@P3FOYFN  
Besides Get Fuzzy is the best pet themed comic strip.

reminds me of precocious http://www.precociouscomic.com/

@Prof.NightJack  
It’s just a joke, man.

@kircher  
Y’know, “Babes & Bullets” won an emmy? And yeah, they had some surprisingly dark stuff in Garfield at times.
 
The pirate ghosts were scarrier in the book version, where they were more “well-drawn,” making their skeletal details more detailed, and such. (They had book/comic adaptions of the TV specials to. With the exception of “9 Lives,” sense it was already based on a book, as I said.)  
The book version also had an extra scene/subplot (probably a “deleted/unused” scene from the animated-special) involving a ring from the pirates treasure.

@Beau Skunky  
I had forgotten about Babes & Bullets, thanks for reminding me. In the Garden is the sweetest story, but also I think one of the deepest. Watching it again, I forgot about “Primal Self” where the cat is possessed by an evil force and kills his old lady owner (not shown, but pretty obvious what happened. Reminded me of the Locnar in Heavy Metal.
 
Oh yeah, and the pirates in Garfield’s Halloween Adventure creeped me out. It’s still a lot grimmer than most Halloween specials.
 
If any comic is the successor to Garfield, it’s Get Fuzzy.

@P3FOYFN  
You seem to forget that opinion does not equal fact.  
And that joke in that comic is on pair with Garfield to me, so i don’t see how it’s “where it’s really at”…

He’s funny if you’re seven years old. Pooch Cafe is where it’s really at.
 

@kircher  
“Garfield his 9 Lives” was by far one of the best Garfield TV specials, it was actually an adaption of a book, that features stories/comics in different cool art styles, and such.
 
One of his original lives from the book “Babes & Bullets” was adapted into a separate TV special, which was also a darker, and surprising “film noir” take on Garfield. One thing they changed though was making all the characters in the story, (besides “Garfield/Sam Spayed”) were made human instead of anthropomorphic cats.
 
The stories were a bit darker, and surprisingly deep to. Like the “In the Garden” story, (the lightest/cutest story in the special/book) the part about where the li’l girl’s Uncle Tod “joined the circus” seemed to me to be a metaphor for him passing away to me. So even it oddly seemed deeper then it seemed, as well.
 
@Prof.NightJack  
Yeah, I remember “Tiny Toon Adventures” also took shots at those parents groups, or “Moral guardians” against things like that. Especially the ones that protested against “cartoon violence.”  
(They used to be so bad they complained that the original TMNT cartoon was “to violent.” Despite the fact that show was much ironically much tamer & campier then the later TMNT shows.)
 
Also, I hear Mark got to write for the later Garfield comic book series to, and some of the “Garfield Show.”
 
@Ferrotter  
Yeah, still Garfield still has his occasional moments. The new show, and such though just aren’t the same now with Lorenzo Music (Garfield’s original voice) passed on though. (Frank Welker does a decent impression of him though.)

@ArrJaySketch  
@kircher  
Same here! So much nostalgia. Extremely bold & creative for its time and demographic.
 
And yeah, “Lab Animal” still haunts me to this day. Agreed on the dark Oliver vibe. I just now realized they only came out 4 days apart!

Indeed  

@Ferrotter  
The curse of many long running comics.

@Ferrotter  
Most newspaper comics (and webcomics, for that matter) stagnate after a while. Only such much creativity in one person, I guess.

Garfield had many good moments. It’s the stagnation of it for so long that really saddens me about it today.

@ArrJaySketch  
I just took a look at it online again, and the Lab Cat one still gets me (and Garfield is a dead ringer for Oliver from Oliver & Company in that segment), though all of them are good. Always good to look back at traditional animation, especially when it’s that creative.

@kircher  
YES! 9 lives of Garfield still sticks with me to this very day. So good.

@Beau Skunky  
Garfield & Friends was pretty darn good, especially given the competition, as you said. And don’t forget that “9 Lives of Garfield” special, which was a little dark (especially “Lab Animal”), enough so I still remember it well. And also surprisingly that it had God as a character, something I don’t think you’d have today.

@Shepherd  
Because that charter development would of gone against the whole “everyone must get along” mentality that parent groups where pushing into everything, so yes.

@Prof.NightJack  
the higher ups were agent charter development? what?

Monday Lasagna is horrible so He kicks Odie off the table while sleeping with Pookie. I just described 90% of Garfield’s go to material.

@Prof.NightJack  
And it was from Eric acting like a real kid would when put in the situation.

@Beau Skunky  
He also hated how parent groups where pushing for that to be in all cartoons, he worked on the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and so much character development and the tone for shifted just for having to include that kind of thing, all the kids where ment to be upset over not being able to get home form the start and not just in one point like was done, it ended up making the Eric, the spoiled rice kind, the most relatable one and he was made the butt of jokes becouse the get a long message makes anyone not going a long with the group to be the one you’re not mean to like.

@Prof.NightJack  
Oh yeah, Mark Evanier the head-writer for “Garfield & Friends” actually used to write for cartoons like that, (One in particular called “The Get-along Gang,” or something) and stated he always found that cartoons that are that P.C., and always “everybody always agrees, everybody always gets along, and the complainer is always wrong,” and such quite disturbing, and a bad message to send kids.  
So he got to lampoon that relentlessly in “Garfield & Friends,” which was genius on his part.

@Prof.NightJack  
*created

@Beau Skunky  
If you know the story of why the Buddy Bears where crated it’s just makes it so much better.

I know this is being facetious, but Garfield does have his funny moments, especially if you look at the old book reprints/collections of his comics from the ‘80s, and ‘90s. He may be tamer by today’s standards, but he was surprisingly edgy at times, especially back then.
 
One of my all time favorite Garfield comic strips is probably one of the more darker-comedy ones where when asked what his favorite movie was Garfield said it was “Old Yeller,” because “I like movies with a happy ending.”  
That one still makes giggle, ‘cause it’s so “wrong,” but is made funnier coming from a cat.
 
While I don’t care much for the newer CGI-animated Garfield show, I really liked “Garfield & Friends” and the old TV specials as a kid, surprisingly they had some clever humor in them to.  
(Especially, when Garfield would relentlessly mock overly-“politically-correct” kiddy shows with the “Buddy Bears,” or typical cartoon cliche’s, and such. One episode even cleverly parodied animation-errors, that were common in ’80s/‘90s cartoons at the time.)  
I also kinda liked the “U.S. Acres” cartoons in “Garfield & Friends,” which was a nice change of pace from Garfield, as well. You don’t see “2 in 1” cartoon shows like that anymore.