Starring Lorenzo Music, Thom Huge, Gregg Berger, Howard Morris, Frank Welker
Written By:
Directed By: Steve Clark, Jeff Hall
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Buy on Amazon.com link

“We’re ready to party, we’re ready. I hope you’ll bring lots of spaghetti.”

So goes the opening words of the theme song that was once drilled mercilessly into my head, and if you watch this DVD, oh boy is it gonna get drilled some more. There are 15 segments on this DVD, and the theme song is played in front of each and every one.

But I’m getting a tad bit ahead of myself here. First I’d like to point out what this DVD actually is, and why the title is so hilariously misleading. This is a compilation of 15 Garfield segments from Garfield and Friends. If you were like me and watched Garfield and Friends religiously every Saturday morning, you’ll remember the basic format: in each half-hour episode, there were three 7-minute segments: two Garfields with a US Acres in between. The US Acres was, of course, generally what the “and Friends” was referring to, and that’s problem number one with the title of the DVD: There are no US Acres segments whatsoever.

The second problem is the “Behind the Scenes”, which I thought would indicate there was some sort of bonus behind the scenes material here, but no. There is not a single bonus item anywhere on the disc. As I said, the entire thing is 15 Garfield segments, which, according to the back of the slipcase, were handpicked by creator Jim Davis.

Okay, so anyway, complaints about the title aside: This is a fun little disc. If you’re like me, and you want to relive one of your favorite Saturday morning cartoons but don’t want to invest all the time and money in a full season set, this is a great choice. It lasts a little over two hours, and some of the segments are great.

(It should be noted that, while it seems entirely fashionable to be a Garfield hater these days, I’ve always loved the lazy orange cat. Also it should be noted that before watching this DVD, I never before realized that Nermal was, in fact, a dude.)

Anyway, a few of the segments on here weren’t all that great (especially the “Multiple Choice Cartoon” episode, which was actually pretty annoying), but most of them got a few good laughs. The “Mistakes Will Happen” was actually really dang hilarious and had me cracking up the entire time, but then, I’m a huge fan of random insanity. And for a kid’s show, there’s some surprisingly sharp satire at work.

So in conclusion, while I’m disappointed that there were no actual behind the scenes features and not even a single token US Acres segment, this is still a pretty swell disc, and you should check it out. NOW!

Features:
Squat

Audio:
ENGLISH

Video:
1.33:1 Color

Subtitles:
English, Spanish

Favorite Scenes: The entire “Mistakes Will Happen” episode, the Buddy Bears explaining about Garfield speaking “Italian”
Rating: NR
Running Time: 127 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: