Garfield Goes Hollywood

Garfield Goes Hollywood is the seventh animated TV special. It premiered on May 8, 1987 on CBS.

Plot

Garfield and Odie think their fence-dancing act cannot be beat, as does Jon, who sees a TV show called Pet Search, which is looking for talented pets and if their pet is determined by the audience as "The Most Talented Pet of the Week" they will win $1,000 and go on to the National Finals in Hollywood. After seeing last week's winner, a man playing banjo while his dog simply yelps after his tail is stepped on, Garfield thinks he has it in the bag. Jon wishes that they could be on the show which makes Garfield and Odie dance for him, showing him that they can dance. Jon is excited about winning the prize of $1,000, but Garfield is not overly impressed by this, especially when Jon brings out his guitar.

They go to the local studio where their competition consists of a flipping Chihuahua, a parrot, a jumping fish (in which Garfield eats before the show begins), a dead canary named Petey and tap dancing pigeons. Jon's act is "Johnny Bop and the Two Steps", in which he dresses like Elvis Presley and plays his guitar to the Elvis-styled song "Wizard of Love" while Garfield and Odie are backup dancers dressed in kitschy 1950s costumes. Despite Garfield's utter humiliation over being part of the act, Jon manages to get some applause. The final act is "Bob the Wonder Dog", a dog who plays five instruments at once, but he is disqualified when Odie unmasks him as a man in a dog costume. Odie, Garfield and Jon end up being the winners, as they are the only act that isn't booed by the audience. That night, Jon celebrates his new-found wealth and anticipates the forthcoming trip to California, but Garfield remarks it wasn't worth making a spectacle of himself on local TV, let alone the entire country.

Garfield, Odie, and Jon drive to Hollywood and start to see it as a paradise. While they enjoy living the Hollywood highlife, Jon tells the pets not to get used to it as they will have to go back to reality pretty soon. Not wanting to give it up, Garfield and Odie discuss plans to win, and their first action is to destroy Jon's guitar when he's not looking so that they don't have to perform his mediocre Johnny Bop routine. With Jon out of the picture, the pets are free to make up a new act for the finals.

Garfield, Odie, and Jon later arrive in their private dressing room to get ready for the finals, and Garfield admits that the new competition (like a pig playing a piano and three dogs doing ballet) will be stiffer than back home. The prizes are bigger, as well: the winners will win a contract with a big Hollywood movie studio, six weeks on a world cruise, matching limousines parked by the pool of their brand new home, and a check for $1,000,000. The second-place winners will win a boat.

The Lemon Sisters perform their singing and dancing act, then the Tumbling Garbanzo Brothers perform their acrobat act and Miles the Jazz Canary performs his jazz music whistling. Jon is now much more serious than he was at the excitement of winning the original $1,000, saying that he thinks being able to return to their old life would be the best prize of all. Garfield thinks Jon has lost it as he and Odie perform their new tango dancing act "The Dancing Armandos". Garfield is confident he can't be beat until the final act, Desiree the Classical Cat, appears and sings an incredible opera song that shatters every bit of glass in the room.

The judges declare Desiree as the winner, and the Dancing Armandos take second-place. Garfield acts like a sore loser, but Jon tells him that they haven't really lost everything, as they're still a family and still have each other. Garfield replies with an angry "Big, fat, hairy deal."

Back home, Garfield finally admits to Jon that it was all for the best that they are home again, as they are on their boat and talking about sailing to exotic locations like the South of France, the Fiji Islands, the Gold Coast of Australia and the Caribbean Islands. This is despite the fact that they live in a landlocked area and have to settle for sitting on it in the backyard.

Characters

Main Characters

Minor Characters

"Pet Search" Host (voiced by Gregg Berger)
Mountain Man Dan (voiced by Thom Huge)
Blue (voiced by Gregg Berger)
Fernando
Flippy
Pierre
Chatterbox
Herbie
Pigeons
Grandma Fogerty
Petey
Bert (voiced by Frank Welker)
Bob (voiced by Gregg Berger)
Desiree the Classical Cat (voiced by Desiree Goyette)
Lemon Sisters
Miles the Jazz Canary
The Tumbling Garbanzo Brothers

Trivia

Some elements of the special were utilized in Garfield Goes Hawaiian.
Desiree the Classical Cat is likely a reference to Desiree Goyette.

Book Adaptation

The local Pet Search competition has an added competitor, Backflip the High-Diving Cat (who naturally freaks out as soon as he lands in the water).
In Hollywood, Miles the Jazz Canary is absent from the competition.
Jon's attitude towards winning in Hollywood is different from the televised version. In the book, he wants to win as much as Garfield does and tells Garfield and Odie that he can almost taste the film contract after their act is done. When Desiree is named the winner, Jon is too disappointed to say anything.

Songs

"They Love Us" performed by Lou Rawls
"The Wizard of Love" performed by Thom Huge and Desirée Goyette
"Hollywood Feels So Good" performed by Lou Rawls
"Desiree's Meow Solo" performed by Desirée Goyette