Recasting Garfield

for him to retire. So today on the show, we're scouring the animal kingdom to look for a new species of animal to cast as the replacement Garfield. Will it be the pygmy blue tongue skink, the goulper eel, reticulated python, or another candidate. Discover this and more as we answer the age old question. Is Garfield measured more by his laziness, his hatred for Monday's or his ability to eat an

entire tray of lasagna in one bite. Joining me today are my fellow Garfield friends and other members of the Garf skeatars, comedians Joey Clift and Hannah Michael's. Welcome you guys, so excited to be here to talk about Garfield with two other people who love Garfield. Me too, So welcome to our first bi annual meeting of minds of the

Garfield Heads Society. You guys like Garfield, right, I actually haven't. Um. An eBay page opened right now coincidentally for Garfield toilet seats, and that has nothing to do with any any of the podcast. I just want one. I have some questions about the Garfield toilet seat. Mainly is the opening for the toilet seat his mouth, so it's like you're pooping into his mouth? This is the wish. This is not

what I've found so far. Um. What I've found so far are many different styles, though they're all kind of cushy, which kind of weirds me out, but it's also comforting. Um. And some are holiday themes, so you can switch out your regular Garfield toilet seat for like an Easter Garfield toilet seat. As somebody who has multiple Garfield toilet seats for every occasion, including a special Garfield toilet seat that

I used just on my birthday, I get it. Well, I have a Garfield enema, but so I just I just think that like when we talk about Garfield and casting Garfield, we should talk about what Garfield means to us maybe not like the original intention of Garfield, because the original intention of Garfield was just to make money, was just to make a mass marketable cartoon, to be friendly to merchandise. And I understand this, and I don't.

It's my love for Garfield is not really. It's not because oh yeah, he's a cute cat and hilarious, because it's not actually that funny. There's an almost nihilistic aspect to Garfield where he desires to consume everything to nap. He hates mondays, and he hates all other living creatures. And I find that interesting from an evolutionary biology perspective. Yeah, and I find he sort of hearkens back to a time that was I don't want to say normal. I

don't want to say normal. Garfield is hyper normal in a lot of ways, and there's something fascinating about that. And and the sort of world that he takes on in each of our minds is the opposite of that, I think, because in our childhood s, Garfield was hyper normal, right. He's the opiate of the masses. And it's one of those things where you imagine in a post apocalyptic world where it's just a barren, dust covered earth. But then you the dust, the wind blows, and the dust parts

to reveal the face of a plastic Garfield. And I feel that that really encapsulates the human race. I I hate to stop being so philosophical, because I do enjoy discussing the philosophical ramifications of Garfield, but I we do need to get on task here, and what we're doing is we are recasting another species as Garfield. Because look, this has been He's been a cat for over forty years.

I hate to say it, but cats don't actually have that long of a lifespan, so it's you know, he's probably been played by several cats, and I just think that we need to, you know, have a different casting. I think it's getting stale. The the having Garfield be a cat is officially getting stale, and I want to

recast him as another species of animal. And I am going to make the best case I can for each of these animals for you guys to judge as the pre eminent Garfield scholars that I know whether these animals encapsulate the credo of Garfield. And let's be real, cats live for about ten to twenty years. I feel like there's probably been forty three different garfields. They get a new one every year because you just feed a cat that much lasagna, it's not going to live that long. No,

his eyes keep getting bigger. Yeah, that's that's why. That's why there's a garfield model change. And how he looks different every year, is it's a different garfield. Yes, every time he's drawn slightly differently. That's actually a new garfield, sort of phoenix like erupting from the blow to the lasagna field carcass of the old garfield. By that that's how garfield reproduces. I mean as a as a as a Garfield biologist, I'm making decision that yes, garfield explodes.

A new garfield explodes from the carcass of the old garfield, much like a caterpillar turning into a beautiful garfield. So my first animal for you guys to judge the garfield worthiness of is the pigmy blue tongue skink, which sounds a little bit insulting, but that's its actual name. So the pigmy blue tongue skink is found in South Australia. Skinks are a type of lizard. They're sort of chunky

and tubular lizards. They have like little stubby legs. And these guys, the pigmy blue tongue skinks, are about the size of a thumb and they're extremely lazy. And in this first section, I'm going to talk about animals that I think represent the sort of like lazy Margaritaville aspect to Garfield's personality. So pigmy blue tongues. One interesting thing is their tongues are actually pink. The reason they're called

pigmy blue tongue skinks is because they are. They seem like they're smaller versions of their much larger relatives, the blue tongue skinks, which are about the size of a whole hand, And those guys do have blue tongues, but

these ones don't. But they're smaller and people, I guess the people naming them just didn't bother to check to see if their tongues are actually blue before naming them, which, you know, whatever that this is a common problem with the naming of animals is it's often you just name it the opposite of what it is. Like this is the yeah, this is the long neck shrewe, and it just doesn't have a neck at all. It's very straight. It's Australia. They have a lot of listens, just like also,

just checking info is hard. It's like, what are you expecting every scientist to look into the mouth of every animal that they name based on their mouth color. Give me a break. I feel like every biologist wants to look into the mouth of every animal to be honest. So they are very lazy homebodies. They just want to sit in their little burrows all day long. In fact,

they are much home bodies. They were thought to be extinct up until the nineties when they were rediscovered because they spend almost all of their time in their burrows hanging out, so they're very hard to find out in the wild. And when I say they're burrows, I actually mean a burrow that they've stolen from spiders. They're too lazy to dig their own burrows, so they live in

empty spider burrows. And what they like to do is wait at the entrance of their burrows for prey to walk by, and essentially waiting for the prey to just like fall into their mouths. They will snap at prey as they walk by. It is called ambush predation. In this case, I think it's just pure laziness, though. It is these lizards waiting for an insect to be unlucky enough to basically crawl across their nose or mouth and

then they just snap them up. On a scale of one to Garfield, how much how many field garfs does this rate at? Garf garves g P I garves per. I'm going to base my Garfield rating on three equally very important factors. One do I think that they hate mondays? To do I think they could put down a whole plate of lasagna? And Three do I think they could kick an odi off a table? So, you know, like

going into you know, using those ratings. Looking at this blue tongue skink, I feel like, based on the look at this animal's face, I think it's a ten out of ten on hating mondays. I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it a solid garf for just looking like it hates mondays. It doesn't even approach mondays. It's stage by that. It's like, yeah, like mondays are a foreign concept to this thing. It dislikes it so much. Do I think it could put down a full thing of lasagna?

I mean probably not, Like it's just it's kind of small. It's like I'm not sure, you know, like if it ate, I feel like you could probably eat a piece of lasagna, but like not like a not like a pan of lasagna. And that's like a very important thing that I looked through for any Garfield one out of ten on the on the eating a panel las on your writing. So that's like a just a not a full garf. And then, um, do I think it could kick an ODI off a table if it was like a tiny ODI? Maybe, but

like probably not like a full sized odie. So I think I'm giving the pigmy blue tunk skink just just one garf, just one garf, just one garf. Okay, yeah, no that's fair. What do you think, Conna? Since Joey covered a lot of the specifically you know, solely Garfield aspects, Um, I'm gonna go a bit on do people own this? I may go on a John scale here, I see on a John scale. Yeah, that the John scale. I don't think people own this. This is very rare. I don't know of it being owned as a pet, at

least not responsibly. So it's a terrible pet to have. Well, I mean, let's let's toss ethics right out the window. We are talking Garfield here. Ethics boy, Yeah, and we are talking John who. Yeah, John like allowed his brother to I think die in his basement, right, is like they're used to he used to have a brother. Seriously, why when he mysteriously disappeared was probably killed and eaton by Garfield. And John does not just over his dog, yeah, right,

turns a blind eye to all of Garfield's crimes. So I feel like ethics were as much as I care about being ethical, John certainly doesn't. Yeah, it is. It is actually cannon in Garfield. There was a Garfield um point and click adventure game that came out in the nineties or early two thousand's. It was like Garfield's Halloween Quest or something like that. And um, there is an easter egg where if you go into Garfield's basement you

do see Lyman's skeleton chained to a wall. And it's definitely definitely so you know, I mean, like, look, this isn't anything I need to tell you know, the two of you, we get it. But yeah, so in canon, Lyman is chained to the basement, to John Arbuckle's basement. John probably did it John probably did it. Okay, this this is actually telling me nothing. I'm just going to get two girls, all right. Onto The next girf contender

is the starfish. Now, there's a reason that marine biologist and creator of SpongeBob, Stephen Hillenberg, portrayed Patrick Star a starfish as a lazy, brainless Now. I love SpongeBob. I very much missed Stephen Hillenberg. He was a wonderful creator because he was actually a marine biologist and a lot of the things in SpongeBob had references to marine biology that we're really charming. Um, But yeah, the Patrick star is actually a pretty accurate depiction of what an anthropomorphic

starfish would be like. Starfish are radially symmetrical kind of dorms, which are related to sand dollars and sea urchins. They have no brain, but they do have a radial nervous system. They have very limited sensory organs. They have simple eye spots on each arm, and they are able to respond to touch and smell and light and dark and that's about it. So they can move very very slowly with the help of many rows of tiny tube feet called

podia on each arm. So each of those arms have all of these little tiny they look like little tentacles or like fur or something, but these are all little moving arms, and they actually move with the help of a complex hydraulic system inside the starfish. Uh. And so it's like the starfish is this really interesting machine of hydraulics. And the each of the little podia, the little tiny feet, has adhesive chemicals in it that allows it to cling

to substrates. So it's actually mechanically very complex in terms of its ability to think not nothing really going on there. So another interesting thing, and as a lot of people actually do know, they can digest externally, so they can avert their stomach, which basically means spitting out their stomach inside out, you know, like you take a sock and you turn the sock inside out. They do that, but

with their stomach outside of their mouths. And why they do this is that once they spit out their stomach like that, it's still attached their body. But by averting it, they allow all these digestive enzymes to spill out over their prey and dissolve the prey externally, so then it can suck up prey that would be too large to ingest. Through its mouth without turning it into like a smoothie.

Uh So one trick that they do. I've actually have a video on here if you guys want to look at it, is this is a sunflower starfish prying open a bi valve, which is like a clam, and it pries open those those shells, spits its stomach out uh into the bivalve, and then it can dissolve it it's in sides and then suck them back up. So that's one way it feeds. It's just yeah, it's surprising to think of these guys as predators because when you see them,

they don't really move that much. They almost don't seem like a living animal. You can only really see how they move by speeding up camera footage of it and seeing that they do move around in chase after prey and prey after other slow moving animals. Another interesting thing about the starfish is they have gonads on each of their arm tips, and with mating, like everything else, they

are rather passive and lazy. Most species do actually have separate males and females, even though they're almost completely identical. They just have different like male and female gonads on their arm tips. And typically what starfish will do is they release the egg and sperm into the water for external fertilization, and then these fertilized eggs will hatch and

become zooplankton tiny larval starfish. In some species there is internal fertilization and in other species, like it's not that common, but females may even brood their eggs, so sitting on their eggs like a chicken or keeping them inside a special brood pouch. The cutest mating ritual between starfish is pseudocopulation, so they don't actually have to copulate like a lot of other animals where there's you know, insertion of genitalia

and this. They are just like the male gets on top of the female and they link their arms together like they're holding hands and then do external fertilization. So there's no real reason for them to get on top of each other other than to sort of encourage each other to release their gonads into the water. Then it is externally fertilizes in you know, the beautiful, wonderful process.

So the reason I'm nominating this as a garfield is its ability to eat things larger than itself by literally spitting out its stomach and digest staying externally and sucking it back in. It's extremely laid back in lazy attitude towards romance, like you know how like Garfield has been dating Arline for years, but it's just always so like he's so passive. It just seems like he's waiting for something to happen, but it never does happen. And also

it's very slow and sometimes orange. So that those are my reasons for nominating the starfish. I would say that the only downside to the starfish is that I don't think Garfield is stupid. I think he chooses not to use his brain, like it's an active choice, like he could think if he used a hundred percent of his brain, it would actually turn out he's like a super genius. He just elects not to think that hard about things.

So what do you guys think? I was actually going to ask if Garfield because of the Garfield and Arline situation, because we know Garfield and Arline do have gon ads on their arm tips, but right do they? I think it again, it's like an external fertilization situation where they kind of like maybe it's like they externally fertilize. Garfield then absorbs the eggs into his brood sack, and then the brood erupt from, like we said earlier, from his lasagna bloated carcass and feed off of him uh in

their sort of early larval stages. And that's how we get a new Garfield. Okay here there have been a lot of like, you know, really great biological thinkers on the Internet who have also hypothesized the question of if Garfield takes and you know, I mean, like, I like, I've done a lot of research googling Garfield on the Internet, and you know, some images come up that like, really, I think, just show that, you know, it shows some good info there that I think just like shows. It's

like documentaries, you know, it's beautiful. I was looking at the image earlier today of uh, Garfield totally act his research for this. I was looking at an imagin earlier today of Garfield holding a baby that he made with Sonic the hedgehog. So you know, he's yeah, yeah, he was capable of He's capable of having brood outside of a species too. I I think that there, once again,

you're going back to my three factors. I think if you look at the starfish, you know, the ability to put down a plate of lasagna or pan a lasagna. I think this starfish has got that in spades. That's a solid tan. Of course, you know, ability to kick Odie off a table. I'm gonna say, I think that this starfish could probably do that. Um, I think, you know, it's like, it's probably not gonna be very fast, but it looks like it's got enough mass that could pull

it off. It could probably set off like a Rube gold device that kicks Odi off by sort of like slowly crawling over, lulling ODI into a sense of security, and then setting off the Rube Goldberg machine that kicks Odie off into a box that gets mailed to Australia or something. I buy that that's within the Roman possibility. So once again going to give that a perfect ten. You know, do I think that the starfish hates Mondays? Honestly? You know, like you said, it doesn't really have a brain.

So I don't think that the starfish hates the Monday hates Mondays. So I'm gonna give a zero on that. But there is one, one, one additional important factor I think with thinking about a replacement Garfield in um number of gonads, and as we know, Garfield has a sexually reproductive organ on the tip of each of his appendages. Classic Garfield fact, right each of his classic Jim Davis fact that just you know, that's like why you made the character. So I'm gonna give this character a three guards,

you know, three three out of four. Yeah, that's solid. It's a good number of garths. Hanna, do you concur I do? I think on the on the John scale, which I'm gonna abandon after this because it's it's it's a mess. Who about John anyway? But in terms of a starfish, John would absolutely own this. He would wear it on his lapel. He would try to impress ladies that works. It would be stuck to his face and slowly digest one of his eyeballs. I agree, yes, that

would also absolutely happened while he's hitting on the vet. Who, by the way, take a class at the learning annex about hints. Yeah, also like way to say, yeah, let's trash talk to John. Liz is just doing her job, She's just at work. Why would you just I don't know. I also could definitely imagine John going to Liz with

Starfish Garfield. Garfish um on his face, it eating one of its eyeballs by averting its stomach into his I sock it, and then he quips to Liz, I guess we just don't see eye to eye and Liz is going, oh my god, John, how did you Why is there? Oh my god, your eye You're gonna be blind John, and he's He's going, I guess we just don't see. I I feel dizzy. She's also just like, did you think that this would get me to say? Yesterdating you? What?

How did your brainwork? You definitely just wrote a Garfield strip that is canon. I'm gonna say it has to be. I feel like, after this episode end, we need to just write a book of Starfield Garfield short right Starfield Sharfield strip number one rights itself. I just wanted to give a quick honorary mention to one of the world's most lovable lazy animals, the manatee. Manatees are a mammal that lives an entirely aquatic life. Their closest living relatives

are elephants and hieraxes. Hieraxes being an African mammal that looks a bit like an overgrown gopher combined with a guinea pig. But manatees are wildly different in their behavior. Namely, they're very lazy. They spend half their day snoozing in the water, surfacing for air every twenty minutes or so. The other half of their day they spend grazing aquatic plants.

And that's about it. That's the manatees life. They swim at only about three miles per hour five kilometers per hour, They only breed once every couple of years and give birth to a single calf. And they're not necessarily stupid. They seem to have long term memory and can learn to associate events. They can also live quite a long time, up to sixty years, which would allow it to actually live as long as the comic strip has been running

a little over forty years. When we return, we're going to rate animals based on another Garfield characteristic, their ability to eat a lot. Garfield loves lasagna, So should you feature Kitty a big old tray of the Italian treat. Sorry, folks, but only in your cat's dreams. Lasagna often contains onion and garlic in the seasoning, which is very toxic to cats. And dogs too. Sorry Odie. The carbohydrates aren't great either, nor is the dairy content, as cats are generally lactose intolerant,

so it'll give them even more tummy troubles. I wonder why there's no Garfield strips all about the awful garf farts that are almost certainly inevitable. So we've talked about some lazy animals who I think could embody that aspect of Garfield. That's like their strongest I think correlation to Garfield, although the Starfield or garfish I think is strong also in the eating category, which is what this section is

all about. So we're gonna talk about animals that eat enough, and I think these are going to get a tin out of tin on the entire tray of lasagna eating capability. So first let's talk about the gulper eel also known as the pelican eel, which is basically a mouth with a tail, which I think, again, like Garfield, has changed over the years, he's gotten more simply drawn, sort of like bigger eyes, smaller body. I think, just get out of the body. I think, just be a mouth with

a tail, like a mouth, eyes and a tail. So the pelican eel is a deep sea eel with a long, thin, blackish brown body about two and a half feet in length, which is like point seven five meters, But it's mostly a giant set of jaws with tiny needle like teeth a pair of little beady eyes connected to the eel part of it, which it's technically not all tail, but

it's it basically looks like a tail. It's just it's body like imagine an eel, but the eel part is pretty small relative to the head, which is just got just a big mouth. I've got a we all have a photo up right now. What's that on the on the but end of the tip, I want to say, but it's the end of the tail. I think that might be a biouminescent bulb was going to be it was a little bit of design here, yeah, I mean,

looking at this balcony eel. I don't know how many garths to give this thing, because there's just this is a perfect garfield right here. It's like it's got a giant mouth, looks like it's real mad at everything, not just mondays uh. It looks like a love crafty and horror thing, which we all know was Jim Davis's original goal for Garfield was for him to be like a

Lovecraft horror monster. I think there's a book called Garfield in his Nine Lives where Jim Davis draws different styles of Garfield in different stories, and one is very horrific and similar to this but more subtle. But no, I agree. I think goulper eels are a very strong contender. Oh and also, Hannah, I did look it up. That bulb on his tail is indeed a bioluminescent bulb, and it

glows pink, which is cute. That is cute. I guess what I'm saying is looking at this pelcon eel when I close my eyes and think of Garfield, this is definitely what I see. So you know, one thing that the goulper eel does is it uses its giant mouth like a net. It can suck in huge gulps of water and take in crustaceans and invertebrates, anything that can like fit in in there, and then it can get Basically, its stomach is like a balloon that can expand and

hold this food. It doesn't usually eat like that big of prey, but it's capable of it. So you know, you don't know what it's capable of, essentially, and it turns itself into a water balloon, so sucks in a huge amount of water until it literally looks like a water balloon with a tail, and then it can push all of the excess water out of its gill slits and keep the food in its stomach. Uh. And there is a video. I'll include all of this in the show notes, but you guys can look. It's of a

gulper eel uh in water ballooon form. And marine biologists are watching this on a deep sea cam and they're losing it there. It's so funny to hear researchers lose it overseeing something and they're like, what, it's a muppet. It looks like a muppet. One question I had about the Pelican eel that um is it's very important for me and kind of like helping decide the future, Garfield is do you think that this Do you think a Pelican eel could survive swimming in a cup of coffee?

M hmm, this is an interesting hot cup of coffee. Oh, I don't think too hot. No, maybe, Like I mean, first of all, it's a deep sea fish, so bringing bringing it up to the surface to put it in coffee is probably gonna kill it. I think if you have somehow have like a cup of coffee in the deep sea, which is gonna be hard because again, if you have it in a styrofoam Starbucks cup, it's gonna

get crushed. So I think introducing this eel to coffee is either going to destroy the coffee or destroy the eel. I'm not sure you can have these two things exist at once in the same dimension. In that case, I mean, I think, how are you thinking this would be? I need to know, like, how would this work? Like? Is

Garfield known for swimming in commun Oh? Yes, I mean there are a lot of you know, looking at the original texts of Garfield, there are definitely a lot of a lot of clips of him, you know, on a Monday sitting in a giant cup of coffee like it's jacuzzi, And you know, I guess I just want to make sure that the future Garfield is capable of, you know, it was capable of living his true life, you know, right, Yeah,

I would say unfortunate. I have to be honest about each candidate also because I am concerned with their welfare. I don't want to cast an animal as a garfield and have the new garfield be in danger by being in a giant, uh sort of kitty pool sized cup of hot coffee and have that hurt them. Although I would say again for most of these animals, I would say, boiling coffee is not gonna work. It's gonna have to

be a tepid coffee. I think I'm okay with Like, doesn't a boiling just like room temperature, you know, just like the coffee part's important, right, if you can get that down to the bottom of the ocean, it maybe it'd be fine. Sure, why not? But probably like if you want it to be floating in a cup of coffee, like a comically large cup of coffee on the on the surface, sort of like with sunglasses. I don't know. I don't think. I'm not sure about that. I can't

honestly say I think that would work. Okay, I'll keep that in mind in my in my uh, in my decision, I think analysis, how many garths, Hannah do you think? Um mouth ten? Lasagna ten, swimsuit competition ten, personality ten, So four garfs, four gars We got a solid four garfs that's good. What do you think, Joey say, I'm going to say four garfs with the asterisk of I would if they're like so far, this animal is very

much in the front running. But if there's another animal with an equal vote to that, can't that can swim in a giant cup of coffee, I'm probably gonna have to lean toward the other animal. Okay, okay, Also kicking Odie off the table, like he could definitely swallow Odie hole, he could swallow Odi again something you shouldn't google, and then I think sped him out off the table. Oh okay, yes, yes, that's that's that's a valid that's I guess like with that,

I think it does. For kicking Odie off the table, as long as he's bringing harm to Odi, I think it's okay. So if he swallows and eats Odi, that's like the same. Yeah, it's it's a similar, right. It's sort of the inverse of the kicking off the table maneuver, but just as potentially lethal. First issue of hell can Eel Garfield is him swallowing odeon then spitting up his bones.

Oh and the yeah, I love that with the cartoon bones, where like it's literally the outline of the dog and the ears are just giant earbones, right and please this is going to be called garfiel fiel yea. I like it. I like it. Our next candidate is the Tasmanian Devil, who is a carnivorous marsupial from the Australian out Back. They don't really look like the Loony Tunes taz. They are little black and they usually have like a white stripe on their chest. Furry little critter that looks like

the cross between a bear and a squirrel. Uh there, About the size of a small dog. They have a thick furry tail they used to store extra fat, and they are extremely carnivorous and they have a voracious appetite and a bad attitude. They can eat up to their own body weight in one sitting, so much that they can sometimes struggle to walk and they have to waddle or rest. And relative to their size, they have the

strongest bite of any mammal. Their bite relative to their body size is stronger than a tiger and they can easily crush bone. In terms of their behavior, they are pugnacious. They're not I think their reputation is maybe a little bit. They're not necessarily territorial, but they do fight over food. So most of the fights between devils is over food. And sometimes they wrestle each other too, like they all stand up on their hind legs and shove at each other.

That I think that this the Tasmanian Devil really encapsulates garfields love violent love for food. I would say, um, yeah, I think that this Garfield. You know, I get the impression that that that Tasmanian Devil Garfield, Tasmanian Devil Feld would um very much hate mondays in the same way that probably hates everything else. I feel like it could probably put down a an entire Panamlasania and probably also

eat the pan um. You know. I guess that my my my concern on Tasmanian Devil Garfield is you know, like I know, I know that louning tunes are not a documentary, but I feel like the Tasmanian Devil and Looning Tunes is very active and it's not particularly lazy. So I guess that my concern on Tasmanian Devil felt would be like, is he lazy? Is he capable of sleeping in a box? Forets a day. Um, you know, that's that. I think that that's that's my I would

like to like put forward to the group. The modern day drawing of Garfield definitely also stores fat in his tail, so that's that's that's true. That is another comparison. They don't necessarily hibernate seasonally, but they do um during the day have sort of a mini ibernation called torpore where they just sort of go into a mega sleep where they conserve their energy. One that's adorable to Oh thank god,

I was gonna have to disqualify them. But they are very active at night and at dusk and down, which is called being cripuscular. So they're they're a mixture between being c puscular and nocturnal. So I think we don't but we don't see Garfield like we do see sometimes the comics where we see Garfield at night are sort of more I think demonic. Yeah, just a similar thought. Do you think that John has toxoplasmosis from Garfield? Absolutely? Definitely.

Toxoplasmosis is the when you're infected by T. Gandhai, which is a small um micro organism that lives in cat poop. Basically, it can infect rats it in their brain and infect them so that they are no longer afraid of cats, and so the rats will get eaten by the cats. The toxoplasm Magondhia then completes its mating cycle inside of the cat gut and then gets pooped out and then humans.

If you handle cat poop um gross. Also you can get toxoplasmosis, which generally, unless you're pregnant, doesn't have too too many symptoms, but there is a theory that it could make you horny for cats or something. I'm not sure. I mean, that does make sense that Garfield would be riddled with parasites. I buy that. Yeah, yes, yeah, it explains the cat people phenomenon. So how many how many

garths Hannah, Yeah, it has many? Devil should get I think the crepuscular thing is the one hitch in bonnet. That's not a phrase. It sounds like a phrase Jim Davis would use, but it's not a phrase real. It's something John would say, A real hitch in my bonnet. Yeah, I pry the Tasmanian devil Garfield off of his face. Bout that and that is definitely the first and last Tasmanian Devil Feld stripped would just be ge John opening the box and being like, welcome to your new hope.

Next strip attached to face following strip, John is a skeleton and Tasmanian Devil ad um right yep rips his whole entire face off. Maybe not quite Garfield material, like, I don't think this, I don't think I think this could be a Garfield substitute, like sub in for a

few strips, but maybe not in the long run. Definitely a contender, though, although although the Tasmanian Devil would be up early in the morning without coffee, which is not a Garfield trait, everything else seems to be fairly on point. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna give five guards five Garfield. This is a very on point. This is like gritty reboot Garfield, and I'm gonna agree with that. I think five gars Is. I think that's an accurate number for this.

This is like gar Field being played by Bruce Willis. Yes, just really get very much into the spirit of Garfield. Our next contender is the reticulated Python. So the reticulated Python is the world's longest snake. It grows up to twenty feet which is about six and a half meters and weighs up to a hundred and sixty pounds. They are found all over South Asia, and pythons are a family of non venomous snakes who throttle their prey and

swallow them whole. The reticulated python is called what it's called because they have these little squares of pigment that almost looked like pixels, like you printed this python with sort of a pixelated coloration, And they are quite gorgeous animals. They have these stripes and patterns, and they can also be bred to have more unusual holo morphs, including being orange. So I'm just gonna put it out there. We could get a Garfield branded reticulated python for sure, with the

characteristic orange and black stripes. I would say, I do have to be honest. Unfortunately, reticulated pythons do kill people occasionally. There are only a few recorded cases of people being eaten by reticulated pythons. So, you know, John maybe okay if he keeps snake Field fed, but reticulated pythons would have no trouble eating an entire pan of lasagna in one bite. They can eat entire pigs small deer alligators. They can eat prey that weighs as much as they do,

if not more. Their jaws just can completely open wide enough to swallow a human being if they want, which they have occasionally done. Uh. And another interesting sort of to me garf like aspect is that they can go weeks between feeding, just lazing around and digesting, and a particularly large meal can actually last them several months at a time, So they could eat john and then chill out for like several months, which I feel like, it's very garden It's it's this one's got a few things

going for it. It's got the garfield could be orange, orange and striping. In fact, I've included a few images of these are domesticated ones are not domesticated really just pet ones. There's no way that they have not been domesticated. They would still eat you if they got the chance. They are really beautiful sort of orange with dark brown and black stripes and patterns. Other than looks, they also just like their ability to eat and to be lazy

is very garf esque. Yeah, I do think that. Um, I mean, as we talked about earlier with um, you know, uh, the unfortunate passing of lineman. Garfield has taken a life before, so you know, so the python so snake Feld, you know, having no problem taking a life. I don't think is a deal breaker when thinking of a new Garfield. You know, you do want somebody who's you know, cold blooded, has like a you know, a thirst for blood that Garfield has.

Smells through his tongue. Y smells through his tongue like Garfield, Like we all know Garfield, does you know? I think that he can unhinge his jaw and eat a lot of lasagna. That's the really good thing going for him, that they can have orange coloration. I think that that's um, that's a really great candidate for a future Garfield. I guess that like he the way that he eats, is it possible? Does he have to strangle era? Does he

have to strangle every bit of prey? Or if he just saw play of lasagna, would he try to like wrap around it and coil around it first before eating it, or would he just go for it and eat that lasagna? That's a good question. The purpose of the strangulation is to get the prey to stop moving and sicking around

so it can engulf the prey. And eat it. So I feel like with the lasagna, as long as snake field understands the lasagna is not going to move or resist being eaten, I don't think it would necessarily need that would be overkill to sort of strangle it. Only one question, where's its butt? Well, snakes have what is called a cloaca, and that is usually near the end of the snake. Now, imagine the evolutionary history of a snake is that it was essentially like a lizard with legs,

and then it got longer and lost its legs. So a lizard's kloeca is right near it's like, right at the base of its tail, and so snakes khloec is also right at the base of its tail. It's just its tail looks a lot like just more snake. So it's actually does have a tail in addition to the rest of its body. To you, it's just it's hard to tell the difference between it's it's caudal vertebrae and

and region and just the rest of it. Okay, Well, given that, um, I'm gonna say this is a pretty good contender as well in terms of mentality, I'm not now hang on, hon, I do want to back up because I do want to know why you needed to know where it's but is in order to rate it on the guard scales, And I feel like I feel like Garfield's butt location is a very important factor when

trying to figure out the new Garfield. Garfield is maybe not a maybe not purely a cat, but in his quest to upset and discuss John in every way possible, he would probably do that cat thing right, putting the butt in the face. That's a that's a very good point. And yes, a snake could could in theory do that, and it's at the base of his tail, just like Garfield's presumably, so that that's that's a. That's a good sign. Um. I made this up because I'm just very but I

just wanted to know one thing. Snakes very rarely. They don't typically pass gas, but they can, and when it happens, it's very funny. I just thought you should know that. That's good to know. I don't know if I've ever seen a script where Garfield does, but yeah, I don't. I think that that Jim Davis really doesn't like going into the far territory, which I think is a shame. I think it's he's fine to go into the dog

cub territory though. It's right, he's okay with like there being a jar of dog gam meats liquid dog gam meets that Johnny drinks slips right down. But you know, Garfield farting is I'm sorry. I feel like I brought us down to no. No, it's worth it's worth examining. And I think that, you know, I think that Jim Davis, I think that he's he is very inconsistent in what he thinks is appropriate for Garfield and not appropriate for Garfield. And I think that that's, you know, I think that

that's a worthy conversation to have. I mean, if you get into like the you know, extended Pausing universe with pet Force and all of that, there's there's a lot more room for a lot of stuff. If you get into Garfield and Friends, there are actually a lot of adult jokes there, so and and a lot of I don't remember if there were farts, but I'm going to guess there were farts, right, I remember Garfield and Friends where Garfield just has a big set of honkers. Yeah,

we all remember that episode. Yeah that was a good one. Yeah, classic classic episode. So how many garths would you give the reticulated Python. I'm I'm sort of torn because I still feel like attitude wise, maybe not perfect. But I felt the same way about the Tasmanian Devil. So I'm going to give another five five garls. That's solid. Yeah, I agree with the five garths number. I think I guess that. My concern is that I hope that he

doesn't put too much effort into eating lasagna. You know, I'd be concerned if we cast him as Garfield and he felt the need to strangle of lasagna every time at a certain point, because like, Garfield is not gonna put that much work into every lasagna. He's just gonna put his hands in and go gobble, gobble. So you know when you give a snake like one of those frozen mouse embryos, they just gobble them. Yeah, I think they know. I think they learned. They know that if

it's not moving, there's not really a need. You can just get put that right there. So I heard agree, five garfs. I think that's I think that's the right the right number for this folid. Not everyone is a fan of Garfield. There was a two thousand and six scathing opinion piece published in the Journal of American Academy

of Pediatrics called Sleeping with the Enemy. Garfield and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute apparently the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute ran a sleep Well, Do Well Star sleeper campaign featuring Garfield as the spokescat based on his renowned ability to nap, but the author of the takedown slammed Garfield for his unhealthy eating habits, writing quote, Garfield is

a poster child for cardigo vascular risk. Although I have no knowledge of his family history, he is clearly obese and sedentary. I shudder to think what his blood pressure and lipid profile are given the quality and quantity of the diet he consumes. Similarly, if he is not yet frankly diabetic, Garfield is certainly at risk of developing type two diabetes and may already exhibit impaired glucose tolerance. Sorry, Garfield,

you're canceled doctor's orders. When we return, we'll talk about some animals who look like they're ripping off Garfield's trademark style. Garfield is a trademark bright orange. So why did Tiger's plagiarize Garfield's look. It seems like a silly choice for an ambush predator like a tiger whose best bet is to remain camouflage before pouncing and biting down on your neck like a tray of lasagna. But it turns out those bright orange and black stripes are actually excellent camouflage

to their preferred prey, deer and bore. These prey animals are red green, color blind and struggle to see the difference between green and orange. So a tiger's orange striped fur is going to blend in very well with green vegetation, especially in a lush, shadow streaked forest where tigers live. No wonder tigers have risked the wrath of Jim Davis and pass Inc To steal that trademarked Garfield orange glow.

So now I just kind of want to talk about like the aesthetics of Garfield and these animals that, even if they couldn't be cast as the new Garfield, I think that they show that they're at the very least Garfield fans with their aesthetic choices. Our first animal is the golden pheasant. Now I'm gonna be completely honest with you. I'm not sure this animal would be a good Garfield replacement.

I just admire the fandom that they display, the sort of the Garfield they they understand the Garfield brand, the Garfield aesthetics. So golden pheasants are sort of like an aristocratic version of Garfield, Like you take Garfield and add some like diamonds and jewels, you know, deck Garfield out. Golden pheasants are a pheasant native to China's forests and mountains,

and they are very striking looking. The females are just sort of a ashy brown color, so they're not that exciting, but the males have the striking orange and black feathers sort of like sideburns that are almost like an umbrella around its cheeks and that are striped black and orange. They have orangey red bellies and an orange cape which is a fan of feathers on its back that it can spread during mating. And I just I just appreciate

the esthetics of this bird. I feel like this is a Garfield fan that uses is Garfield fan boy is um to try to impress its mates. Yeah, I think that. I think the golden feather and I get what you're talking about in that, like his um. There's coloration on his feathers that definitely definitely exudes Garfield. It definitely definitely feels like, you know, it's like a Christmas tree if

Garf it was a Christmas tree. I'm not sure if I would want this animal to be the replacement Garfield or the new Garfield because like, you know, like I'm not sure necessarily, like how much Lasagna could he couldn't kick odief table, how does it feel about Monday's. But I do think that, um, the coloration shows that he would be a welcome addition to the Garfield universe. You know, I think that like, if you look at it, it definitely feels like, oh, this is a symbol of the

Garfield prophecy. This means that Garfield is coming, and that's something that Yeah, it's like it's like a Garfield omen. So we don't even have to rate this. I think I think we should just name this the official Garfield omen. So. You know how if you have a bunch of crows, that's an omen I guess of the devil or something. The golden pheasant showing up is an omen of Garfield cometh. He approaches You saw Avengers endgame it's like those guys that came in advance of Thanos, and like we're like

Thanos is coming. It's like this feels like this bird is that for Garfield, the Harold Harold of Garfield. And he's like, bring out your lasagna, I and tremble and I do our next candidate. Now that's what I think could actually potentially pull off being Garfield. This is the milkweed tiger moth caterpillar. So adult milkweed tiger moths are sort of plain looking moths with brown wings, but if you look closely, you can see a bit of orange and black stripes on their abdomen, which is a faint

memory of the glorious Garfie caterpillar they once were. So these moths and their larval stages, the caterpillars are found all over North America, just like Garfield. Caterpillars are the larval forms of moths and butterflies, and they have one mission to get thick by eating as much as possible, so they eat neat neat. We did read that important seminal novel as children, The Hungry Hungry caterpillar very accurate.

Caterpillars exist to eat as much as they can, so that they collect as much nutrients to fuel their metamorphosis into adults. The milk weed tiger moth caterpillar has fuzzy black and orange stripes just like Garfield. So I think this is a real good like they've got this, they have the look, they have the Garf look. Another cool thing which I do think is similar to Garfield is they have toxins that they've acquired from plants that they can use to cause heart problems in predators if they

attempt to ingest them, just like Garfield does. Yes, m M makes a lot of sense. That is very true of Garfield. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I love the cardiac toxin that Garfield has and exudes, and that I mean, that's one reason that John is always so stressed looking is he is just getting a lot of art palpitations just by being around Garfield and trying to eat him.

John may try to kiss him, but then he gets some of that that cardiac talks in on his lips, and that's just one of many Garfield's tools of torment. Caterpillars in general, I think are very Garfield like because of how voracious they are. And so I think the milk weed tiger moth caterpillar is perhaps the one that looks the looks the most like Garfield. But the monarch butterflies caterpillars are so voracious even though they don't look

that much like Garfield. I think they encapsulate the spirit. More so, they um eat two hundred times their birth weight within two weeks, according to Texas Butterfly Ranch quote. Imagine a seven pound newborn child consuming one thousand, four hundred pounds of formula and a two week period. Does sound like Garfield? Yeah? That does sound like gar Field. Did they ever do a baby Garfield? Was there like a Garfield baby? Only in my dreams? Um? Yeah, you know.

I mean originally when you showed me this, when you showed me a milkweed tiger moth caterpillar, my initial impression was that ain't Garf. But now that you've described it to me in a specially using terms of the hungry, hungry caterpillar, I'm honestly very on board for a milkweak tiger moth. Felt. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna go with five Garves on this. Five gurps. That's solid. What about you, Hannah? I'm gonna go with stunt double nice. This could be

a stand in for Garfield, right, um indistinguishable? Right when when like they need to do another take of Garfield eating lasagna, but Garfield's already eaten five hundred pans of lasagna and he simply can't eat anymore. You get the stunt Field in who can continue to eat take after

take more and more lasagna. But first, first, you take that the Garfield that could only eat five pans of lasagna, and you fire him, and you say Garfield is supposed to eat infinite lasagna, and the line get out of here. I gotta send that gar Field out to past. Oh God, is that White John's parents own a farm? Is that like all the all the old Garfields, us AC is built on the bones of all of the dead Garfields, of forty dead Garfields. They check them into a juicer

and that's where we get orange juice. Oh, I mean, I do love orange juice. That makes a lot of sense. Our last candidate to replace Garfield is the Krrion Beetle. Now, I'm actually quite fond of this, and I want you to hear it out, because not only are Karen Beetles got the look of Garfield, I think I don't know. They're they're almost more friendly friendly version of Field if

you really think about it. Hear me out. So, there are many species of carrion beetle, but the one I want to focus on is called Nicrophorus vespilo, which has orange and black stripes in sort of a cartoonish squiggle that looks like the characteristic squiggly pin strokes of Garfield the cartons. So I think they already have the whole Garfield mood just drawn on their shell. It's a fun and festive look for a car in beetle. And I guess the only downside to the carrion beetle is maybe

they're too good of an animal to be Garfield. I gotta say they're they're sweet, kind, wonderful undertakers of the animal kingdom. They eat dead bodies. This is true. I think this is a good thing, much like Garfield. But the difference is they don't generally kill the dead carrion before they eat it. It's it's scavenging. These dead carry and so one thing they do is they will come across like something like a dead mouse or something, and then they will bury the body underground, create a din.

Usually sort of using the fur of the of the dead animal to line their dinner, and they will lay their eggs, and when their eggs hatch, their larva can feed on the carcass, and both mom and dad will stay with the young and feed them. They will eat up little bits of the carrion, and the adults also eat maggots, So if you're grossed out by maggots, these adults will eat the maggots of other species of of insects and use them to feed their own cute little maggots.

Another thing is that they are helpful in solving murder cases, so carrion beetles are useful for forensic entomologists. Forensic entomologists are people who study the different stages that in sect maybe at in their development in order to help determine the time a daver has been dead. So you're like, oh, I recognize how old this beetle grub is, so I know that this body has been dead for like a week or something. And so again, these garf beetles help

solve crime, which I think is great. Another cool carrying beetle fact is that some species of carrying beetles have noxious but secretions that they can use to ward off predators, which I think would be in a real fun addition to sort of the garf. The Garfield franchise would be like Garfield excretes a plume of noxious fluid and John you know, makes that eek face that he makes and like passes out, and as the readers were all like, oh, Garfield,

your evolutionary defense mechanism is so fun. Now that you bring that up, I kind of can't picture a Garfield without that. Um, you know, I feel like, yeah, I feel like having noxious but fumes is definitely you know, that just screams Garfield to me. I feel like this is the pet John was trying to get, Like he he's just like he went to the pet store and forgot what forgot the word for beatle. Yeah, this is what he thought he was buying. Yes, Um, it's way

too helpful to be Garfield. Yeah, I guess that. That's My main takeaway is like Garfield ain't no snitch, you know. Yeah. Not only that, this this beetle could be Garfield's downfall. Yeah, like if this if this beetle found Lineman, Garfield would be done. Yeah, this beetle would help solve the murder of Lineman. I think this is like, this is sort of the Flanders to Garfield, you know what I mean.

Flanders in the Simpsons was created to be a direct um opposite of Homer, you know, in every way personality and physique, And this beetle is, while it has the Q orange and black stripes of Garfield, it is such a better creature than Garfield. It probably would be kind to Normal the kitten. It would feed Normal, it would, you know, only and like if Normal was killed, then it would discreetly bury Normal's body in a very respectful way and then use Normal's body to raise it's young,

which I think is beautiful. Could I picture a world where Garfield is a Carrion Beetle? Yes? Do I want to live in that world? No? Yeah? And also if if the carrion Beetle is the Flanders to Garfield, then who is Normal standing for capitalism? I was gonna say Bart, but no, it's not rascally enough to be Bart, Like Normal is okay, So if Flanders is is Homer's opposite, um, I feel like Normal is Krusty the clown, and that he is Homer at his ideal um or Garfield is

an ideal. Yes, like it's that was actually um when The Simpsons was theoretically only going to go for one season, they were going to end the season by revealing that Homer is crusty, and it's just like that's why the characters like ours design so similarly, looks so similarly. They just thought it would be a fun twist if like Bart's hero was his dad, and like Bart didn't even know it. So I think that, you know, I think

that that's you know, this carrying beatle is. I think the ideal of what John wants Garfield to be helpful considerate noxious butt fumes gets rid of dead bodies much more effectively than Yeah, yeah, you gotta take the bodies into lasagna first to get Garfield to eat him, which is just too many steps, right. I mean Garfield just left Lyman's whole skeleton in the basement. That's real easy for the cops to find. And I mean there's like a door down Aaron, it's just like chained to a wall.

It's like not hard, right. I mean, I love that carrying beetles could be on both sides of the law, Like you want to get rid of a body, like the carrying beetle can help you, but like you want to solve them murder, the carrying beetle can help you. It just it depends on what you can do for the carrying beetle. It's a double edged beetle. Yeah, it's it's just the duality of man, really, the duality of carrying beetles. Yeah so maybe not so, maybe this wouldn't

be Garfield. This is a good Garfield uh duter agonist or anti I don't know what are or like a parallel universe where John gets a good pet into the garf verse. This is like the Miles morales of Garfields, like a kinder, better version of Garfield. I also want to see an entire Garfield series. That's just the alternate universe where he got a good pet. It's just like a very normal and very normal sweetcat. He's in just a healthy relationship with a him and that he didn't

badger at her work. He's a functional adult whose life doesn't revolve entirely around his cat. I take that back. There are plenty of functional adults whose entire lives revolved around their cats. It's okay, so what what what are we going? Let's make a judgment, who Who's Who's your Garfield? Pick a Garfield? You don't You guys don't have to pick the same Garfield, but you gotta pick a Garfield. Don't think too hard, just like, let it be your gut reaction, like who is garl like think like just

like who's Garfield? And let it come out pelicanel Okay, we got Palcaniel. I was actually also going to say Palconio. I feel like the Palconio did it is It's the closest to what I think Jim davis Is original intent for Garfield is is a giant sea snake with a huge mouth that looks terrifying. So so Garfield, Garfield. We've done it. We did we great, We recast Garfield, and we're gonna get some really fun I think new fresh comics from it. I think I love how we've been

so in sync throughout this whole thing. I mean, I expect nothing less of the three Garf sketiers. But yes, yeah, I think we've I think we did it. I think this was a really good brainstorming session, and now we just gotta kick start it and make our own series of Garfield. Step aside, Jim Davis we've got the new Garfield and he's an Yo. Well, thank you guys so much for joining me today. This was so fun. This is like my dream to talk to my fellow Garfield philosophers.

I'm gonna say philosophers doctors of philosophy of Garfield on the show. Let's have you guys plug your stuff. So Hannah, let's start with you. I currently working on things that are not out. Um, but my Twitter handle is at h A N A M I S H E L S. I gotta spell my name and I am sorry. It's it's a long series of Ellis Island decisions and Joey, you got anything to plug? So you can follow me

on Twitter at Joey Tainman. You follow me on Instagram at Joey Clift and some stuff started dropping before then. I'm um, you should check out Comedy Central's Instagram stories. I'm Indigenous People's Day because I'm doing a takeover for Indigenous People's Day to uh yeah, it's gonna be a bunch of jokes and things about native stuff. And then I'm I'm doing it to promote a list of twenty five Native American comedians you should follow in I'm Native American.

There are a lot of funny Native Americans. I'm one of them, hopefully. Uh so I'm not on the list. I helped write the list, but I'm hopefully in the category of funny natives. So yeah, check that out. Follow me on Twitter, Mark the Comedy cent drum stickum Stories, follow me on instad and thanks for having me and bes always excited to talk about carb Yeah, thank you

guys so much for joining me. This was this was a fun trip into the gar First, you can you follow us on Instagram at Creature Future Pod on Twitter at Creature Feet Pod. That's f E A T, not feet. That is something very different. If you're interested in my Katie thoughts, just at Katie Golden k A T I E G O L D I N. And as always, I am at pro bird writes. Uh definitely not a sentient flock of birds trying to subvert social media to

convince humans to accept us as their overlords. Thank you so much to this Space Classics for their super garfi song. X Alumina. Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday, not Mondays because Mondays. Yeah I was about to say, like a good thing, it's Monday. Now we all eat our full plates of lasagna that are

sitting just out of camera and with our bare hands. Yeah. Yeah, it's an audio medium, but we promise you no silverware track lasagna. Some more