Garfield Christmas Special Is Free to Watch

You can watch the 1987 Garfield Christmas Special for free online.

By Cameron Bonomolo

The true meaning of Christmas is presents, breakfast lasagnas, and lazing around — if you're Garfield. Jim Davis' Paws, Inc. has made A Garfield Christmas available to stream for free on YouTube, along with a compilation of holiday-themed clips featuring the lasagna-loving, Mondays-hating cat and friends from The Garfield Show. The television special is written by Davis and co-directed by George Singer and Phil Roman, an animator whose 50-year career spans seminal animated holiday specials like How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and Garfield's Thanksgiving.

The 1987 Christmas special is based on Davis' iconic comic strip and begins on Christmas Eve morning, when Jon wakes Garfield from his slumber for a surprise: Garfield, Jon, and Odie are celebrating an old-fashioned holiday on the Arbuckle family farm with his parents (Pat Harrington and Julie Payne), his brother Doc Boy (David Lander), and Grandma Arbuckle (Pat Carroll).

"Why is it every Christmas I get drug out of my warm bed just to see some stupid old relatives? And why is it I always have to go to the stupid old farm? Why can't they come here where my warm bed is?" grumbles the overweight orange tabby cat (Lorenzo Music), who begrudgingly listens to Jon's sentimental musical memories of life on the farm.

The special sees the cynical Garfield cozy up to the cat-talking Grandma Arbuckle — and her homemade sausage gravy — who laments the loss of her late husband, Grandpa Arbuckle. In a heartwarming tug at the heartstrings, Garfield gifts Grandma a sentimental present and receives the best gift of all from Odie: the true meaning of Christmas. In the end, Garfield realizes: "It's not the giving, it's not the getting — it's the loving."

Related:

Garfield returns to the big screen this summer in The Garfield Movie, the CG-animated reboot starring Chris Pratt (The Super Mario Bros. Movie) as the voice of the indoor cat who goes on a wild outdoor adventure with his long-lost father, scruffy street cat Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson). Mark Dindal (The Emperor's New Groove, Chicken Little) directs the new feature film, also featuring the voices of Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible), Nicholas Hoult (The Great), Cecily Strong (Leo), Harvey Guillén (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso), and Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live). Bill Murray voiced Garfield in 2004's animated and live-action hybrid Garfield: The Movie and its 2006 sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.

The Garfield Movie is in theaters May 24, 2024.

Trending Now: