"GARFIELD AND FRIENDS: BEHIND THE SCENES"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: * (out of 5 stars) STARRING Lorenzo Music as GARFIELD Not Rated Studio: FOX Television Created by: Jim Davis Back to DVD Review Home |  |
Long before Bill Murray stepped in a recording booth to become the voice of the computer generated Garfield in the feature films, Lorenzo Music defined the furry feline’s on-screen persona in a wealth of animated television specials.
The first time I heard Music’s voice as that of Garfield was in 1982’s “Here Comes Garfield,” the first television special. This was only a short four years from Jim Davis’s creation of the cynical cartoon cat, and it still had that magic of the early years. From that point on, whenever I read a Garfield strip, I couldn’t help but hear Music’s voice in my mind.
In the late 1980s, Jim Davis and company set up a regular cartoon television show called “Garfield and Friends.” It suffered from what many of the daytime cartoons of the 1980s suffered from – poor animation, low budgets and a light-hearted softness that never really made them shine. Add this to the fact that by the late 80s, the Garfield comic strip – while still enormously popular – no longer had the spark it once did.
However, “Garfield and Friends” did have one thing going for it, and that was Lorenzo Music. Hearing his voice while watching old “Garfield and Friends” episodes reminded me of the old “Here Comes Garfield” days.
“Garfield and Friends: Behind the Scenes” is a compilation of fifteen episodes from the cartoon series. It’s a fine sampling of the show, giving the viewer an impression of what “Garfield and Friends” were all about. Ultimately, the show isn’t bad for a late-80s original cartoon. It’s up against things like “Darkwing Duck” and “The New Adventure of Winnie the Pooh,” and it falls somewhere between the two.
These episodes feature Garfield on an informational trip, explaining how things work in the world. He shows the behind the scenes of house pets learning to drive their humans crazy, instructs the audience through a multiple-choice cartoon, looks at the television of tomorrow and schools us all in how to be funny.
Garfield fans and kids specifically are the target audiences for this film. The running time is just over two hours, so it provides a decent assortment of entertainment in that time frame.
As compared to the new Garfield movies, this is far superior. Sure, the animation was most likely farmed out to some Korean sweat shop, but at least it has all the characters in their true form from the comic strip. Odie’s not a real dog, but rather the rubbery slobber machine we all know and love. Jon is not played by a struggling Breckin Meyer, but rather he’s the big-headed dork we remember from the strip.
There are no special features on the disc, so the selling point is the original episodes themselves. If you like Garfield, it’s a decent bet, and if not, then maybe it’s a decent choice for the kids.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo Sound. Full frame (1.33:1). Spanish language track. Spanish subtitles. English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.
