The fifteenth episode of the seventh season of Garfield and Friends.
Post-Opening Sequence Line: "I was gonna do something spontaneous here, but I've been too busy to plan it."
The Horror Hostess
In this two-part episode, Garfield gets Jon on a date with Vivacia, a famous horror movie hostess, only to discover that Vivacia has Jon, along with eight other men, to create her own baseball team. Now, it's up to Garfield and Odie to save them.
Newsworthy Wade
Wade appears on Seven Minutes, a talk show hosted by Dick Drake, to talk about his fears.
"The Horror Hostess" provides examples of:
- Alliterative Title: The Horror Hostess.
- Baseball Episode: In this episode, Vivacia takes Jon and eight other men to her castle, then shrinks them down to form her own miniature baseball team to play against the Rodents, a team of baseball-playing rats.
- Continuity Nod: This episode begins with Jon about to watch Kung Fu Creatures on the Rampage 5.
- The Faceless: Vivacia's dragon Spot is so large that his head is never shown.
- Fire-Breathing Diner: The reason why Spot the dragon breathes fire is because he ate at a bad Mexican restaurant.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Vivacia has a pet dragon named Spot.
- Forced Transformation: Garfield uses Vivacia's magic wand to turn Vivacia's monsters into mimes.
- Heel–Face Turn: When Garfield extinguishes the flame in Spot's mouth, Spot explains to him that he has been mean and full of fire ever since he ate at a bad Mexican restaurant. Spot turns to Garfield's side and helps him rescue Jon in exchange.
- Horror Host: The titular character of this episode is a woman named Vivacia who hosts horror films on TV. Jon falls for her and ends up shrunk and forced to play baseball with other men Vivacia has captured to entertain her guests, leaving Garfield and Odie with the task of rescuing Jon.
- Iris Out: Part One of this episode ends this way when Garfield realizes that he and Odie have run out of time to save Jon. As he tries to prevent the iris from closing, he tells the viewers to stay tuned after the commercial break to see if he and Odie can rescue Jon, then says "Boy, I hope this is a two-parter!"
- Monster Mash: Vivacia's guests in Part Two are a vampire, a Frankenstein monster, a hunchback, a werewolf, a ghost, a mummy, a skeleton and a slug monster.
- Multi-Part Episode: This episode is a two-part episode, with the first part airing before Newsworthy Wade, and the second part airing after it.
- Niche Network: Near the end of Part One, Garfield decides to watch the All-Soup Channel before he gets an interruption from an emergency news break regarding the disappearance of eight men. Garfield is not happy that the news break has interrupted his soups, until he realizes that the eight missing men were last spotted at Gravestone Road, dressed in baseball uniforms, just like Jon. At the end of part two, Garfield decides to go back to watching the All-Soup Channel, saying there's an hour-long special devoted to gumbo.
- Previously on…: When Part Two begins, Garfield gives a brief recap of Part One's events.
- Shout-Out:
- Garfield does an imitation of Bugs Bunny when he first encounters Spot.
- When Garfield takes Vivacia's wand from her, he asks her "Lose something, oh Wicked Witch of the West?"
- Take That!:
- When Vivacia forms her own baseball team, she pits it against the Rodents, who are a team of baseball-playing rats. Upon seeing them, Jon says "Well, they have to play better than Cleveland."
- When Garfield gets a hold of Vivacia's magic wand and she orders her monsters to attack him, he uses the wand to turn them into street mimes, which he describes as being the most repulsive creatures in the world.
- Tempting Fate: When Garfield and Odie travel to Vivacia's castle to rescue Jon, when they come across a sign that says, "BEWARE OF THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON". Upon seeing the sign, Garfield says, "If there's a fire-breathing dragon guarding this house, then I'm Bugs Bunny." Garfield then comes across Spot, Vivacia's pet dragon, and imitates Bugs saying, "Eh, what's up, Doc?" while eating a carrot.
- That Was Not a Dream: This episode ends with Jon awakening from his nap, saying he had a weird dream where he met Vivacia, but stops himself, saying it's too ridiculous. Garfield and Odie know otherwise, but refuse to tell him that, but Jon does realize he wasn't dreaming when he sees that he's still wearing his baseball uniform.
"Newsworthy Wade" provides examples of:
- Absurd Phobia:
- Wade is revealed have several strange fears in this episode, including Zipitiphobia (the fear of getting trapped in a phone booth with a band of bagpipe players), Tiltophobia (the fear of having your doctor play video games on your X-ray), and the fear of having to read silly-named phobias with ridiculously long names (don't even try to pronounce its name).
- At the end of the episode, Dick reveals his fears to Wade, including dryer lint (excessiphobia), and finding out his locker is filled with butterscotch pudding (blotchophobia).
- Alliterative Name: The host of Seven Minutes is named Dick Drake.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Weep is the Big Guy, and Read'em is the Little Guy.
- Cowardly Lion: Discussed; during his interview with Dick, Wade mentions that once a season, he actually does something heroic.
- Evil Duo: This episode features a pair of wolves named Read'em and Weep, who plan to eat Wade.
- Iris Out: This episode ends with one on the newscaster who keeps interrupting Dick when he criticizes how lame the Off-into-the-Distance Ending is.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: This episode ends with Wade and Dick walking off into the sunset as they talk to each other about their fears. The newscaster who keeps interrupting Dick then appears to criticize how lame this kind of ending is.
- Running Gag: Dick's news report on Wade keeps getting interrupted by another newscaster with unimportant topics. Dick constantly has to remind him that his segment comes on at the end of the show. Eventually, Dick gets so fed up with his interruptions that he throws him out of the building.
- Performance Anxiety: Dick develops this when Wade tells him about how brave he is to host a talk show with millions of people watching him, knowing that everyone will judge him if he makes a mistake.
- Punny Name: The names of the two wolves in this episodes are Read'em and Weep.
- Show Within a Show: Seven Minutes, a parody of 60 Minutes.
- Talk Show Appearance: This episode has Wade go on the show Seven Minutes to talk about himself to the program's host, Dick Drake.
