The Big Catnap

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Big Catnap
Series = Garfield and Friends


Caption =
Season = 2
Episode = 45
Airdate = September 16, 1989
Production = G015-C
Writer = Mark Evanier
Sharman DiVono
Director = John Walker
Steve Clark
Guests =
Episode list = List of Garfield and Friends episodes
Prev = Grabbity
Next = The Great Getaway

"The Big Catnap" is an episode of "Garfield and Friends". It originally aired on September 16, 1989.

Episode recap

The mailman nervously delivers a package to Jon’s doorstep, and he becomes suspicious when he doesn’t see Garfield around. Jon then pops out from the bushes and startles him so much that he flies and lands in the birdbath. Jon explains that the package is a special box of cookies that his mother sends him every year; then he says that he hasn’t actually eaten them in years, which he explains via a series of flashbacks.
In the first flashback (one year earlier), Jon sits in the kitchen and is about to eat the cookies when Garfield comes in with his fur a sickly black color. Jon then finds his first aid book open to a page that lists information about the Deadly Cat Fever whose symptoms are for the cat to turn black and nearly die from the disease. After Garfield faints, Jon reads on and learns that the only known cure is cookies, so he feeds Garfield all the cookies. Then Odie comes in tracking black paint, which confirms that Jon had been duped, and he chases Garfield out of the kitchen.
The year before that, Garfield runs down the street to a payphone and dials Jon's telephone number just as Jon is about to eat the cookies. He puts them down and answers the phone, and while he's gone, Garfield eats the cookies. The year before "that," Garfield goes to a vacant lot and tears the door off an abandoned safe; then he takes it home and attaches it to the window. He then comes after Jon, who decides to throw the cookies in the safe, so he opens the safe door and throws them "in." He then remembers that he doesn’t "have" a safe, and he discovers Garfield eating the cookies.
Back in the present, Jon sneaks into the house with the package and finds Garfield sleeping. Various loud noises then start (including Tom from Tom and Jerry serenading to a female cat and Odie watching a televised cartoon series with Tom and Jerry sneezing their heads off at every episode), but Garfield doesn’t awaken. Still, Jon hops a city bus and rides way out into the city to escape Garfield. He stops at the city park, and after one bite of a cookie, Garfield wakes up and zooms over to the park (literally). Jon gives up and surrenders the cookies, and as Garfield eats them, Jon walks away Ideas for Next year.

Notes

*Garfield says that the four basic food groups are pasta, cheeseburger with [French fried potatoes|fries]
chocolate cake and more pasta.
*Jon never liked to eat cookies with milk, even Garfield, so there wasn't any milk in this cartoon.
*Garfield seems to only awaken by food sounds. In this episode, he hears cookie crunch to make him awake and in World's Longest Doze, he was awoken by the sound of the lasagna pack wrap opening.
*This is the first episode since Forget Me Not to feature Herman Post, the mailman.
*In 1988, Jon tried to eat his cookies in the kitchen table without sitting, in 1987, he decided to eat on the couch, and in 1986, Jon tried to eat his cookies on his sitting chair.

Goofs

*Garfield eats all the cookies in 1986 and 1987, but only eats more than 7 in 1988, but Jon still chases him in 1988.
*If Garfield is painted black, nothing he touches turns black except Odie who tried to do the same 1988 trick like Garfield to get cookies.
*Garfield doesn't carry any money with him to run to the telephone booth and it seems that his fur might be his clothes, where he pulls coins from his fur and call his home. Also, Garfield has a wicked smile when he was calling Jon.
*Jon threw the very heavy TV set out the door, probably because he's rather strong or he's so worried that he was able to throw the TV and surprisingly Odie both out the door and one of his arms was holding the cookie box, so Jon unbelievably threw the TV and Odie with one arm.
*Odie could have been brutal when he was thrown, but his most painful part was that he was kicked off by Jon, but Jon doesn't trip over.
*Jon didn't pay to get on the bus,or probably Jon had his wallet in his pocket to pay at the end of his trip.
*Jon never got to eat the cookies, but he ate one a second before Garfield heard the crunch.

Quotes

Mailman: My brother got a job testing defective fighter planes, but not "me. No," I had to pick a "dangerous" line of work.
Jon: Oh, boy! Mom sent me cookies!
["Garfield points to his open mouth"]
Jon: "Oh," no. Not a crumb. These are mine.
Garfield: What greed. He won’t let me have all of them.

External links

* [http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/31189-Big_Catnap.html The Big Catnap] at the Big Cartoon DataBase
* [http://www.tv.com/episode/90598/summary.html The Big Catnap] at TV.com