The third episode of the first season of Garfield and Friends.
Post-opening sequence line: "Smart kids watch this show, other kids change the channel."
Quickies
- Garfield #1: An adaptation of the 1986-04-20 strip
- U.S. Acres: An adaptation of the 1987-05-10 strip
- Garfield #2: An adaptation of the 1985-12-15 strip
Nighty Nightmare
After Jon tells Garfield that he eats too much, he consequently has a nightmare, which involves him eating so much that he grows into a giant, whereupon he is abducted by aliens who intend to serve him up for dinner.
Nighty Nightmare contains examples of:
- Acid Reflux Nightmare: It's implied Garfield's nightmare came from eating an entire pizza.
- Adaptation Expansion: Of the Garfield comic published on May 17, 1987.
- Alien Abduction / Aliens Are Bastards: One troll-like green alien explained to Garfield that they fattened him up by zapping him with the interplanetary hunger ray so that Garfield would eat until he'd be big enough to be Thanksgiving dinner for the alien's home planet. Cue Garfield begging for his life.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Garfield roams the city as a hugely obese version of himself that towers over buildings towards the nightmare's climax.
- Balloon Belly: Garfield's increased appetite leads to one of these at first...but it gradually gets worse. See Temporary Bulk Change below.
- Big Eater: Garfield's tendency of this is taken up to eleven. He eats at least 4 billion+ hamburgers, 100 pizzas, and 100 tons of lasagna, entire bulldozers' worth of hams and watermelons, and eventually every bit of food in the entire town, and is still hungry.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: As Garfield is climbing a skyscraper toward the end of his dream, he turns to the audience and remarks "You know, for a minute there I was afraid this nightmare might get silly."
- Covers Always Lie: The title card for this episode looks nothing like what actually happens in Garfield's nightmare.
- Crashing Dreams: At the end of his nightmare, as Garfield is begging for his life, Odie starts licking him, prompting him to cry "No, they're basting me!", before waking up saying he knew that slurp.
- Dream Episode: Most of the episode is Garfield's nightmare.
- Drinking Game: Take a drink each time Garfield says "More food!"
- Extreme Omnivore: Garfield's uncontrollable appetite leads him to devour a news mobile unit, a hot-dog shaped food stand ("I wish I had a mustard factory around here to eat!"), empty a kiddie pool of water, and even swallow a jet fighter.
- Fattening the Victim: It turns out that Garfield's uncontrollable appetite is the result of aliens from Klarion plumping him up for their Thanksgiving dinner ("and there'll be plenty left over for sandwiches the next day").
- Hold the Unsolicited Ingredient: Averted. Garfield (being a cat) is disappointed that the pizza Jon ordered didn't have any anchovies.
- Hypocritical Humor: Jon, before the dream sequence. He asks "How could anyone eat a jumbo mushroom, pineapple, sausage, pepper, olive, onion, meatball, Canadian bacon and pimento pizza all by himself?" when seeing Garfield consumed the whole pizza. The thing is — Jon wanted to eat that whole pizza by himself! Matter of fact, Jon's the one who ordered that jumbo 8-topping pizza.
- Jon is also this in the dream sequence. When Garfield turns into a giant who can't stop eating, Jon urges him to stop eating when Jon's the one who kept feeding Garfield and sang the song "Eat Garfield Eat".
- Garfield remarks "I was afraid this nightmare might get silly"—after he's already grown to the size of a giant, is climbing a skyscraper a la King Kong, and has the Air Force trying to shoot him down.
- Ignored Aesop: When Garfield wakes up from his nightmare, Jon offers him a pan of lasagna as an apology for yelling at him about the pizza. Garfield, however, rejects the lasagna, and exclaims, "That's it! I'm going on a strict diet for twenty pounds." But then he picks up the lasagna, adding, "...or, for twenty minutes, whichever comes first."
- "King Kong" Climb: After Garfield eats way too much and grows huge, he starts climbing a skyscraper in the exact same way as King Kong.
- Lampshade Hanging: While climbing a skyscraper King Kong-style, Garfield tells the audience "You know, for a minute there, I was afraid this nightmare might get silly".
- Madness Mantra: As Garfield's appetite remains unsatisfied, he starts saying "More food!" repeatedly. By the middle of the dream, it's all he can say, and he sounds positively demonic: "MOOOOOORE FOOOOOOD!"
- Militaries Are Useless: An Army general sics the Air Force on Garfield anyways warding off Jon's pleas not to. The Air Force loses since Garfield just grabs the fighter jets and eats them.
- Monumental Damage: Discussed when the general called in to handle Garfield's appetite remarks that he's ordered the Grand Canyon filled with chicken gumbo "just in case he wants soup."
- Offscreen Teleportation: Jon orders a pizza without Garfield knowing. After getting the pizza, he speeds into his room and barricades himself in, only to find upon opening the lid Garfield has somehow slipped into the box and eaten the pizza.
- Pun-Based Title: To "nighty night".
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Upon hearing that Garfield ate their mobile unit, the news reporter on TV declared "I'm leaving town, folks!".
- Shout-Out:
- Garfield climbing a skyscraper and fighting U.S. air fighter jets is an obvious nod to King Kong.
- When on the alien space ship, Garfield says "Yoohoo! Mr. Spock?"
- Garfield walking into a burger restaurant (Vinces') with a sign saying "Over 8 Billion Burgers Served" is a nod to McDonald's.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the May 1987 strip this short is based on, Garfield ate up Jon while growing to gigantic proportions. Here, Garfield spares Jon after Jon agreed to partake in the food distribution.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Jon's delivery order arrives:Jon: Gee, I wonder who's at the door? It couldn't be a pizza, because NOBODY ordered a pizza!
- Talking Your Way Out: After growing to giant proportions, Garfield then picks up Jon high in the air as while Odie can only watch helplessly and beg for Jon's return. Jon is able to talk his way back to the ground with Odie when he promises Garfield a hundred pizzas (with anchovies this time).
- Temporary Bulk Change: Garfield's massive appetite leads to him growing to an ENORMOUS size—he's about as tall as a five-story building by the episode's end.
- This Billboard Needs Some Salt: Garfield eats a Shaped Like What It Sells hot dog stand at one point. He then says "I wish I had a mustard factory around here to eat."
- To Serve Man: Garfield learns at the end of his dream's gorge-fest that he started eating so much because an alien race intends to cook him as Thanksgiving dinner.
- Weight Taller: Garfield's gorging doesn't only make him much heavier—he grows proportionally tall as well. At his fattest, he's about the height and girth of an apartment building!
- Would Hurt a Child: (Possibly?) subverted. Garfield, thirsty after eating an entire hot dog stand, spots a backyard pool with two kids playing in it. However, he does allow them to flee before he drinks it down.
Banana Nose
Orson and Wade are reading a book about pirates, which gives Roy an idea to dress up as a pirate himself and frighten them. After he does so, Orson and Wade run away, but Wade runs blindly and ends up crashing into just about everyone on the farm. Orson soon realizes that the pirate is really Roy, and everyone complains about the prank. Roy simply infers that they cannot take a joke, but then Lanolin calls him banana nose, and everyone laughs. Roy is visibly insulted by this, but he insists that the label won’t bother him.
The insult ends up bothering Roy so much that he cannot sleep that night, and he walks by in a daze past Booker (who is eating a peanut butter and pickle sandwich) and Sheldon, who are preparing to go worm hunting. They go off into the forest and split up to find worms, but Booker ends up falling into a deep pit, unable to escape. Sheldon walks past the pit but doesn’t see him. Meanwhile, Orson goes to Roy’s house to tell him that people shouldn’t call him names after all, but when he arrives, he finds a note Roy left stating that he left the farm because he felt he didn’t have any friends there. Wade, Bo and Lanolin arrive at that point and Bo and Lanolin don’t seem too upset because Roy always plays pranks on people, but Orson convinces them not to feel that way. All four of them decide to try to find Roy, just as Sheldon runs in and announces that he can’t find Booker. They all then run out to search for Booker and Roy. Roy is sitting in the forest sulking when he suddenly smells peanut butter and pickles in the air. He follows the scent to the pit where Booker is stuck; then he grabs a vine and lowers it into the pit. Booker climbs the vine and out of the pit just as the rest of the gang stumble across them. Roy states that he found Booker because of his beak: he smelled peanut butter and pickles, which is what Booker had for lunch. Everyone then decides that having a banana beak isn’t a bad thing after all.
Banana Nose contains examples of:
- An Aesop: Everyone has something unique about them, so don't be ashamed about it.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Lanolin, who began the Banana Nose insult to bite back at Roy for mockingly asking "Can't you take a joke?" because everyone's mad at him for making them panic from his pirate prank.
- In-Series Nickname: Banana Nose itself.
- Mythology Gag: When Roy appears in his pirate costume, the background music switches to Garfield's "Yo Ho Ho Ho!" song from the Halloween special.
- Pun-Based Title: To "Banana notes", the currency of Japan.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Roy decides that because the animals keep calling him Banana Nose and won't forgive him for the pirate prank, he's better off on his own and leaves the farm.
Ode To Odie
Garfield tells a story through rap about locking Odie out of the house with his favorite bone. Odie wanders off into an alleyway, where tough dogs hang out. He is teased, and his bone is stolen.
Ode to Odie contains examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode focuses mostly on Odie, although Garfield is a part of the first half.
- An Aesop: People won't want to be friends with you if you're mean.
- The Cameo: Pooky makes a cameo appearance at the very beginning of the episode.
- Heel–Face Turn: The two female dogs who originally bully Odie realize that Butch, the biggest and meanest mutt of all, is being too hard on him and tell him off. When Butch refuses to stop his cruelty, the female dogs abandon him and befriend Odie instead.
- Musical Episode: Except, there's no singing. It's all rap.
- Pun-Based Title: To Ode to Joy.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Butch succeeds in stealing Odie's bone permanently, but his nastiness in doing so drives his friends away, so he's left with nothing but the bone.
