Jon is watching TV as Odie barks and Garfield scratches at the door. Jon's too tired to let them out. They frown, and go over to the chair. They pick it up and run for the door. Jon holds on, wondering what they're doing. One thud later, they're outside. As is Jon, lying on his back in the chair, which is lying on its back on the door. Jon figures it's time to think about adding a pet door.
("Friends Are There")
"Smart kids watch this show. Other kids change the channel."
Garfield: Nighty Nightmare
Jon is on the phone, telling someone in a whisper about a pizza he's having delivered that Garfield (supposedly) knows nothing about. Yeah right, I bet he knows the exact timbre of every delivery car they have. The doorbell rings, so he says a quick goodbye, hangs up, and heads over to answer it, pretending (badly) not to know who it is, and saying that it couldn't be a pizza. Hey, Jon, could you say "pizza" a few more times? I don't think Garfield's "pizza on the premises" alert has gone off enough. He claims it's probably a special delivery letter. He gives the man in the salmon jogging outfit and cap with jaunty yellow wings dough in exchange for his dough (by which I mean cash for the pizza) by putting it in his mouth, then going back in. He opens back up a crack, whispers his thanks, and closes the door again, knocking the man down and scattering paper currency.
Jon runs through the house with his prize, and into a bedroom, locking the door. He puts a dresser and chair in front of the door and dives under the bed, thinking he didn't forget anything. Just then, the lid pops up. Garfield has a slice in hand. He thinks Jon forgot the anchovies. He gulps it down anyway as Jon does a Face Palm. Garfield pats him on the head, thinking Jon will remember next time.
They leave the room. Jon asks how anyone could eat a jumbo mushroom, pineapple, sausage, pepper, olive, onion, meatball, Canadian bacon, and pimento pizza all by himself. (Feh, I'll tell you how: judging by the size of the box, it's a pretty poor "jumbo". I'd call it on the small side of "medium". Although considering the kind of cartoon this is, and considering that Garfield was inside the box without making it bulge, maybe there was a jumbo pizza in there. Need a more dramatic example? Try the elephant in the falling box trap from last episode. Also, Jon, weren't you planning on eating it all by yourself? Eh, maybe not. Maybe you were going to have your fill and give Garfield the leftovers... because if you let Garfield get to it, you won't have leftovers.) Garfield notes that he usually prefers thick crust. Jon warns Garfield that eating like that will one day give him nightmares. Garfield is skeptical of this.
Garfield is still thinking how silly that is as he drifts off to sleep. And indeed, his dream starts off quite pleasantly for him; Jon is feeding him as he sings exhortations to eat. Slurping sauceless spaghetti? Uh... whatever floats your boat, Garf. Jon places pizzas on a turntable and starts it, causing the record player to fling them one at a time at Garfield, who catches each one and swallows it.
Now Garfield has a visor, and a stack of lunchmeat and a stack of sliced bread. He ruffs the two stacks into a tall sandwich. He discards the visor, sticks a jack in his mouth and makes it taller. He pulls on the tablecloth to tip the sandwich into his mouth, and lets the jack fall out.
Now Jon is fixing pancakes with incredible alacrity, flipping them into a ceiling-mounted Garfield's mouth. (Ceiling Cat is catching to masticate!)
Garfield walks into Vinces' (it's owned by more than one Vince?), where 8 billion burgers have been served. Within seconds, this amount has jumped by 5 billion.
Jon places cakes onto a conveyor belt where Odie is squirting icing onto them. Of course, at the other end is Garfield, lying with his head on a pillow, ready to receive the cakes.
But now Jon is admonishing Garfield that he has to stop eating. Garfield is standing in a corner, expanding every few seconds without doing so by eating. Jon is noting each expansion. Eventually we switch to an exterior shot, and Jon says an "Oh no!" before Garfield splits the roof. He grabs a tree and eats the leaves, tossing the trunk aside. Jon says he knew it would happen. Odie howls. Garfield picks Jon up by the shirt collar. Jon says he knows Garfield is still hungry, so he'll find food... like a pizza or a hundred. Garfield sets Jon down, but tells him not to forget the anchovies.
Truckloads of food are passing by. As they arrive, they dump their loads on the ground where Jon uses a crane to pick them up. Garfield picks the crane up, and Jon drops the food into his mouth.
On TV, a reporter is delivering a special report of a giant orange cat that's eating things up. He is about to turn it over to the mobile unit, but then he receives an update that the mobile unit has been eaten, as well! He decides to leave town!
And now there's a hot dog stand shaped like a hot dog. The man working it escapes mere seconds before Garfield picks it up and takes a bite out of it, wishing for a mustard factory. He tosses the remaining portion in his mouth and swallows it. He finds himself thirsty. He spies a pool and reaches for it. The kids within escape before he picks it up and drinks the pool water. ...Pool water! As in the water from the pool that those kids had been playing in! Yum, chlorine and other pool chemicals.
Garfield is still hungry. He demands more food. A stomp knocks Jon to the ground. Jon promises to get more.
At the store, it turns out they don't have any more; Garfield got there first.
And the same is true of the rest of the food in town. One supermarket doesn't even have paper towels. (It does have knocked-over shopping carts.) Garfield comes by, demanding more. Jon calls up the National Guard wanting lasagna: 50, no, 100 tons of it! Garfield pulls up a fire hydrant and drinks from the spraying water.
Large pans of lasagna are driven down the street, escorted by tanks. As they pass by, Garfield devours the contents of each pan. The general reports that the operation is proceeding as ordered, and as an additional measure, they're filling the Grand Canyon with chicken gumbo. He decides to ask Jon, given that he's the owner, what it takes to satisfy Garfield. Jon isn't sure it's possible. Once the last pan is emptied, the general comes to the same conclusion. Jon reads his meaning, but says he can't. The general says he must. He calls in the air squadron.
Garfield walks through the street with a small margin for error on either side. People run away as he approaches. He's still looking for food. He's also taller than most buildings. But there is the one... he climbs it, noting that he was afraid that the nightmare might get silly. Jon pulls up to the building in his car, and warns him that he has to stop eating. The air squadron flies around, but he grabs a plane (the pilot ejecting just in time) and gulps it down. He sees a flying saucer and reaches for it, licking his lips. It pulls him in with a tractor beam; he barely squeezes through the hatch.
Once inside, he calls for Mr. Spock. A pair of doors open, and platform sticks through, bearing a shorter green creature with purple spots, pointed ears, and yellow sclerae. He greets Garfield, and anticipates that he has questions. Garfield's question, of course, is if they have anything to eat. He pokes Garfield, noting his plumpness. (Guess he didn't say anything about answering the question, necessarily...) He claims their interplanetary hunger ray did a good job of fattening him up. Yeah, I'd say it effectively doubled his food intake. ;) This doesn't sound good to Garfield. Indeed, the plan was to make him into Thanksgiving dinner... dinner for an entire planet, and leftovers for sandwiches the next day! Garfield is not down with that. As the saucer takes off, he claims he'd make lousy sandwiches. He wants to see Jon and Odie again. He says he'll go on a diet and lose weight.
We dissolve back to reality. Garfield isn't awake yet. He says his drumsticks have fur on them. Odie licks him, which he interprets as them basting him, before he realizes that the slurp is familiar. He awakens. Odie is there, and Jon is telling him he was having a nightmare. Garfield is relieved. Jon apologizes for yelling at him, and offers lasagna to make it up to him. But after that nightmare, Garfield is not particularly desiring lasagna. Jon and Odie are puzzled. Garfield resolves to go on a diet for 20 pounds... or 20 minutes, whichever comes first. He takes the lasagna.
Orson's Farm: Quickie
Wade is planting seeds from a bag marked with the word "SEEDS" and a question mark. Orson happens along and startles him with a greeting, and asks what kind he's planting. Wade doesn't know; they're mystery seeds. Orson looks them up in a convenient book as Wade waters them. A vine springs up quickly, grabs Wade, and pulls him underground. As it does so, Orson discovers that they're the seeds of the dangerous South American duck-choker vine. Orson, who was oblivious to what happened, asks if Wade heard, then starts looking around for him and calling him.
Orson's Farm: Banana Nose
We begin our story with Orson reading a story about pirates. (Don't worry, the scenery is still farmish, so his imagination setting must still be on "low".) In it, a pirate captain is telling someone that he's going to be walking the plank. Roy listens from behind a tree. If you remember last episode, you know... roughly what that means. He gets a low down, sneaky, rotten idea that he should be ashamed of himself for even thinking up, so of course he's going to do it. He heads for his coop and goes through his costume trunk: cowboy suit, Loch Ness monster, Merv Griffin costume, Queen of Sheba, cheeseburger... and a chicken suit, which makes him wonder why he would need one of those. Maybe if he wanted to dress up like a different chicken? I don't know.
Orson's still reading. Wade asks if there are pirates nearby. Orson says that of course there aren't, which is Roy's cue to show up in a pirate outfit and accessories: wooden sword, purple and yellow striped shirt, purple headkerchief with yellow spots, and... combring. That's right, Roy has a comb piercing. When it comes to practical jokes, this rooster is Crazy-Prepared. Y'know. If his costume selection didn't give that away. He talks some bad pirate lingo, and declares himself to be a pirate. Wade be gettin' out o' there, and Orson be right beside 'im. Wade runs off, calling for someone to get the Air Force, the Marines, and Peter Pan.
Bo, meanwhile, is up on a ladder, decorating the front of the barn with paint. He looks down from his position. Wade is considered that he'll be made to walk the plank, and they aren't near an ocean. In his panic, he knocks the paint aside, except the purple, and destabilizes the ladder before running off again. The ladder wobbles, and Bo falls off. (The ladder falls against the barn again.) Bo falls into the only paint that was left. (I guess it's water-based rather than oil or acrylic?)
Lanolin is washing and hanging up laundry, including woolen outerwear. Wade, who has no ability to avoid obstacles in panic mode, knocks Lanolin into the wooden washbasin. Orson runs up, saying that he realized that the "pirate" was actually Roy. In saying so, he runs into the cloud of soap suds for no apparent reason... instantly dissipating them, so I guess that's good. Wade is in a third set of woolen outerwear which is hanging on the line now, and Lanolin is under the washbasin, apparently completely dry. She wishes Orson had figured that out half a minute sooner.
So now, the barnyard residents are upset with Roy. Roy just laughs and asks if they can't take a joke. Lanolin tells him it wasn't funny, and calls him "Banana Nose". Now that, they find funny. Even Bo takes to the name. Roy doesn't think it fair. Booker is pretty quick to ask him if he can't take a joke. (You know, if he grows up, chances are...) Roy says he can, if it's funny, but he doesn't find his nose funny. Lanolin says he should see it from her side. Roy tells them to call him "Banana Nose" and see if it bothers him. (Which, when someone says that, at least in fiction, is usually a pretty good indication that it does.)
That night, Roy tries to sleep, but he's hearing the voices of his fellow barnyard residents calling him "Banana Nose" in his head. He covers his head with a pillow.
The next day, in addition to being down, Roy hasn't gotten much sleep. Booker says "Hey, Banana Nose," as he passes. Sheldon is unsure about keeping that up, but Booker is okay with it. He offers Sheldon half his peanut butter & pickle sandwich. Sheldon politely declines, having put a TV dinner in the microwave. Booker then has him come along and search for worms in the field.
They split up to cover more ground. Booker, not having taken any more bites out of his sandwich, gulps down the rest. He spots a worm in a wooded area and chases it! The worm slips behind a log, while Booker keeps going. He stops beside a pile of leaves. He looks around (the worm quite possibly leapt to the other side of the log after Booker passed him), calling for him to get back there, which is always an effective phrase. He steps onto the pile... only to discover that it's a covering for a pit! He falls in. Sheldon doesn't realize this, but he passes within inches of the pit. It seems he's seen some worms.
Orson knocks on Roy's roost. He's been thinking that folks shouldn't call him Banana Nose, but finds that he's not there. He finds a note on his pillow:
Dear everyone,
I thought I had friends here. I guess I was wrong. Don't worry, you'll never see my banana nose here again.
Roy (Banana Nose)
The sheep and Wade peek in. Wade asks for his room. Orson says it's serious; "Banana Nose" has split. Bo is still down on Roy, and Lanolin agrees. Orson asks if they realizes what they're acting like. Lanolin asks what the awful thing that they're acting like is. Orson tells them they're acting like Roy. This is a startling realization that shames them into wanting to find him. Just then, Sheldon enters, announcing that Booker is missing, and relating how he came to be missing. So they run out to search the countryside.
Roy sits on a rock, talking to his beak. He doesn't think it looks like a banana, but possibly a ripe zucchini. He sets off in search of a place where people don't care about your nose. He wanders into the woods, and realizes that he's hungry. He thinks he's imagining a peanut butter sandwich... with pickles. (Sound familiar?) He realizes the scent is real, and follows it to a pit. A pit where Booker is calling for help. Roy looks in and asks if that's Booker. Booker starts to asks if that's Banana Nose, before correcting it to Roy. Roy lowers a vine into the pit, and tells Booker to grab it.
Meanwhile, Sheldon is leading the group into the wooded area where he last saw Booker. Bo is the first to spot him — or rather, them, as Roy has just rescued Booker from the pit. Booker hugs Sheldon, and everybody's happy. Orson asks how Roy found him. Well, it was his nose smelling PB&P, Booker's lunch. This demonstrates that it's good for something. (Did... somebody say it wasn't?)
A song starts up, asking if your nose looks like a banana (with Roy as the model), your toes shaped like Indiana (Wade, here), or if your ears seem bigger than Montana (Bo). Bo bursts into tears, but Orson comforts him and points out that everyone has something like that about them: his curly tail, for instance. This seems to cheer Bo up.
The song goes into a demonstration of the usefulness of these oddities. Roy blows on a toy sailboat; Bo and Lanolin ride a sled, Lanolin using his ears to steer; Wade uses his feet in lieu of skis. Roy tries it, however, trips and starts rolling down the hill in a snowball, eventually running into a tree. Regardless of what people call you based on physical appearances, you're the same person... nice or not.
Garfield: Quickie
What a mess! Spilled flour, a broken egg, a bowl with dough spilling over the sides... there's also a carton of eggs and a bunch of bananas, but those aren't a mess. We pan over to Garfield taking some dough in a bowl and flinging some at the ceiling with a spoon, "for body". He does the same with some carrots, "for color". And some spaghetti (cooked, but without sauce), "for texture". Jon walks up to him just before he flings the spaghetti, and sees him do it. We get a head-and-shoulders shot of Jon while Garfield flings fries "on the side", then back to him flinging two eggs "over easy". (Really, they haven't even been cracked. I suppose they might be boiled, but... no importa.) Jon asks how long he's been doing that. Garfield figures it's been quite some time. The mass of food up there is impressive. It's mostly green with miscellaneous foods sticking out. Some splops on Jon, then some more falls on him. He calls for help.
Garfield: "Ode to Odie"
Garfield stands in bed to present a poem he composed. I won't be writing it all out, but it'll be in prose. Anyway, it's rapped.
In flashback, we see Garfield settling in to sleep, hoping to get in his 24+ hours, or at least avoid Monday. However, he is tapped by a red appendage, preventing this endeavor, and causing him to face someone he doesn't generally care to: Odie. Garfield wants to sleep, but Odie slurps him. One slurp leaves him dripping wet. Garfield goes to get a towel. Instead, he makes use of a convenient hair dryer on the floor.
Previous attempts to tell him to let him sleep have not worked, so he holds up a rolled-up newspaper. However, Odie's pleading eyes lead him to seek an alternative idea. He digs Odie's favorite bone out of Odie's toy box. He tosses it out the door, and after Odie follows, locks it behind him, and goes back to bed. Odie returns and scratches at the door, but Garfield is already back in bed. He muffs his ears to block the whining.
Unable to reenter the house, Odie takes this opportunity to explore the neighborhood. He roams outside his usual area, and makes his way into an alley. He finds a bulldog seated on a broken-down chair that may have been a Barkalounger at one time, but this is not provable. He is being fanned with a racket (tennis? wimbledon? badminton? ...goodminton?) by a french poodle and served discarded food items by another dog. Both are female, because guys don't have eyelashes or wear bows on their heads. The dog eats the contents of a tin of sardines, and chucks the can over his shoulder, where it bounces off a target.
Odie approaches, seeking friendship, but the bulldog squirts a banana out of its peel and into his mouth. He tosses the peel, and the dogs laugh at Odie, whose head is now adorned with it. His head tilting lets it fall off. The brown female thinks he's probably a frog, while the poodle figures him to be an unfed rat. The bulldog gets up and backs Odie up as he declares that Odie is neither rat nor frog, but a gnat. He swipes Odie's bone, and walks away.
Now, Odie is generally a nice dog. He would be okay with sharing, even his favorite bone, but for him to be willing, you've gotta ask nicely. So he walks up to the dog, demanding it back. The dog's response is to kick him out through a loose board. The three dogs laugh.
On the other side of the fence is a small pond or a slightly deep puddle. Odie finds himself sprawled out in it, a frog on his head. He shakes the frog off and heads back. Before he gets there, however, the brown dog goes from laughing to not amused with the treatment of Odie.
Speaking of whom, he faces Butch, as we now know his name is, who proceeds to straighten him out and throw him into a pair of thermal underwear: in through the neck hole and out the "escape hatch".
Now Butch has two dogs who are displeased with his actions. The second one tells him to let Odie be, but he finds pounding Odie fun. But while he's explaining this, he finds himself... alone? His girls seem to have taken a liking to Odie! Butch tosses the bone boredly. So the three dogs run around in the Arbuckle yard. Garfield looks out the window, seemingly pleased with this. (Possibly partially because that means Odie won't be coming to him for entertainment.) Butch sees them, and walks away sadly.
The moral is not to be mean to people who aren't as strong: they may lose a fight, but they win support.
Garfield brings the story, and the windowshade, to a close... but then it pulls up, taking him with it, and getting him stuck in it. "And that's a wrap." Because the poem was presented as a rap, he's wrapped up in the blind, and the episode is ending now. Then the shade starts spinning...
Next time: Episode 4!
