The Garfield Show (seasons 3-5)

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The Garfield Show (also called Garfield et cie in France) is a French–American CGI animated television series created by Philippe Vidal for French 3 and Cartoon Network from 2008-2014 in France, and 2009-2016 in the US with a total of 107 episodes throughout five seasons. The Garfield Show is based on the American comic strip, Garfield.

The Garfield Show (seasons 3-5)

September 4, 2012: The day the show became better than any Monday.

Genre:	Comedy Adventure
Country:	United States France
Release Date:	2011-2014 (France) September 4, 2014-October 24, 2016 (US)
Network(s):	France 3 Cartoon Network Boomerang
Created by:	Philippe Vidal
Distributed by:	Mediatoon Distribution
Starring:	Frank Welker Gregg Berger Wally Wingert Jason Marsden Audrey Wasilewski Laraine Newman Misty Lee Laura Summer
Seasons:	3 (Seasons 3-5)
Episodes:	55
Previous show:	Garfield and Friends
Next show:	Garfield Originals

Despite the first two seasons having a more negative reception, the show has received some major improvement starting from season 3 with more well-written episode plots, and funnier jokes.

Why These Seasons Rocks

The involvement of Mark Evanier as the main writer for the show greatly improved the series, and it's become way more entertaining to watch than the first two seasons.
Some new great well written and memorable characters that contribute to the show greatly:
- Angie the tour guide who's helping Garfield, Jon, and Odie to find Lyman, Odie's first owner in Australia in "Long Lost Lyman" and later helping them save the white lion from Spencer Spendington in "Lion Queen" 5-part special.
- Gloria is a pizza delivery girl who later become Doc Boy Arbuckle's girlfriend.
- Winona the witch woman who's Mrs. Cauldron's niece who has an interest in both Jon and Doc Boy and later helps Garfield, Odie, and Abigail find three magical items in order to stop her evil aunt Varicella in "Bewitched" special.
- Mrs. Ferret is Liz's former pet who has an extreme level of appetite and was later adopted by Eddie Gourmand.
- Biff is the muscular mouse and squeaks best friend from mouse school.
- Dingbang who's a Chinese teenager who helps Garfield, Odie, and Nermal find a treasure heist with the golden cat statue that looks similar to Nermal before Bella Bellissima got them first.
- Lucky is a stray cat who's Garfield's good friend that was later adopted by an elderly blind man in the episode "Where's Odie".
- Armstrong who's Angie's friend from Africa who flights the plane and helps the gang find the white lion.
- Abigail the apprentice kid witch who's Mrs. Cauldron's other niece and Winona's cousin. She's the main heroine in "Bewitched" a 5-part special and fights alongside Garfield, Odie, and Winona against her evil aunt Varicella and stops her plot of taking over the world with "Forbidden Moon Spell".
- Miss Kitty is another female cat from the western episode "Glitter Gulch" that tries to seduce Garfield from Arlene as Dr. Whipple's order and later stops doing his order later becomes Arlene's best friend.
- Blenn is an alien from out of space who's trying to stop Master Control's actions of taking over the world where everyone was robots.
- Vito's cousin Nunzio who Vito thought that he's framed for using the same cheap way to make a lasagna as Mama Meany does, but it was revealed that he's using the ingredients from both of their mother does, love and perfection.
- Celest St. Clair is a famous singer that Drusilla and Minerva are obsessed with joining the adventures with Garfield, Odie, and Nermal on the dessert and three of them went stage on her concert together along with the coyotes that they meet in the desert.
- Hector who's Liz's cousin giving calculations of Garfield's diet in order to help Jon's financial problem. Later he adopts the girls' stray cats on his apartment because of the girls' mother's disapproval of having a cat in their family since she's alleged to them.
These seasons greatly improved the CGI animation because of the involvement with Once Upon a Toon Studio and Studio Redfrog.
This is the very first Garfield-related media to reveal the disappearance of Jon's old roommate and Odie's original owner Lyman, and we finally see him again after 29 years since his final appearance in the comic series.
The voice acting for the English dub is very good, especially from voice actors, Frank Welker, Gregg Berger (who reprises his role from Garfield and Friends) and Wally Wingert.
Some tearjerking and heartwarming episodes like:
- "Long Lost Lyman"
- "Where's Odie"
- "The Six-Can of Solutions"
- "Delicious Donut Day"
- "Bewitched Part 5: Bewitched and Bewildered"
- "World Without Me"
The one-hour special episodes from Season 4 had great plots and are entertaining to watch. The music is also great, even in the French dub, they have extra music and special easter eggs.
They featured some famous guest stars especially for the one-hour special episodes like Mark Hamill, Rose Marie, Joe Alaskey, Corey Burton, Bob Bergen, Candi Milo, Jewel Shepard, Neil Ross, Bill Farmer, Phil LaMarr, Brooks Gardner, Scott Whyte, and Emilie Gassin.
Despite having some Sci-Fi episodes, they have more fantasy episodes like witches and is more entertaining and easier to understand since it also combines with adventures like in the "Bewitched" special.
"The Mean Machine" one-hour special is a great parody of Star Wars and also gave homage to the franchise like Blenn as Luke Skywalker, Anja as Princess Leia, and Master Control as Darth Vader.
Jon has become less of an unlikable idiot than he was back in the first two seasons and became smarter like his Garfield and Friends counterpart as he easily figured out Garfield and Odie's wrongdoings.
Jon and Liz have a very strong romantic relationship and they become an official couple especially in the later seasons and some of the fairy tales episodes like "Furry Tales" and "Against All Tides" when they got married.
Arlene admits all of her feelings towards Garfield and she really cannot find another cat other than him to love and they've also become an official couple as well.
Liz and Arlene become way nicer and tolerable plus less sarcastic than their counterpart from comic strips and Garfield and Friends.
Both Garfield and Nermal have mellowed down their rivalries and they become even more of frenemies and respect each other especially as shown in the episode "Into The Wild" and "Rodent Rebellion".
Starting from season 3, Nermal has become less of a jerk than he was back in the first two seasons and his personality has more closer to his comic strips counterpart.
Garfield has become nicer, more likable, and thoughtful starting from these seasons, as he rarely bullies Jon, and has become closer to Odie, as he admits that Odie is his best friend. He also has strong feelings towards Odie such as when Odie, Garfield had become actually depressed and sad that Odie went missing.
- While he still seems to have his faithful 'silly jokester' personality from the first two seasons, it fits better to the writing and the comedy in these seasons. It's also written a lot better rather than feeling like it's in-your-face, overly absurd, or forced sometimes.
The jokes have become a whole lot funnier with more genuinely well-made jokes than in the earlier seasons, as they have less gross-out, meta jokes, fart jokes, and slapstick jokes.
Most of the new characters aren't overly used from already existing models and most of them are build from the stretch which proves that these seasons have more creatively made characters.
Characters from comic strips that didn't appear in Garfield and Friends are also present in The Garfield Show like Squeak, Arlene, Doc Boy, and reappearances of Lyman in season 3.
There are also some episodes where Garfield isn't the main character, with the show giving more of a chance to other characters like Jon in the episode "The Non-Garfield Show" and Odie in "Smartest Dog in the World".
The fourth wall breaks can be pretty funny and hilarious at times despite being reused from the first two seasons.
It was one of the most-watched TV shows in the United States, due to the fact that Garfield was one of the most popular American cartoon characters.
It was very popular in Europe especially in France. Despite in other regions it has stop airing especially after Nickelodeon purchasing. In Europe, The Garfield Show still airs on television.
This was the series that finally won June Foray an Emmy (although the "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" category is a fairly recent addition).
The character designs appear to be very accurate to Jim Davis' comics.
This latter season is much more faithful to the original Garfield and Friends material than the previous seasons, as it has more adventure and less overused jokes.
These seasons have many great and memorable episodes such as:
- Furry Tales
- Kind to Kittens
- Land of Later
- Laugh in a Can
- The Non-Garfield Show
- The Caped Avenger Rides Again!
- The Superhero Apprentice
- Teddy Dearest
- Bath Days
- Boris The Snowman
- Long Lost Lyman
- The Golden Lasagna Awards
- The Write Stuff
- Cupid Cat
- Every Witch Way
- Revenge of the Cat People
- Smartest Dog in the World
- Farmer Garfield
- The Mysterious Machine
- Fitness Crazed
- Little Trouble in Big China
- Take a Ferret to Lunch
- Bride and Broom
- Problems, Problems, Problems
- The Great Trade-Off
- Lion Queen
- Bewitched
- The Mean Manchine
- Glitter Gulch
- Against All Tides
- Lasagna Tree
- Into the Wild
- My Cousin Petunia
- Garfception
- The Six-Can Solution
- For Mice
- Mother Owl
- Home Sweet Home
- Delicious Donut Day
- Stink, Stank, Skunk!
- My Dog, the Cat
- World Without Me
- Fraidy Cat
- The Very, Very Long Night
- Rodent Rebellion (Which was a great way to end the show even if it is the only episode in season 5)

Monday Qualities

Even after seasons 1 and 2, some bad episodes are still present such as the following:
- Little Angel (which started those seasons in the poor and mean-spirited note)
- More Than Meets in the Eye
- It's About Time
- Garfield Gets Canned
- Partners in Mime
- Pawparazzi
- The Garfield-Only Show
- Filthy Fugitives
- My Friend, Nermal
- Doggone Jon
- Two Times the Trouble
- Barking Mad
- Bulldog of Doom
- Whatever Happened to Aunt Ivy
Jon still sometimes kicks Garfield and Odie out of the house like in episode "Little Angel".
Nermal can be unlikeable sometimes in episodes like "It's About Time" and "The Golden Lasagna Awards".
Continuity Errors: In the comic book series and Garfield and Friends, Garfield has thoughts in which he is not supposed to talk since he is a cat. But in this show, he talks as you can see his mouth moves.
- Though it's worth noting that Garfield's Judgement Day is a book from 1990 that was partially written by Jim Davis, & he decided to finally talk to his owner so that they could get out of a tornado accident.
There's still some very lazy parts such as when they reuse characters from background that they use for fictional characters, even if it's not as much as the first two seasons.
Some dubs for this show are very badly done.
The fourth wall jokes, while funny at times, can get extremely reused in these seasons.
Some intolerable characters like:
- Nathan
- The Twins
- Aunt Ivy
- Anthony Allwork
- Angel
- Mayor Grafton
- Dirk Dinkum
- Buckley
- Spencer Spendington
- Mama Meany
- Bella Bellissima
- Captain McCooCoo
- Rupert
- Lloyd
Some of the extra songs and clips from the one-hour special didn't air in countries other than France because of separate parts in the airings.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

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