One of the best Garfield jokes in the comic strip’s long history proved that the series is smarter than people pretend it is. Garfield is a series that has stood the test of time since it debuted in 1978. The titular orange fat cat with a passion for lasagna has delighted newspaper readers for decades with his zany antics. He’s been around so long in fact that he’s become a national icon that anyone can recognize, even if they’ve never read a single comic strip. He’s even found himself making the venture to the big screen twice in the 2000s and will soon make a return to cinemas with Chris Pratt in the lead role. However, it’s this lengthy time in the public eye that has drawn some criticism over the years.
For some fans of newspaper comics, Garfield is not the funniest example of the medium. One of the most common critiques regarding the strip’s humor is that it’s overly reliant on running gags. Whether it’s Garfield eating Jon’s food or hating Mondays, critics have noticed that this has made the comic more predictable in recent years. In fact, to subvert these expectations, there have been fan accounts that have changed certain panels to add unofficial new takes on Garfield’s humor like the infamous “Garfield Thrown Out the Window” Twitter trend. However, this doesn’t mean that Garfield is out of ideas. In fact, one joke in the strip’s past played with audience expectation and landed an unexpected punch.
On Monday, October 26th, 1981 newspaper readers were greeted with a pretty confusing new comic from Jim Davis’ beloved character. It depicts Garfield just laying in bed sleeping. That’s it. There’s no set-up, no punchline, no side characters walking into the room. It’s just Garfield laying there. However, this ended up paying off the very next day. Tuesday’s follow-up comic features Garfield sleeping again, but this time he actually wakes up. Realizing what happened, he immediately tells the reader “You know it’s Monday when you wake up and it’s Tuesday.” It’s a genuinely clever way to subvert what readers expect from a Garfield comic revolving around his hatred for Mondays. Rather than something bad happening to him, he just sleeps through it and misses it altogether which makes the Monday strip even funnier in hindsight.
This Isn’t the First Time Garfield Has Subverted Expectations
What’s absolutely brilliant about this strip is that it’s not even the first time Garfield has surprised fans by giving a twist on one of his classic gags. This has happened countless times throughout the strip’s run. There have been some hilarious moments of taking series regulars like Odie and Nermal and having them act a bit out of character. For example, one strip from April 27th, 1989 showcases Odie’s secret life while Jon and Garfield are away to a pretty funny degree. Perhaps the most famous instance though is when Jim Davis completely flipped the script on what a Garfield comic could be by making it more horror-centric and becoming the definition of nightmare fuel. Garfield and his friends are versatile characters, and even though they have their mainstays in terms of humor, they can still delight whenever they find instances to go off-script.
These are just a few instances of how Garfield has managed to stay relevant for over 40 years, but there’s so much more out there. While the comic does fall into its tropes every now and again to give fans a return to basics, this doesn’t mean that the series is losing steam. In fact, it’s still just as funny as it’s ever been and continues to inspire fans everywhere with fan art devoted to the fat cat in unique situations. However, Garfield‘s Monday joke where he sleeps through the day stands as one of his best because it shows that the strip can be smart with how it handles its clichés and do clever things to surprise readers.
