Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, a deep dive into the factual, accuracies and inaccuracies of the Garfield trailer. Beat by beat, we will examine the trailer in detail and talk about whether there are real life examples in evolutionary biology that can lend credence to a new Garfield trailer. What a
silk moth make a better Garfield does? Social facilitation of eating explain why John tolerates Garfield? Are there other animals who eat horrifying amounts of food much like Garfield? Discover this and more as we answer the age old question how is Garfield like a subordinate male cichlid fish? Joining me today to check the Garfield trailer with scientific facts? Is Garfield understander? Emmy nominated producer and TV writer. Friend of the show, Joey Clift, Welcome.
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to just finally, you know, get to the facts on this Garfield trailer and really just let the world know what's really going on.
Yeah, this is very important Garfield trailer dropped. It features a new tale of Garfield. Sort of what the sense I got from the trailer is it's sort of telling the tale of Garfield's life, like from kittenhood to adulthood to like, I guess meeting his own father is a thing in this trailer. And of course Garfield is voiced by the most talented voice actor in the world, Chris Pratt, who we cannot get enough of.
Yeah, speaking of things that don't sound like they should, a goat just kind of screams instead of making sounds. That's kind of what Chris Pratt's Garfield sounds like to me.
Yeah. So, yeah, Chris Pratt, he voices everything in every movie. I think that the goal is just like every movie will only be Chris Pratt playing the various roles of voicing all of the animated character playing all the live action roles. It is too kind of I mean, it's efficient really to only have one guy in movies.
Yeah, that way you just only have one schedule that you're really tracking instead of like a million people's schedules. I mean, I do think I will say like I do like Chris Pratt as an actor. I think him as star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy. It's like
a really fun character. But I think that him in his voice acting work with Garfield and the Mario Brothers movie, it kind of feels like his strategy and preparing for these roles is just to listen to like two minutes of somebody else doing the voice and then just be like, I probably got it, you know.
Yeah, it's what's a girlfield, I'm Rele, I'm Garfield John.
Yeah, and it's like, nailed it perfect, No, No, it's you know, yeah, He's just like, don't need don't we don't need to do a second take. We got it, you know, I do.
You know.
It's like I get why you cast somebody like Chris Pratt in you know, like on paper in a movie like this, because you know, he is a movie star. That's a draw. But like it does kind of feel like you could have cast a voice actor to do this.
But the thing is, do voice actors have the raw, animalistic sex appeal that Chris Pratt has? Yeah, so we are we are discussing the Garfield trailer. But don't worry, evolutionary biology fans. I am examining this trailer through the lens of evolutionary biology. What do I mean by that?
Going through the trailer beat by beat, at every point of the trailer, every sort of claim this trailer makes about Garfield's life, we are going to see if there is a real evolutionary biology example of such a thing to really kind of we're fact checking this trailer. We're seeing if this trailer holds any water in terms of
actual evolutionary biology. And so we start in the trailer with Garfield an orange kitten in a box in the rain, looking very sad, and then he smells food seemingly from like quite a ways away, Like he smells food inside of a restaurant, like all the way across the street in the rain, which is pretty impressive. I think it might. It seems like it'd be hard to smell food from so far away. So is there an example of something orange and fluffy that can detect odors from very far
away ys? Indeed, the Maleanathus silk moth can do this like Garfield. So the Sanathis silk moth is sort of a reddish orangish color. It is fluffy like Garfield. It's not quite as like bright orange as the Garfield sort of like focus group tested orange coloration. But they are I think they're quite pretty. They're this sort of rusty orange and and they're fluffy. Joy I shared it with you an image of one of these little guys, and I think they're quite cute.
Yeah. I will say something that was really important to me about this episode was, you know, fact checking this Garfield trailer because you know, as we know, Jim Davis, the creative Garfield, famed cartoonist and evolutionary biologist, really created the Garfield comic stript as a way to honor, you know, just like his factual love for different, you know, animal phenotypes.
So I will say that you know, this, this this creature that you sent me, he has a rust colored orange color that I think is it's very close to the color that you saw in the first design of Garfield when he was a little bit more of like
a quadruped than a biped. So you know, my guess is that when Jim Davis originally created Garfield, he definitely was looking at this creature, as you know, his his way to build what he views as the perfect cat, which is the the orange coloration of this insect mixed with it presumably this insects like just ravenous love of lasagna, and you know, I think he just nailed it, And like, as a member of the scientific community, I'm just gonna applaud him for his work.
So I did have the fact check you, Joey, because jokes are not allowed on this show. You said that Jim Davis is an evolutionary biologist. Now this is, of course not true. Jim Davis did grow up on a farm, however, which informed him, I suppose, of the existence of cats. So he used that farm experience to know that cats were indeed an animal that exists, and then he drew a cat, and that cat was Garfield. He also worked for an advertising agency before becoming the dad of Garfield.
And one might conclude that Garfield is a cynical attempt to create a marketable character that you can sell merchandise for. And what I would say to people who come to that conclusion is, have you no joy in your life? Do you have no childlike Spark of Wonder where you can ignore the implications that Garfield is just a cynical plot to advertise an orange cat that is very marketable.
Yeah, to that, I say, is this the moment that I learned that everything I know about Jim Davis is a lie. No, I refuse to believe that.
So yes, but about this this moth, this silk moth, It is an orange fluffy guy. The orange fluffy guys are out there, and they're real. Like Garfield, they are relatively large. They're found in North America. The Ceanothus silk moth has a wingspan of over four inches or over ten centimeters. They live in a variety of environments, including
conifer forests, coastlines, and desert chaparral. So the males of this species of moth, they don't really sport a cute little pink nose like Garfield, but instead a set of fluffy and tina that they can use to detect female sex pheromones from miles away, So many miles away, these little guys can detect that there is a female who is sexually mature. And while Garfield may be horny for food, these moths are horny for mating, which I guess is
the original type of horny. And so these moths will detect the female sex pheromone, they'll fly towards them, they will mate. Then females will lay their eggs on plants. The caterpillars will will voraciously eat the plants. The caterpillars are actually quite pretty themselves. They are bright green with these beautiful little blue and red tubercules. So tubercules. It sounds malignant, It does not sound like a nice thing.
But these are just basically horny projections that are found on caterpillars and then other other animals, and interestingly so adult sy Aanathis silk moths have eye spots on the tips of their wings, and the patterns on their wings almost look like a pair of snakeheads, which is possibly a form of baitsy and mimicry for these moths to say like, hey, I'm not a moth, I'm actually two snakes.
So like bug off, much like how Garfield has eye spots on his back that makes him look like some kind of you know, horrifying monster when he turns his head so that he can eat lasagna without being hassled.
So just uh, I just want to clarify that we are definitely saying in this that it is Garfield's goal too. The reason he can smell a zangna from so far away is that his goal is to frankl Azagna that is yes, you know, I think just scientific fact at this point. And you know, I do think that you bring up a really good point about the eye spots on his back. So I think that Garfield is Jim Davis's effort to create what he've used as the ultimate
apex predator. And I think that those eye spots really aid in, you know, Garfield's ability to intimidate you know, his prey, and you know, just a just a good job for Jim Davis wanting to play god.
You know how Like you look at Garfield and he has those huge cartoon eyes and you think that's his face. Actually there's like a normal cat face like on the other side of Garfield's head, and those huge eyes that we see are his baitsy and memicry eye spots, So we think that he's like facing us, but instead like he's got just a regular, well proportioned cat face on the other side of his head.
Yeah. The thing about those eye spots in the back of his head is that when you see them, it's too late.
It is too late. Yeah, if you see the whites of his eye spots, you know, don't run, just lie down. And accept your fate.
You're about to be eaten with Garfield's bare hands.
Yeah, and to your earlier point that like Garfield's eating is like sort of a like when he's eating, it's sort of a more of a sexual thing that is heavily implied by this Garfield trailer. We're not just freaks. Like this trailer has a whole scene in it where it's like Garfield's about to go down on some lasagna and he's like the younger members of the audience might want to look away because one can only assume it means he's going to attempt to meete with the lazagna.
I think he's going to attempt and succeed. Yes, Garfield is a smooth fella.
So you think Garfield could seduce a plate of lazagna?
Oh, I mean, look, Garfield could seduce some lazan all day.
Lazan all day. So we're going to take a quick break, but then when we get back we will discuss more of the Garfield trailer and how there are indeed real life evolutionary examples of animals doing the same things that Garfield does in this trailer. Lots of learning ahead, folks, So stay tuned. All Right, we're back. And I'm certainly not just using the Garfield movie trailer as a pretext to slip in some sneaky education about evolutionary biology. No, no,
I deeply care about this trailer. So the next part of the trailer is Garfield running across the street and trying to avoid getting hit by cars. Some might say this is an overused trope. I say to them, shut up, Yeah, and I will say that based on Garfield's character design, which I will say that is something that I really loved about.
The trailer is like the art style, to me, is just kind of beautiful and evocative of the classic Garfield strip. You know, it really feels like the the the two thousands live action Garfield movie, they just kind of tried to turn Garfield into just like, you know, some CG creature that didn't really look like the Garfield that we know, where Anny.
Valley sort of like horrifying, like humanoid orange thing with Bill Murray's voice.
You mean, yeah, when it's also weird because in the two thousands Garfield movie we see like CG Uncanny Valley Garfield, but there are also regular cats in that movie.
Because it's yeah, so Garfield is some kind of strange catlike munculus in that movie. I do like that. I like to feel a little bit of mortal terror when it comes to Garfield. That's my favorite. That's Garfield at its best when it makes me feel sort of this palpable sense of horror and fear for my life.
So something that I'm curious about your scientific opinion on this Garfield character design as a kitten in the early part of this trailer you mentioned when he's running across the street is very caterpillar esque. So and now that I think about it, once Garfield is, you know, an adult. As we see him in the trailer, he definitely does
have the appearance of a cocoon. So do you feel like there's going to be a point in this movie where Garfield is going to emerge from his cocoon and enter into his true moth form.
I mean, that is a really interesting question because, like like we said earlier, there are some moth like characteristics to Garfield. His ability to sense odors from very far away, the orange fluffiness, and also you know the fact that the larvae of moths, known as caterpillars eat like a massive amounts like like incredible amounts, and usually they gain mass when they're eating so much, which is something that I'm going to talk about later on in the trailer.
But like, so, what happens with caterpillars, for moths, for butterflies is they enter into a cocoon or a chrysalis. And the difference between a cocoon and a crystalis is kind of structural. Cocoons are usually made from sort of these like you know, bound more by a silk structure, or crysalis is a more of a sort of smooth kiteness structure. Regardless, either way, they they enter into a cocoon or a crystalis and then uh, they actually turn
completely into a sort of liquefied state. This is this is all true. This is not a fiction created by the Garfield universe. Moths and butterflies, the larvae will eat and eat meat until it's gained a lot of mass, a lot of just raw material essentially to fuel its transformation into a butterfly or moth. And the interesting thing is that once it's kind of it's gone into this like liquefied state, where like if you cut open a cocoon or a chrysalis, which I don't necessarily recommend because
then you ruin the whole process. But you will actually find a goo this kind of like gelatinous liquid, and then of course it reforms into a butterfly or a moth and then it a little it will emerge from the cocoon or crysalis, and there there you have this transformed animal. Interestingly, it retains memory from its catapillar form.
So there have been multiple studies on like teaching caterpillars to find an odor to be unpleasant, like they'll you know, have them smell some odor and then like shock them or something. You know, scientists are mean to bugs. But what happens is that as adult, these ones that have been trained as caterpillars will still avoid that odor versus
adults that had not had that training as caterpillar. So despite the fact they turn into this like kind of protein uh slurpy inside of the chrysalis or cocoon, they still retain that memory from being a caterpillar. So what they think is that they're these this neural cluster of cells that does not disintegrate essentially, so they have this
neural cluster of cells. A lot of the rest of their body has kind of like disintegrated into more like of a stem cell state, where these cells will now differentiate into sort of the different parts of the butterfly, but the neural cells retain some of the original neural cells, so that it's not completely lost the learning that it
had when it was a caterpillar. So how this relates to Garfield is that I would expect Garfield to potentially turn into kind of a coagulated jelly at some point in the film within this cocoon, and he should still retain some of his memories from kittenhood because he would retain these neural cells, but he would be completely transmorgrified and liquefied before turning into his final morph, which would be I'm not exactly sure what they'll reveal that to be, but I am excited.
Yeah. All I know is that Garfield is full of goo, and that whatever his final form is going to be is going to be both horrifying and beautiful, just like the Garfield we know and love.
Exactly So, But back to this part of the trailer where Garfield runs across the street and avoids getting hit by cars, because I think this is a really pivotal moment in the Garfield movie. Otherwise why would they show us this rather pointless thing in the trailer? It must be I feel like it's Chekhov's Garfield avoiding traffic. There's probably gonna be video games of like you play as Garfield trying to avoid traffic on your way to running
towards a restaurant. But this, I think there is some relevant research and evolutionary biology in terms of animals learning how to avoid traffic. And I want to talk about cliff swallows. You might be asking, how do cliff swallows have anything to do with Garfield. They have everything to do with Garfield, So.
Cliff swaps everything has everything to do with Garfield.
Garfield is life. Garfield is in the sort of basic building blocks of life. So silly question. Cliff Swallows like to build their nests in cliffs, caves or grottos. They will use human structures though, like because they say, you build a freeway overpass, well that's kind of like a cliff or cave, so that they will build their nests inside of this overpass. You may have seen them now.
The problem with that is that there are a lot of cars around these structures, and cars are fast, and when you have a car and it hits a cliff swallow, the cliff swallow basically gets purade. So it's not a
good situation for the cliff swallow. So researchers have been studying these cliff swallows that live near human structures since the nineteen eighties and they've actually found that these cliff swallows have started to be better at not being killed by cars, Like the rates of cliff swallows being pulverized
by cars has gone down. And that has also matched with another interesting thing, which is that cliff swallows wings have been getting shorter, So their wings have been getting shorter and they've been less likely to get pulverized by cars. And so the conclusion the theory is that the shorter wings make it easier for these cliff swallows to avoid being hit by cars through more speed and maneuverability. And the researchers are calling this vehicular selection. So I think
vehicular selection being like vehicles actually driving evolution. And how does this relate to the Garfield trailer, Well, the question is why is Garfield the only kitten we see? I think it's answered in the next scene, which is the traffic Garfield running across the street in traffic. Now, Garfield, I think is the only survivor of the brood, and the other offspring that we're in the same brood as Garfield probably got killed by the cars, and so we're
seeing this evolutionary pressure of cars on the Garfield. And so the Garfield is the strongest of the brute and survives, and we should see more Garfield like traits in the next generation of Garfields. Yeah.
I think that you do bring up a good point and that in creating Garfield, it was Jim Davis's goal to create the perfect evolutionary creature, right exactly, And I think that that's and I think that's really what is being portrayed in this trailer is like this is it's not going to get better than this. This is the most evolved that any living organism can possibly be.
I mean, it's it is so involved that it seems to be able to eat like in massive amounts of calories and somehow efficiently process those into pure energy that doesn't actually take up so much mass like I would assume.
Now I'm not a physicist, I do often guess on Daniel and Jorge explain the universe, so they would probably be better at answering this question of how do you convert mass into energy such that you do not have to like like because we see Garfield he eats spoilers like an entire restaurant's worth of food, but he doesn't change in size, and so the inside of the Garfield has to be incredibly dense. I think, like have a.
Lot of dnsitya like a neutron start.
New trun star. Now. Now, weirdly enough, there is not we don't see like the restaurant patrons being pulled into Garfield, because if you're that dense, you should have a gravitational poll. So there is some other mechanism by which Garfield is able to abscond with this mass and convert it into some form of energy that is not creating like gravity, well, which I think is really interesting.
Yes, something that I want to point out is that when Garfield arrives at the window in the Garfield trailer of this restaurant and we see John Arbuckle moment sitting alone at this table. We see that John Arbuckle is sitting alone at the table, but he has an entire large pizza in front of him.
Joey, be very careful where you tread here, because you know I live in Italy. So if you're about to imply that there is something pathetic about sitting and eating an entire peace alone, You're gonna run a fountain like the Italian authorities.
No, I guess that I'm saying that, like eating an entire eating an entire pizza alone, I get. But like eating an entire large pizza alone, well, also.
In the restaurant, like I feel like, or.
You do, like in your apartment when you're just like I don't really want to make food today.
We've all like ordered a large pizza, rolled it up like a giant blunt, and then eaten it in a dark yes, right, and like with the curtains drawn and the lights off, so nobody including ourselves can kind of see us doing this important yet obscene ritual. John is doing it alone in a restaurant, which is an interesting thing. And I actually did want to touch on this whole scene where you see John trying to eat this enormous
pizza alone in an Italian family food restaurant. But the main thing is, like you see John, He's actually not doing a good job of eating this uh pizza, this large pizza, which one might ask, well, why would he order it if he doesn't want to eat it? But this phenomenon of him being unable to eat this food, whereas you pan around to these other families and they're
all eating their food very easily, they're all happy. This is actually a real phenomenon, and it's called a social facilitation of eating, and it has been observed in both human and non human animals, And there's actually quite a large number of studies done on this. Now again I have to say, like this is actual evolutionary biology, none of Like this is.
Not everything we're saying is true.
Sure, so right now the truth is happening starting now. So, studies done on animals in lab settings since the nineteen sixties have found like a variety of species of animals that will eat more in groups than when they are alone. So this includes fish, birds, dogs, monkeys, gerbils, rats, and possums. There was a study on chicken.
All things that I eat when I'm with a group of people.
You eat gerbils, lambs.
Possums, gerbils. If I'm with a big enough group, I just chow down.
Look, you know what just be careful about eating monkeys because of those prion diseases, but otherwise go for it man. So a study on chickens found that when a chicken eats until it is satiated, so like once it's like completely full, and this chicken you're like, hey, chicken, you want more corn. This chicken is like, I couldn't possibly
have any more corn. It will actually resume eating if you introduce it to a hungry chicken who is like corn, I'm super hungry for corn, and that chicken bee starts eating the corn and chicken a, which was previously like I'm full, I can't eat any more corn. It sees chicken bee eating the corn, and chicken a is like, man, I could go for some corn too, and it starts eating the corn as well. And so this has been widely observed in social species of animals. It's also been
widely observed in human beings. So people in laboratory settings eat more in groups, and will also eat more in the presence of people who eat large amounts. So in one study, participants were invited to eat crackers. Again, I have to emphasize that this is all true. This is not a bit I'm telling you the truth about the things that we have actually spent.
I'm telling you, I've been telling the truth this whole time.
So people were given were invited to eat crackers in a lab and then they were paired with a fake participant called the can Confederate. We're not talking about the US Civil War. A confederate in a psychology study is basically someone who pretends to be just another participant in the study, but is actually with the researchers and is playing some role. I had to do this as an undergraduate.
Though. It is weird because in the situation, the Confederate is required to love Leonard Skinner. That's the created part of this.
So yes, the Confederate was assigned to eat between one and twenty crackers. So you have like a number of Confederates eating on a spectrum of cracker eating. And so they looked at the effect of how many crackers the plant the Confederate eight on the actual participants appetite for crackers. So those paired with the Confederate who ate high numbers of crackers themselves would eat around eighty six percent more crackers than those paired with the low cracker eating Confederates.
And that's an interesting study that was done on real human beings. Another finding in terms of social facilitation of eating is that people will eat more with family and friends like that has the highest impact on social eating,
increasing food intake and shared meals. So in this way, the Garfield trailer is very accurate to life, and I think it also allows us to understand better the symbiotic relationship between John and Garfield, because you're like, well, why would John have this cat around this Garfield That it's not really a cat, is it? Garfield is its own sort of species. I think, like either a species.
Or he's like, yeah, yeah, he's a caterpillar who entered induced cocoon stage. Will right blossom and do it terrifying moth? Yes, right? Right?
So you know, the symbiotic relationship between John and the Garfield, I think we kind of get the some understanding of that this might actually be mutualism rather than a parasitic relationship, because the Garfield comes in and does indeed eat like all this food. But the thing is John was incapable of eating on his own, like he was too sad and alone to eat. So by having Garfield, even though
the Garfield is eating a lot of the food. I think the implication here is that without the like large eating of Garfield, right, because in these studies we found like when you're paired with someone who's eating a lot, your appetite will go up. The John is actually able to eat more as well, even though like on average, the Garfield is getting more portions of the food. Seems like that's evidence that this is actually a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship.
Okay, so science question about the trailer. Does this explain why John has a large pizza in front of him and he has a knife and fork next to him, like he's gonna eat the pizza with a knife and fork.
Yeah, I think that that's more of a philosophical question, like if you're gonna eat a pizza with a knife and fork and you're not actually in Italy, Like, is that just kind of a nihilistic, uh sort of position.
Or is that an Italian thing? In Italy people eat pizzas.
Wow, I didn't know that absolutely, because well, it depends on where you are in Italy, but like a lot of the pizzas, especially here in northern Italy, have a very very very thin crust, like so thin that you cannot lift the pizza. The pizza is actually got it unstable, so you you actually have to use a knife and fork, and they're a veryvarious ways that you can do it. You can just kind of like cut it up into pieces. Like one method is you like sort of cut a
strip and you roll it. But like it's because like you'll have like this very thin crust and like a bunch of cheese and like meat or whatever, and so you actually cannot like do a slice and then lift it up. It'll just all fall apart.
Okay, So sort of like a like a traditional Naples pizza that we know of, it is something that you can more lift and eat with your hands, whereas like there are different parts of Italy in the same way. There's like a Chicago Deep Dish pizza, which is like you could eat a Chicago Deep Dish pizza with your hands, but it's like your hands are also gonna be real gross afterwards.
Yeah, I mean, it depends on like your like whether or not you want to sort of do performance art, whether you eat it with your hands or not. But like, yeah, I mean it is eating pizza with a knife and fork is actually okay to do in Italy because it's like you have to do it for a lot of pizzas. And I don't really think there's much judgment, Like it's not like they judge you if you eat it with your hands, Like if the pizza is structurally stable enough to eat with your hands, you can either eat it
with your hands or a knife or fork. They don't people really don't care.
Okay, that's good. Now. I do have to say this trailer definitely won some points for me for featuring Garfield eating you know, his primary prey as we know of which is lasagna. That's something that's like front and center. And the first minute of the trailer this cute Garfield kittens in a takeaway container of lasagna. So you know, I think that so far this is clicking along really well, and you know, I'm really excited about it.
Yeah. Yeah, And lasagna is actually an invasive species in the United States, like it's an indigenous to Italy. If you think of food as animal species, which is not it's actually correct, but.
Which is I mean how I view everything. I mean I feel like, what is a pepsi can but but a durabil made of metal and without arms or legs or ahead.
This is a science show people.
Okay, so how does how does we've shortly into the trailer Odi appears? How does Odi play into this theory?
I completely ignored Odie.
That's uh, it's okay. Jim Davis did too.
When I try to look at Odi, I see sort of like a white static, like my brain can't actually process Ody.
That makes sense. I try not to process him either.
Yeah, it's better. I think it's it's easier to enjoy the art if you ignore Odi.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean like I think that Jim Davis is an infallible person who can do no wrong. Yeah, like, you know, let's just say Odie's not one hundred right.
Odie is the negative space that makes it easier to enjoy Garfield.
I think, Ah, thank you for helping me understand Jim Davis's genius.
Yeah, Odie, like jazz is the notes you don't play.
So a friend of mine brought up a really good point to me in this trailer in that it's seriously lacking its use of the song I don't like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.
Oh they don't play that in this trailer.
They do not play this song. But like now, like my level of Garfield, you know, I would say fandom from a scientific place is that I re edit the trailer in my mind to that song. Yeah, the version of that, the version of that in my mind that's edited to that song. I cry too.
Well. We were going to take a quick break while Joey collects himself. But when we get back, guess what, it's more fact checking of whether this trailer is actually scientifically accurate what it means, like the sort of evolutionary
biological principles of the Garfield movie. Official trailer will be our back, So Joey, I do want to talk about one of the main features of the trailer, which is the when the beat kind of drops, you know, where it's like with Garfield eating massive amounts of food, and there is part of the trailer where it is implied that eating the food is disturbing in some way, and I just want to play that clip so people understand that we're not exaggerating or so that the clip is
the context is Garfield is seated before a large plate of lasagna that John, his caretaker, has prepared for him, and he looks directly at the camera. Something known as breaking the fourth wall, and he says this.
I apologize in advance. The eating you're about to see will not be pretty. And if you have young children, this would be a good time for them to leave the room.
So I mean, first, I want to get your thoughts, Joe about sort of the implications of this scene.
Yeah, so a few things. Something that I genuinely love about this, as I would say as a Garfield historian enthusiast, is that there are a lot of moments in this trailer where Garfield looks directly to camera, and whenever he does it, it's like a very clean one shot that like is very evocative of the Garfield comic strips when Garfield would sort of deliver the punchline in a thought bubble.
So I think that that's something that I really appreciated with this trailer is like, you know, the Chris Pratt's voice aside, It does really feel like there is some level of like effort to love and appreciate and honor you know, Jim Davis's Perfect Baby, Yeah his original vision. Yeah, totally totally. But I will say my takeaway from this is that, you know, like we spoke about earlier, immediately before this cut or after this cut. Garfield definitely freaks that.
Right, right, Yeah, I mean that is I mean that seems what they're implying, because I don't understand what the other interpretation could be. So the one of the things that is that's sort of the focus of this trailer
is that Garfield eats an incredible amount of food. Now, we did go over the theory earlier that Garfield could contain some kind of like neutron star like matrix inside of his stomach that is a way to compactly store that amount of mass without actually changing his external dimensions. But the other theory for how Garfield could function could be found in evolutionary biologies. So there are plenty of animals that can eat food that are is larger than itself,
like such as you know snakes. But there is this really interesting example of a deep sea fish that can eat just ridiculous amounts of food and prey much larger than its entire body, and it does this through an expandable food pouch. So this is called the black swallower. It is a fish that can grow up to be around nine inches, so that's like it's less than a foot. It's not that big. It's found in deep North Atlantic
Ocean waters. It's found around two thousand to nine thousand feet under the sea, which is around six hundred to two seven hundred meters. So it can eat prey that is up to around ten times its own mass. And it does this with a this like membrane, this extendable pouch in its stomach that is somewhat translution. It actually kind of looks like a water blo and so it's jaws can swing open large enough to eat things bigger
than its own head. And then this it can basically swallow whole this prey, uh, and it can section it in like a vacuum into this distendable membrane, and so that it is able to eat things much larger than itself. Now, of course, the problem with this being Garfield's method of feeding is that we don't see this this expandable pouch.
But one could perhaps assume that some artistical license was taken to censor this so that it could get I assume it has a PG rating, so that might have been the only way for it to get that kind of rating in the movie theaters.
Yeah, So the Black Swallower, it's It's a really fascinating looking creature that I definitely recommend you check out. There are a lot of photos and drawings of this fish swallowing, a fish that looks to be like three or four times at size, and you can see like the outline of the fish in it's like in its mucus pouch. Yeah, and it just looks terrifying.
It's what I think to look at.
Yeah. So I think that this opens up the question and I think, you know, spoilers for anybody that plans on watching the Garfield movie. Do we think that the movie ends with Garfield eating John?
Hmmm? That's an interesting question, right, like, because if that's the case, like the symbiosis between John and Garfield would be more something that ends up you know, consuming its host.
Yeah, because I think that you look at you look at the size of John, you look at the size of Garfield, and you know, using what we know about the black swallower, it does feel like Garfield could probably fit John in his mucus pouch.
Yeah, probably. And you know, I there are there are there are plenty of examples of sort of parasitic relationships or parasitoid relationships where it's like something basically eventually consumes its entire host that Garfield could be modeling. Now there is a peril for both Garfield and the black swallower fish, which is that if it eats a prey item that is too large, it can actually accidentally essentially explode. So it can eat food that just directly bursts through this
feeding pouch, which will kill it. Another potential problem, and this is real again, like this is an actual thing that happens to.
These We've talked about everything.
We've talked about exactly about Garfield, all true, all true, all real. We invite lawyers to try to find anything objectionable. So for these black swallower fish, if they eat prey that somehow doesn't like tear this feeding pouch but it's still perhaps too large for it, decomposition can set in for this prey item before the black swallower fish can
actually fully digest it. And then the when something is decomposing, it releases gases, and so those gases will fill this pouch of the black swallower and it will actually cause the fish to float to the surface. And one of the characteristics of deep sea fish is that they are designed to be at these crushing depths of the ocean. So when they are reach the surface of the ocean, they actually kind of like fall apart in a way.
It's like you've probably seen photos of the blob fish, and it's this like weird, pink gelatinous mass, but whereas when you look at it when it's actually in the depths of the ocean where it belongs, it's a lot more solid looking, a lot more bony, and it's actually
more of a gray color than pink. And that's because like you have something that is designed essentially to withstand that kind of pressure, and then you take it up where there's no more pressure, and then it just kind of like it doesn't exactly explode, but it kind of like it's organ's rupture and its skin kind of like kind of like come apart. And so that's what happens to this black swallower. It dies if it flows to
the surface. It's kind of like if if you put a human in space, there's gonna be a lot of problems, like we're we're not designed for both the like kind of we're just not designed for space, and these fish are not designed for the low pressure of being anywhere above their sort of a deep sea area.
Yeah, this is really interesting. I actually did not know this about blobfish. Looking at photo's side by side, the blobfish at depth looks like, you know, like a fairly normal fish. Where it's at the surface, it like looks like it just kind of got turned inside.
Out pretty much. Yeah, it does not. It does not like avert. It doesn't turn inside out, but it does lose structural integrity once ing just the surface.
So I guess that using this to go into what we know about the Garfield movie, could we picture a world where maybe an act to Garfield turns into his true you know, his true form, explodes from his chrysalis, finally swallows John and then realizes that John's a little bit too big. John ruptures Garfield's insides, and the movie ends with both John and Garfield dying as sort of like a testament to the hubris of nature. And you know, do we picture that being a potential way the movie
could go? I think that based on everything we're seeing in this trailer.
I think so. But if not that, I'm sure you would find that on someone's like ancient live journal in some dark corner of the internet.
As a family. That's that's the Garfield movie that I am going into this expecting.
So one interesting aspect of the trailer is that it's revealed that Garfield has a father who is huge in bulky. He's maybe like five times the size of the Garfield. It's wall Field. I did do a world famous podcast where we played a tabletop RPG, and I did have a character that was essentially a giant orange cat that
was extremely muscular and eight everything that it could. So I do think that probably the movie did listen to that that extremely world famous podcast of me and a bunch of friends playing a tabletop RPG where I had a giant Garfield as a character.
Yeah, it does feel like you deserve a written by credit in this movie.
Yet probably probably like I'm really humble, so I feel like I wouldn't you know, I'm not going to like write them a letter and say like, hey, guys, please give me credit. It's just I feel that it's so clear that's what the inspiration was that I'm not even offended that they don't give me credit. That that was a that was a podcast by the Gamefully Unemployed Networks from a long time ago, but still choose your own adventure. That was those fun times.
It's just important that the listeners know.
This, right, I think so, yeah, sou. But back to sort of the meat of the question, which is are is there an act? Are there biological truths to this part of the Garfield movie trailer, like can you have an adult male that is like five times the size of another conspecific adult male another adult male in the same species. So yes, this actually does occur. In nature, there are animals where there are different morphs adult morphs, particularly in males, where some adult males are much larger
and more aggressive than other adult males. This is found particularly in reptile and fish species. We'll focus on one such species. This is Minkly's cichlid, which is a tropical fish found off of the coast of northern Mexico. There are large males, large dominant males that have harems of females, so the females will lay eggs and the large males will externally fertilize the eggs. So basically just go by with like a black to sperm cannon over these eggs
and fertilize them. So small males, which are also adults but are much smaller than the large males will instead use a sneaky strategies, so they will dart in quickly to fertilize the eggs while the large the large males are not looking, and then the small males will like dart out, fertilize the eggs really quick and then go
back into hiding. So I think it is reasonable to assume that Garfield is a small morph of the Garfields and uses this sneaky strategy in terms of mating versus the large the swool Fields, the larger morphs of the Garfield, which is more just kind of uses the aggressive protective form of mating.
So I have a question about the trailer at two minutes and one second in and we see the Garfield from the trailer fly through the air and then hit a large Garfield balloon that was amazing like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon.
Yeah, it hits. It does hit a large Garfield shaped balloon, which is interesting.
So so originally my read of this was that is this a world where Garfield is famous? And if so, why is Garfield the cat famous in this world? Like, is this a world where Garfield exists? And also, the Garfield comic strip exists, and the Garfield comic strip is like a documentary about the life of this cat. But I think that, honestly, this conversation is maybe pointing me in a different direction of like, this could be we're seeing an adult Garfield. It is full state, gigantic, able
to fly, and ready to terrorize the city. What do you think about that?
Right? This might actually be like the final morph of Garfield. Right, Like we think it's a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, but that's just sort of our frame of reference. This could actually be a fully adult, giant morph of Garfield being sort of like and what seems to be the ropes like holding the balloon down might actually be sticky strands of like filaments that this Garfield deploys in order to entangle prey on the ground. And so there is.
Also a world where there's sticks trying to hold that Garfield up to prevent him from eating the city.
That's also entirely possible. It's hard to know because this is not like an identified species yet like that we know about. I'm hoping that this movie like provides more information on this large Garfield. So yeah, I mean, I think that for sure this could be like after sort of the Garfield goes through a stage of metamorphosis, it does turn into this very large morph of the garfield that is actually the size of a city block, and does would in this case, it would very easily consume people.
So I think that is probably where the movie trailer is going, like it is the tale of like what happens when you adopt a small, innocent looking garfield, but then eventually it does grow to be the size of a city block.
And yeah, it's really like Grimlins. It's like, you know, you don't lead them at night, don't put them in water, And clearly John Arbuckle didn't get that memo, and now the city's going to suffer for it.
It's a tale of hubris every time, you know, the hubris of man thinking we contame the wild Garfield.
As we know that that was Jim Davis's original intent in creating Garfield as it was.
Yes, I mean, I think he really wanted it to be a cautionary tale that we are not God's we can't tame the wild, and when we think that we are more powerful than mother nature, mother nature will strike back with a giant orange catlike creature the size of a city block.
Yeah. All I got to say is Jim Davis note taken.
Well, we did it. We did go through the entire Garfield trailer and disassemble it, analyze it. I am so excited for this movie. It looks fantastic and interesting.
So, way before you totally wrap, one final question I had about the trailer. So it ends with a contest that says your cat act like Garfield, and basically they're urging people to send in videos of their cats acting like Garfield potentially be included in the movie. So my question is, does it sound like their intent is they want you to take your cat and stuff your cat full of lasagna?
And yeah, so like, don't do that. Yeah, don't feed your cat a bunch of lasagna.
Don't listen to this trailer. Don't feed your cat a ton of lasagna.
Yeah, I mean, unless like you're really into giving your cat diarrhea and having to take your cat to the vet for said diarrhea. I would not feed your cat like an entire pan of lasagna. That's bad for cats. They can't really digest that stuff really wells.
Cats should not eat an entire plate of spaghetti and an entire pizza in one sitting.
Right, exactly, they shouldn't eat an entire family stfle Italian restaurants worth of food in one sitting. You will have a pretty sick cat.
Yeah. I know that. That's exactly what they're asking for and what they want in this ad campaign. But do not take work.
They said, take your cat to an Italian style family restaurant and have your cat eat all of the food in the restaurant and capture capture it on video. That is what they said. And I feel like, you know, there might be legal grounds to, you know, bring them to justice. But I'm not a lawyer.
I am wait, I'm not Is that the saying a lawyer? No, I'm not a lawyer.
I hope you do win an Emmy where you just like take the Emmy everywhere you go and then you're like someone's like, is there a doctor here, and you're like, I've got an Emmy, and then you just try to do surgery, You try to do lawyering, and nobody they let you do it because you have an Emmy. We look.
The thing is is like if I were to win an Emmy, the tops of an Emmy are very pointy, like the wings of the statue.
Those wings are sharp.
And I'm gonna use that to eat lasagna. It's just gonna happen if you.
If you win an Emmy, will you promise me to at least if like you if you can have it? Right? Like, I don't know how it works, like if they actually let you keep it, if you just touch it and then like it goes back into a vault. But like, if you get it and it's yours to do with what you want, will you do a video of yourself eating some lasagna with your Emmy?
Uh? Okay, so okay, So the real answer is that do I want to do that? Oh? Yeah, But like I think I might have to, Like there might be rules of when you get your Emmy statue of what you can't get do it?
Is it like the Is it like the American flag where if you there, it's like you go to jail if you tie the flag around your neck like a bib to eat lasagna?
Yeah? Or it's like just do they like take it back or something? Right?
Do they like resind your Emmy if you disrespectfully use it?
Yeah? If you use it specifically, if you use it to eat lasagna as a as a giant utensil, will they get mad?
I just don't see why that's disrespectful. I feel like that's very respectful, because you're like, I respect my Emmy so much. I want it to be a part of this moment with me as I eat this lasagna the most, the most divine, fudes.
This is exactly what I will be screaming to the Emmy people as they try to pry the Emmy from my pc lasagna covered hand.
It might be easy for them to do that. If your hands are greasy, it'll slip it out. That's another peril. Ah. Before we go, we do need to play a little game. It's called the Mystery Animal Sound game. Uh, guess who's squawking? Every week I play Mystery Animal Sound and you the listener, and you the guest, try to guess who was making that sound. It can be any animal in the world. Last week's hint was this, This animal has a more famous catchphrase, but it has plenty of other things to say.
Okay, I'm gonna say that's a rooster, because roosters have the famous cock a doodle do catchphrase.
You're you're very close in that this is poultry. Congratulations to Emily M and Sean Dee, who both guessed correctly this is a wild turkey.
So oh gobble gobble, Oh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has the gobble gobble. All people know about turkeys is the whole gobble gobble. But there's they have. There's so much more to turkeys than just that. Turkeys have all sorts of vocalizations. They're very social creatures, just uh for some a few examples, like there's a bunch of different vocalizations. Here's sort of like turkey for hey, Like they're just like saying, hey, hey, how's it going. This is like a standard cluck, so that's like turkey
for hay. There's a pet sound, which is an alarm call. That's this. There is a tree call, which I guess they do all roosting in trees. So let's see. This is this is my favorite, I think, well, second favorite. This is an assembly call to gather young turkeys or other members of the turkey clan. And then my actual favorite one is this one. It's a turkey purring.
Oh that's nice. I like that.
That's a happy turkey purring. There's all, of course, the classic gobble. I feel like that's a trope at this point though it's overplayed.
Yeah, hey turkeys, you don't have to lean on the hits. Sometimes you can do something new.
Yeah, So onto this week's mister Anne will sound. The hint is this, do not adjust your television and ignore the barking in the background. This hisser is better off in a manger. So I do want to emphasize it's neither. I'm not talking about the sound of the dog barking or I believe the cat, but that.
Sound so so I I'm going to do a wild jest and say that this his sir, belongs in a major That to me means that that's baby Jesus, our, the baby of our life.
You got it. He nailed it, Joe, I got it. That is Jesus. I'm not particularly religious, but if I.
Hear that's what he sounded like, if I heard.
That noise in the middle of the night, I would I'd be praying to whatever, I'd be praying to somebody whoever's listening. All right, Well, if you think you know who is making that sound, you can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. You can write to me also your questions if you got any If you got any questions. I occasionally do the listener questions episodes. Oie, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can the people find you? Oh and like this cool stuff that you do?
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was This is so fun. I always like to break down, you know, the just the real world science of Garfield, which I think Garfield learn. You can follow me on Twitter, TikTok and a Blue Sky at Joey Tainment and Instagram and threads at Joey Cliff with five or six eyes. You can check out my new digital series, Gone Native at god Native dot tv. And then you can check out Spirit Rangers, which is nominated for seven Emmy Awards.
It's so much lasagna with all that.
Oh yeah yeah yeah I could, like I could start up with start with one Emmy and then move to another when it gets too greasy.
Yeah, you can have like a salad Emmy and a soup Emmy.
You can watch The Rangers on Netflix. It's you know, it's nominated for seven mm's. It's a good show. You should watch it.
That's that's fantastic. I'm real proud of you, Lisby serious moment, very proud. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating and review, I greatly appreciate it. I read every single one of your reviews, even if it's just you to say, like, you know what, personally, I do like to eat a pizza with a knife and fork and I'm proud of it. That's fine. You can review it with that and thanks to the space Coassics for their super awesome song Exo. Lumina.
Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts. O.
Hey, guess what, I listen.
To your favorite shows. I'm not Jim Mother. I can't tell you what to do. Live your own life, be your own you, embrace your unique, wit, your unique with See you next Wednesday.
Every bye,