Mistakes Will Happen

Infobox Television episode
Title = Mistakes Will Happen
Series = Garfield and Friends


Caption = The Buddy Bears appear in a scene from "Mistakes Will Happen"
Season = 3
Episode = 162
Airdate = November 17, 1990
Production =
Writer = Mark Evanier
Guests = Jim Davis as the police radio; Mark Evanier as director voice-over
Episode list = List of Garfield and Friends episodes
Prev = For Cats Only
Next = The Well Dweller

"Mistakes Will Happen" is an episode of "Garfield and Friends" which aired in 1990.

Episode recap

Opening

Garfield appears on the title card saying he has announcement before the cartoon. Lifting the card up to reveal the living room, Garfield says he is disturbed by fan letters from viewers that say they noticed some mistakes in the episodes. Garfield denies on the show making mistakes, but when Odie shows up, he admits, "...except occasionally in casting. Okay, sometimes we make mistakes." Garfield and Odie watch a cartoon in which they go camping in the woods and find an escaped convict, searching for any errors. The entire episode is full of blatant humorous mistakes, such as characters wearing outlandish outfits or being called by the wrong names.

Main episode

The episode begins in the city park, where Garfield, Jon and Odie are cooking out. The episode already starts out with errors, but in the commentary, Garfield and Odie claim that they have not seen any yet. Back in the actual episode, as soon as Jon warns Garfield and Odie that the woods are supposedly haunted, the day abruptly turns into night. Garfield, of course, takes Jon for granted, and when Jon realises that Garfield won't listen to him anyway, he decides to teach him a lesson and goes into the woods himself. Meanwhile, the police are in the woods searching for an escaped convict. Even when Odie was temporarily replaced with Nermal, Garfield in the commentary still claims to not have seen any mistakes in the cartoon yet.

While Garfield and Odie are lost in the woods, they reach a cave as Garfield says that there's no one else around for miles. The Buddy Bears suddenly appear from the cave and sing their theme song before returning into the cave. Garfield nonchalantly reaffirms his claim and leaves the area with Odie. Meanwhile, the convict discovers Gafield and Odie alone in the woods, and realising that people might be nearby, he decides to scare them off so he won't be found. As Garfield and Odie are fully convinced that the woods is not haunted, they are scared away by an owl. As Jon searches for Garfield with a sheet under his arm, Garfield sets up a meal for himself and Odie by unpacking a huge amount of food; in the commentary, Odie calls this out as a mistake, but Garfield claims that that's how much he always packs.

Back in the episode, while Garfield is eating the food (leaving none for Odie), he catches Jon disguising himself as a ghost using the sheet, intending to scare the pets with it. However, Jon realises that there are no eye holes in the disguise, and he blindly walks into a tree. The convict finds Jon's unconscious form, steals the sheet, and puts it on. Upon seeing the convict, Odie gets scared and runs away, but Garfield, believing that it's Jon in disguise, isn't fooled and eventually attacks him. The convict runs away from Garfield and hides in a nearby cave, but gets chased out by a wolf. The sheet falls off of the convict as he escapes from the woods and chases a police car, wanting to return to prison after his ordeal. The sheet lands back on Jon just as Garfield comes to wake him up and go home, telling him that he makes "a lousy ghost". In the final scene, as all three drive home, Garfield hears a news report about the escaped convict being apprehended in the forest, but Jon assures him, "We have pretty boring lives, we haven't run into people like that."

Conclusion

In total, there were 87 mistakes in the episode. However, Garfield only points out three far-fetched "errors": (1) when Garfield is seen sleeping, he is not eating; (2) when Garfield unpacks his meal, there is no mustard; and (3) in a scene where Garfield is driving Jon's car, the car has no gasoline. Odie, however, declares that the cartoon had more mistakes. Garfield disagrees and they go get a midnight snack at 10 A.M. with Odie transformed into an animated version of Marmaduke.

Notes

*This episode is a rare occurrence when animal characters (Garfield and Odie) speak, rather than do thought speech. This is one of the many intentional mistakes.
*Mark Evanier is heard midway through the episode, and his cartoonised hands are seen.
*Jim Davis is heard on the police radio, and his signature is seen as Garfield and Odie are walking through the woods (à la a "Garfield" strip).

References

* [http://garfield.com/about/catovision.html The TV Schedule Computer]
* [http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_04_18.html#013297 News from Me] -- blog entry about the episode by its writer, Mark Evanier