Nerding Day: Garfield: His 9 Lives (Patreon)

Well the last time it was my turn to drive this weinermobile we talked about a weird sex book and ill be honest with you the next time its my turn its also gonna be: weird sex book. Which: I love every one of em, But even I know that you got to vary it up now and then and kinda pull out from doing all horny cursed artifacts all the time. Maybe writin about sex books is a lil like sex itself: all in and no out and your gonna end up with a hell of a emergency room bill. So let’s mix it up today! But what shall be our creamy wholesome frostin in between the layers of red velvet preversion? What sort of tongue-pleasin meat sauce shall we sensually but nonsexually ladel in and around our slippery noodles to create this, our showstoppin’ comedy lasagna?

This is another one where I sorta wish it was you an me sat down with a cup of tea on the porch and maybe some gram crackers that are just a little gone soft instead of over the internet so i could ask you if you saw this one before and did it effect you like it did both my bud Adam and Brockway here who said they read it as kids and that it changed them “as a person” and “for the worse”, respectavely.

So in this year of 2026 Garfield turns 48 years old (which means most of his emails are about how he really should be schedulin a colonoscopy) but this book came out way back in 1984, which means even when Garfield was only 6 years old, Jim Davis was apparently already feelin constrained by the newspaper comic limitations on the character and his creativity and was feelin the need to stretch and experiment. Which, I honestly respect that noble artistic intent, my guess is thats maybe the same impulse that blessed the world with this:

I know you cant hear the music but also you probly dont need to to know that thats Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flaaaashbeagle! And that when he jumps up high? Well he glides just like a lil ol wild eagle. Lets hold that image close in are hearts and thoughts and try to forget about the upsettin choice they made to actually show full bodied peanuts adults:

Hm that was 1984 also. You know what that was the same year Stephen King was strainin against his bonds as well and writin under the Bachman sudoname and collaboratin with Straub! so maybe there was just kinda a psychic wave of creative renaissance sweepin over the nation that year. Or maybe its just that the size of things is so big but our pattern-lovin brains can and want to find little clusters of meanin in all the noise, and that comforts us for a short while.

Anyway back to this fucked up garfield book:

It starts with Jim Davis is God and hes presidin over a council of the demigods that make up His team and their trying to please Him and decide about how to make a garfield:

But in a pretty hauntin visual style and even for me inscrutabel and insular dialogue and writing

Weird and unsettlin enough but then it takes quite a leap, i have used the power of animated gif to reveal this next part kinda gradually so you can turn away when it starts to get too scary.

How far did you get!? I think maybe its the business casual mullet that really upsets the soul on that one. For some of you that might be lightin up some of the dustier neurons back in the unkept truck bed of your mind and got you sayin wait did i see on this tv somehow which yes you might of, but they didn’t have quite the same makeup budget for the tv version…

So it looks more like if you were a kid in bed who asked Alan Moore for a glass of water one to many times and hes had enough.

So we here at hotdog are already wise and worldly as to how you gotta be careful about how much garfield you let in to your brain, but not everyone is as knowledgeable or responsible as us and apparently think this is fine to just give it to kids with no supervision.

Yes exactly. So how I’m gonna be a hero today is I’m gonna take a look at the whole Garfield 9 Lives experiment package (which: it kinda took on different forms as it attempted to escape containment so it actually got made and remade into 2 books and 2 made-for-tv specials) and then write up about some of the lives to try give the world a heads up about what we’re facing here. And its maybe more censure than censor: i personally think its probly good at some level for kids to get to know how to handle some fear and peril, so I’m gonna keep it nuants and prepare a Responsible and Informed Parents Guide so YOU can decide at which age you introduce which parts of Garfield Darkness into your hearth and home.

FIRST LIFE:

Well I think we can all agree this is fun and good, look at garfield’s cute lil braids! It does seem like maybe garfield himself was something of a after-the-fact addition to this one, the basic story is that we have a group of vikings who get encino-manned into our modern age:

And its cute art and characters, nothing crazy so far. I mean, depending on your orientation you might be noticin Helga’s curves there but that’s nothing we aint seen in bugs bunny.

But guess what the viking temperments is not a good match for 1984 and they get frustrated. Its a lil hard to see but the narrator says “ass” there and Helga herself says “boardapes” so we note that this exposes the child reader to both profanity and, worse, NFTs.

And then we get a double dose of his and her clevage:

…the ass crack version bein decidedly more voluptuous than the female breast one. Also I think were meant to understand that that dog drownded but that it deserved it.

Okay, that was a nice lil calibration round, lets see how she came out!

It’s working! See: you dont need to go around BANNIN books, I will happily read all of Judy Blume’s books for you and tell you which one have periods and which ones erections and which ones a surprising amount of jokes about new york and new jersey real estate and you and your child can have good conversations about these when everyone is ready.

But we got some more garfield lives to look at here.

SECOND LIFE:

What this one is is Creepshow Garfield but the cats name is Tigger and he gets touched by a demon:

This is very cool so far that upper right one looks just like me when someone surprises me in the basement and the demon cat I choose to believe is the pet companion of a Predator, the scholarly among you may know it as a “Yautja-khen”:

Hell yes what the hell this is bad ass

Oh my god ok i know everyone here is sayin THIS RULES in either a beavis or butthead voice dependin on your zodiac and we’re right, it does. Look at how they gave her that drawing so we know she has grandchildren that will mourn her and be traumatized if there the ones what find her half-eaten. And that combination of hearin aid and bra strap detail tells us that yes, she has aged but also yes, she has lived! BUT NOT ANYMORE BECAUSE TIGGER MUST HUNT

Lets go again!

THIRD LIFE:

Oh no garfield what are you gonna get up to this time!?

Ah so its another horror comic but more of the british persuasion…

…which thats a good call, if i was tryin to tell a story about a animal in danger and I wanted to do it in a way that would make a child feel sad and scared but also like maybe its their fault somehow, i too would get a piggyback from Plague Dogs and Watership Down.

HAHA Garfield you sonuvabitch you got em good! All givin us michael jackson thriller eyes at the end there, you rascal! Let’s take a look at how they adapted this one for the children’s cartoon:

I had to speed that up for patreon but you get the idea: its pretty much a disney-quality animation of a werewolf transformation that is Manimal-like in how it takes a while and hurts a lot. You know, for kids!

Yes, a bunch of the stories from the book got animated up into a tv-special and it actually was nominated for the 1989 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program. It didn’t win tho! What in hell coulda topped this, one wonders to oneself, suggestionly…

LAST LIFE:

Well remember how i said they did TWO made-for tv specials? Yeah, so the tv adaptation of Babes and Bullets is what the other one lost to. What a magical year was 1989!

The book version of babes and bullets is I guess what you’d expect a garfield noir story to be?

All long-shadow black-and-white illustrations with lurid writing that if you found yourself readin it aloud to your child might make both of you look at each other like what the fuck.

The story is a classic, high kid-appeal tale about a cat–priest who drugs another cat-priest to make him drive off a cliff to his death

and the priest’s widow (the story explains he was greek orthodox) hires Garfield to solve the case. Here he is consultin with Burt the coraner:

The feet. Why did they keep the cartoon feet like that. There’s no other bare cat feet in the story and the artist was obviously killer at drawin the drape and ridge of blankets and could have just covered them up!

Man, the more i look at them though the more i kind of get it. If I could wield a #2 to this end? to tease such conture and curvacher from the naked page? Do you also find yourself kind of yearnin to run your fingers and palms ‘round those kitty-piggies? Be honest.

Anyway, The book ends with a bit thats a lil sexy/cheeky but not too hard to lie to your kid about:

The nice kitties are just givin each other a lil night-night kiss, see? What’s the scotch for? Well honey, sometimes kitties need alcohol to help them blur there thoughts and feelins about the dead kitties they saw and their new unwanted knowledge about the cruelty in other kitties’ hearts so they can find, if not pleasure, then maybe at least a moment of oblivion in the wanton throes of feline ecstasy. Sleep tight!

The emmy-award winning TV special made the decision to change all non-garfield characters to humans. Here’s a nice kinda hitchcock shot I like of garfield drivin up to meet the widow at the site of her young husband’s death:

And heres a part with Garfield consultin with his client on the telephone:

You might be gettin either worried or hopeful that Garfield is going to enter into carnal relations with the human woman but dont be gross, this is a children’s program, remember? And also: Garfield is a professional and respects boundries. When the case is solved he and his client simply share a chaste hug:

And then he hates that she goes but loves to watch her leave:

Whew, chalk one up to restraint and discretion, thanks Hays code. Okay I think we got what we need here:

Oh wait its not over

Ok garfield has a human secretary in this one and she’s getting them some milk instead of whisky, thats probably for the better, right?

In the name of jesus christ amen.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Brian Seiler, a Responsible and Informed Parent who knows exactly when a child is ready for drowned dogs, demon-touched cats, and tasteful kitty feet.

You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM