Happy Birthday, Garfield
Happy Birthday, Garfield is an hour-long television special dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Garfield comic strip, hosted by its creator Jim Davis. The special was first broadcast in the United States May 17th, 1988 on CBS, and in the United Kingdom February 24, 1989 on ITV as part of Children's ITV. It uses both live-action and animation.
Synopsis
The program featured the people behind the strips and animated adaptations, which include- A very brief animated short made in 1980 from The Fantastic Funnies by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson featuring jokes from the strips of June 21 and August 2, 1978 and July 21, 1979.
- A recording session for the upcoming Garfield and Friends series, apart from some footage from it and from Garfield: His 9 Lives.
- Spanish- and German-dubbed clips of Here Comes Garfield and Garfield Goes Hollywood respectively were shown.
- A sneak peek for the unproduced feature film Garfield's Judgment Day.
- A rehearsal for the theme song of Garfield's Babes and Bullets.
- A chat Davis has with Dik Browne, Mike Peters and Lynn Johnston. The last part of the program features the celebrations held for the strip's anniversary, most notably the one where fellow cartoonists drew their characters as their "presents", followed by man-in-the-street interviews about Garfield, before the camera shows him and Odie living the "good life" in Hollywood. Finally, Davis acknowledges the audience before flying off on a Garfield-shaped hot air balloon.