Why Was ‘Garfield’s Halloween Adventure’ So Incredibly Scary?

GARFIELD: THE MOVIE, Garfield, 2004 — 20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

When people think of Halloween animated specials, the first that usually comes to mind is It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. However, there was a lesser-known Halloween special featuring your favorite fat cat that was actually pretty scary! Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (also known as Garfield in Disguise) first aired on October 30, 1985, and won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 1986, proof that audiences and critics alike recognized it as something special.

The half-hour starts innocently enough. Garfield (voiced by Lorenzo Music) wakes to the Binky the Clown, realizes it’s Halloween, and convinces Odie to dress up as pirates for a night of trick-or-treating. They set out in search of candy, singing songs and exchanging jokes. However, once they row across the river to find more houses, the mood changes drastically.

On the island, Garfield and Odie stumble into a crumbling mansion. Inside, a strange old man, voiced by C. Lindsay Workman, warns them of a dark legend: a band of pirates who swore to return exactly one hundred years later to reclaim their buried treasure. The old man, it turns out, was a boy who witnessed it all. Before Garfield and Odie can escape, their boat is gone, and the pirate ghosts rise from the fog to collect their loot.

The animation grows darker and more grotesque, with the ghosts resembling something from The Fog. Jim Davis himself admitted he wanted the special to “go somewhere that would at least scare 4-year-olds,” according to AV Club. He succeeded because many who watched as children still recall those ghost pirates as nightmare fuel. Despite its impact, the special never reached the same cultural staying power as Great Pumpkin.

It originally aired back-to-back with the Peanuts classic in 1985 and went on to earn that Emmy the following year. A tie-in comic followed, complete with an alternate ending featuring even more ghost pirate action. But after its final network airing in 1999, it faded from regular broadcast rotation.