Garfield's Babes and Bullets (1989 TV Short) User Reviews

Garfield in his mystery fantasy.

[emasterslake · 8/10 · 29 October 2006]

Garfield finds a trench coat and derby in the closet and decides to imagine himself as Sam Spayed an old school detective.

The fantasy is all in black and white like a common mystery movie. Sam Spayed is meet-ed by a woman who said her husband's been murder in a car accident and knows there's more to the story than meets the eye.

Sam Spayed(Garfield) gets to the bottom of this by tracing clues and asking suspects on this mystery matter.

As soon as he gathers up the clues, the mystery becomes clearer to him like the scent of coffee he's always having through out the story.

With great animation and some jokes and Odie & Jon Arbuckle making small cameos, Babes and Bullets is a fine Garifeld TV movie. And one of the few fantasies TV movies on Garfield.

Top 5 with a bullet

[gizmomogwai · 8/10 · 10 December 2016]

To a degree, I grew out of Garfield after a while; I'm still a fan of Here Comes Garfield, Garfield on the Town, and the Christmas and Halloween specials. But many of the specials, when I was finally able to see them, were definite disappointments (in the Rough, in Paradise, and especially Gets a Life). I did read the book His 9 Lives, and Babes and Bullets was a great story. I was finally able to see this special, based on it, today.

The TV changes lose some things- Garfield is his familiar cartoon self rather than the realistic, scary humanoid cat, and the supporting cast are turned from cats to people, which doesn't make sense, especially given they still have cat-like names. But much of the spirit and humour is kept, and that's what makes it a standout. When I read this book with my younger cousins, they were surprised I laughed as much as I did. Much of the humour went over their heads- jokes about being spayed, needing to see a body, etc. It's more mature and often wittier than your average Garfield. And, it kept the risqué ending- Garfield has sex with his secretary, though since she's a human in this version, that's technically bestiality. Definitely deserving of its Emmy.

Good fun for Garfield fans.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 20 March 2021]

Garfield is having a very boring day. So, just for the hell of it, he wanders into a closet where he finds a fedora and a trench coat. This inspires him to drift into fantasy land, imagining himself as private detective "Sam Spayed". He's hired by the sultry Tanya O'Tabby (voice of Desiree Goyette) to probe the mysterious death of her husband, a handsome young college professor. Sam works the clues while enjoying the coffee made by devoted secretary Kitty (voice of Julie Payne).

An obsession with coffee is a running gag in this endearing, likeable Garfield adventure. Smartly written by Garfield creator Jim Davis (based on a story by Ron Tuthill), it's savvy enough to pay respectful tribute to the entire film noir / private eye genre, while also lightly parodying it. To that end, the special is mostly shot in black & white. While Garfield-as-Sam-Spayed has a typical good sense of humour, he does take his job seriously, and he is determined to have a motive and a suspect before too much time has passed.

Odie appears briefly, as a "man from maintenance", but he has a hysterical reaction to a flood of tears from one of the women. Jon only turns up at the end, to help set up the final gag. But the audience won't mind that much, as this is a good, entertaining story with some funny lines, and it's an inspired idea to have Garfield adopt a different sort of persona. Lorenzo Music is a delight as always as the voice of our heroic feline, with both Gregg Berger (voice of Odie) and Thom Huge (voice of Jon) getting to do double duty by also voicing the coroner and a thug, respectively.

The design of the supporting characters is right on the money; they all look like perfect animated representations of the kinds of characters we see in countless live-action versions of such material.

Solid entertainment in general.

Seven out of 10.

Absolutely brilliant

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 10/10 · 3 July 2005]

Garfield is bored out of his mind. With nothing do to he rummages in the closet and unearths an old raincoat and fedora hat. All of a sudden he has the desire to fantasise himself as a jaded dime-novel private detective called Sam Spayed.

At this point the show turns to black and white, a bold move considering most studios only want to give kids garish loud colors. Sam Spayed is the typical 1940's private dick. He narrates with the usual cynicism and attention to obscure detail. Women and dames or broads and every scam or crime is the 'oldest trick in the book'.

A beautiful broad called Tanya enters his office asking for help. Her husband drove his car off a cliff and the police are only too eager to assume he fell asleep at the wheel. Smelling foul play she hires Spayed to find the truth. And through a series of odd clues Sam finally deduces the whos, whys and whens.

A radically different turn for Garfield sure, but still very funny, with some great dialogue and one-liners. Phil Roman directs as if he's doing a black and white dime novel story and not the usual Garfield stuff (as great as the usual is). As thin as the story may sound it actually comes across as quite clever and it is surely one of the best Garfield TV specials. And they are all great so that's pretty much saying a lot.

Garfield steals the show in a unique murder/mystery.

[cellomaster · 1 December 2002]

I remember seeing this Garfield special when I was all of nine years old, I have loved it ever since.

Garfield has been to Hollywood and rescued Odie from the dog pound...but now we get to see him a'la Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, PI, a wise-cracking feline investigator hot on the tail of a murderer.

The show itself is in the traditional black and white, except for a few brief moments in the beginning and end. Sam Spade has been hired by a beautiful human, Tonya O'Tabby (get the name?) to find the person responsible for the death of her 23 year-old husband. Spade questions several suspects- the husband's university boss, Professor O'Felix (another cat reference) and his own girl Friday, the lovely Kitty. Garfield, sporting the usual hat and trench coat, might just be able to solve this mystery if he can keep John at bay and Tonya O'Tabby in check. Who really is responsible for this outrageous "who dunnit"?

This is a unique Garfield show that I found a little scary when I was a kid since it was darker and less comedic, but I loved it anyway. The amazing Lorenzo Music reprises his role as Garfield. Highly recommended.

Garfield goes private detective

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 10 April 2019]

Have always found Garfield, everyone's favourite orange cat, a very funny and lovable character. Him, his specials and 'Garfield and Friends' have held up very well, while finding 'The Garfield Show' and the live action films not near as good. There have been things loved as a child watched much later, and the question "what made me like this when younger?" crops up in my mind.

Like to love all the Garfield animated specials, but 'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' is definitely high on my list of favourite Garfield specials. A list that includes 'A Garfield Christmas Special', 'Garfield in Disguise' and 'Garfield's Feline Fantasies'. Like 'Garfield's Feline Fantasies', 'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' (which for me does the Garfield fantasy premise even better, because it also signalled a change of pace for the character) does not have the most original of premises, with a character dreaming of being someone or something else. But that does not matter, it's how anything that this applies to executes the premise and everything else. This could have been very tired and predictable in the wrong hands, instead 'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' is one of the cleverest, most inventive and best written Garfield specials, one of the most atmospheric and story-wise it stands out among the rest in a good way.

The animation is very striking, and it is one of the main assets that makes 'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' different. With its mix of both colour and black and white, with more of the latter, rather than just colour. Both are done excellently equally, with one not being better looking than the other, that said while the colour is smooth and vibrant and the drawing throughout shows no crudeness with meticulously detailed backgrounds, the noir-ish atmosphere and moody visual touches of the black and white for the fantasy were more impressive. The music is not just catchy in an unmistakably Garfield way but also haunting in how it captures the atmosphere of film noir mysteries. The Garfield specials always excelled when it came to the music, which has always been a very important thing for me to talk about being a singer and musician.

'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' is one of the best written Garfield specials. It is typically wry and witty in a way that is never less than very funny in the humour, and there is still a good deal of it despite a more serious approach to the storytelling. Yet it captures the lean tautness of the mystery genre every bit as well. If there was a prize for the best story of the Garfield specials, 'Garfield's Babes and Bullets' wins it. It never forgets to be fun and smart, with great cat references and nods to private detectives and their stories that were affectionate and knowing, but also has suspense and a clever mystery worth investing in, with clues and suspects that never come over as obvious or muddled. It was great to have this balance done so well, when story-wise this is pretty dark for Garfield yet not in a way that traumatises.

Really loved the supporting characters, especially Tanya and Burt. Odie and Jon also make nice short appearances. This is Garfield's show though as it ought to be, he is his usual hilarious and endearing self while also adopting the laconic, cynical edge and shrewd attention to detail of all the best private detectives. Voice acting is on point, nobody portrayed Garfield better than Lorenzo Music and the others were not even close.

Concluding, fabulous and one of Garfield's best. This is an example of what Garfield is all about and a perfect example of why he has so much appeal. 10/10

Dark and Gritty Detective Kitty

[Aegelis · 10/10 · 21 November 2023]

Excellent classic detective parody, as Garfield slips into the role after finding an old trench coat and fedora. Film noir's appeal for me is definitely in the story, and the writing has this in "Spayeds". Punchy one-liners abound, the humour brings everything from a smile to a chuckle in rapid fire. The mystery goes from having nothing to unclicking slowly like an old bank vault safe at just the right pace. Voice acting is identifiably Garfield, while the animation steps up to more sophisticated visual elements to bring enjoyment to all ages. Bookend the tale with some jazzy music, this is amoung the very best of Garfield.