Garfield's Halloween Adventure (1985)

[Garfield in Disguise]

Director: Phil Roman
Studio: Film Roman
Starring: Lorenzo Music, Thom Huge, Gregg Berger

Synopsis:
Garfield and Odie go out trick-or-treating, but Garfield's greed may get the better of him.

Impressions:
It's rather appropriate that I'm pairing the Peanuts Halloween special with the Garfield one just as I did with their Christmas specials. In both cases, the Halloween specials are a step down, less tightly written and less poignant. That doesn't mean that they're all bad. This is watchable and I wouldn't hesitate to use this to entertain a kid for about half an hour. The songs are decent, but a lot of the jokes don't really land and the performances don't have much umpf to them. The old man telling the story doesn't look like a Jim Davis character and he isn't animated like everyone else, so that's a bit interesting. I won't call this great and it doesn't hold anywhere near as close a place in my heart as the Christmas special, but it's still worth a watch. If nothing else, you can enjoy Binky the Clown's verbal abuse at the start. That was probably the funniest bit.

Rating:
Watch It