sprocket proposes making "Baby Garfield" as part of "the newest trend in cartoon shows". This alludes to the then-current trend of spin-off shows featuring younger versions of classic characters, such as Muppet Babies (which was mentioned in a previous episode), Tom and Jerry Kids, and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
- There would later be a line of merchandise featuring baby versions of Garfield.
- Two of Mr. Sprocket's cartoon proposals allude to Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The first is Scooby-Doo, while the second is based on Cattanooga Cats.
Goofs
- Mr. .Sprocker calls the concepts for other show ideas as "formats." The correct term is "premise." A format is the structure of the show.