0:07

Hello, and welcome to Creature future production

0:09

of I Heart Radio. I'm your host

0:11

of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I

0:14

studied psychology and evolutionary biology,

0:16

and I'm one of the world's leading Garfield

0:19

fans love that orange cat. He

0:21

sounds disrespectful and lazy. I'll

0:23

laugh riot, But that poor old

0:25

cat has been eating lasagna and kicking Odie

0:28

off a table for such a long time. Seems

0:30

like it's about time for him to retire.

0:33

So today on the show, we're scouring the

0:35

animal kingdom to look for a new

0:37

species of animal to cast as the

0:39

replacement Garfield. Will

0:41

it be the pygmy blue tongue skink, the

0:44

goulper eel, reticulated python,

0:47

or another candidate. Discover

0:49

this and more as we answer the age old question. Is

0:52

Garfield measured more by his laziness,

0:54

his hatred for Monday's or his

0:56

ability to eat an entire tray

0:59

of lasagna in one bite. Joining

1:02

me today are my fellow Garfield

1:05

friends and other members of the

1:07

Garf skeatars, comedians

1:09

Joey Clift and Hannah Michael's.

1:12

Welcome you guys, so excited to be here

1:14

to talk about Garfield with two other people

1:16

who love Garfield. Me too, So

1:19

welcome to our first bi

1:21

annual meeting of minds

1:23

of the Garfield Heads Society.

1:26

You guys like Garfield,

1:28

right, I actually haven't. Um.

1:31

An eBay page opened right now coincidentally

1:34

for Garfield toilet seats, and

1:36

that has nothing to do with any any of the podcast.

1:39

I just want one. I have some questions about

1:41

the Garfield toilet seat. Mainly is

1:44

the opening for the toilet seat

1:46

his mouth, so it's like you're pooping into

1:48

his mouth? This is the

1:50

wish. This is not what I've found so far.

1:54

Um. What I've found so far are

1:57

many different styles, though they're all

1:59

kind of cushy, which kind of weirds me out,

2:01

but it's also comforting. Um.

2:04

And some are holiday themes, so you can

2:06

switch out your regular Garfield toilet

2:08

seat for like an Easter Garfield

2:10

toilet seat. As somebody who has multiple

2:12

Garfield toilet seats for every occasion, including

2:15

a special Garfield toilet seat that I used just

2:17

on my birthday, I get it. Well,

2:21

I have a Garfield enema, but so

2:25

I just I just think that like when

2:28

we talk about Garfield and casting

2:30

Garfield, we should talk about what

2:32

Garfield means to us maybe not like the

2:34

original intention of Garfield, because the original

2:36

intention of Garfield was just to make money,

2:39

was just to make a mass marketable

2:41

cartoon, to be

2:43

friendly to merchandise. And I

2:46

understand this, and I

2:48

don't. It's my love for Garfield is

2:50

not really. It's not because oh yeah,

2:52

he's a cute cat and hilarious, because

2:55

it's not actually that funny.

2:57

There's an almost nihilistic

3:00

aspect to Garfield where he

3:02

desires to consume everything

3:05

to nap. He hates

3:07

mondays, and he hates

3:10

all other living creatures. And I find that

3:12

interesting from an evolutionary biology

3:15

perspective. Yeah, and

3:17

I find he sort of hearkens

3:19

back to a

3:22

time that was I

3:25

don't want to say normal. I

3:27

don't want to say normal. Garfield

3:32

is hyper normal in a lot of ways,

3:35

and there's something fascinating

3:37

about that. And and the

3:40

sort of world that he takes on in each of

3:42

our minds is the opposite

3:44

of that, I think, because in

3:47

our childhood s, Garfield was hyper normal,

3:49

right. He's the opiate of the masses. And

3:53

it's one of those things where you imagine

3:55

in a post apocalyptic world

3:57

where it's just a barren,

3:59

dust covered earth. But then you the

4:01

dust, the wind blows, and the

4:04

dust parts to reveal the face of

4:06

a plastic Garfield. And I feel

4:08

that that really encapsulates the human race.

4:11

I I hate to stop being so philosophical,

4:14

because I do enjoy discussing the philosophical

4:16

ramifications of Garfield, but I we

4:19

do need to get on task here, and what

4:21

we're doing is we are recasting

4:24

another species as Garfield. Because

4:26

look, this has been He's been

4:28

a cat for over forty years.

4:31

I hate to say it, but cats don't

4:33

actually have that long of a lifespan, so

4:35

it's you know, he's probably been played

4:38

by several cats, and I just think that

4:40

we need to, you know, have a

4:42

different casting. I think it's getting stale.

4:45

The the having Garfield be a cat

4:48

is officially getting stale, and I want

4:50

to recast him as another

4:52

species of animal. And I am going

4:55

to make the best case I can

4:57

for each of these animals for you guys

4:59

to judge as the

5:01

pre eminent Garfield scholars that

5:03

I know whether these animals

5:07

encapsulate the credo of

5:09

Garfield. And let's be real, cats

5:12

live for about ten to twenty years. I

5:14

feel like there's probably been forty three

5:17

different garfields. They get a new one every year

5:19

because you just feed a cat that much lasagna, it's not

5:21

going to live that long. No, his eyes

5:23

keep getting bigger. Yeah, that's that's

5:25

why. That's why there's a garfield model

5:27

change. And how he looks different every year, is

5:29

it's a different garfield. Yes,

5:33

every time he's drawn slightly differently. That's

5:35

actually a new garfield, sort of phoenix

5:38

like erupting from the blow to the lasagna

5:40

field carcass of the old garfield. By

5:42

that that's how garfield reproduces. I mean

5:45

as a as a as a Garfield biologist,

5:47

I'm making decision that yes, garfield

5:50

explodes. A new garfield explodes

5:52

from the carcass of the old garfield, much

5:55

like a caterpillar turning into a beautiful

5:57

garfield. So

6:00

my first animal for you guys to judge

6:03

the garfield worthiness of is

6:05

the pigmy blue tongue

6:07

skink, which sounds a little

6:09

bit insulting, but that's its actual name. So

6:12

the pigmy blue tongue skink is

6:14

found in South Australia.

6:17

Skinks are a type of lizard.

6:20

They're sort of chunky and tubular

6:22

lizards. They have like little stubby

6:25

legs. And these guys, the pigmy

6:27

blue tongue skinks, are about the size

6:29

of a thumb and they're extremely

6:32

lazy. And in this first section,

6:34

I'm going to talk about animals that I think

6:37

represent the sort of like lazy

6:39

Margaritaville aspect to Garfield's

6:42

personality. So pigmy

6:45

blue tongues. One interesting thing

6:47

is their tongues are actually pink. The reason

6:49

they're called pigmy blue tongue skinks

6:52

is because they are. They seem

6:54

like they're smaller versions of their much

6:56

larger relatives, the blue

6:58

tongue skinks, which are about

7:00

the size of a whole hand, And those

7:02

guys do have blue tongues, but

7:05

these ones don't. But they're smaller

7:08

and people, I guess the people

7:10

naming them just didn't bother to check to see if

7:12

their tongues are actually blue before naming them, which,

7:15

you know, whatever that this is a common

7:17

problem with the naming of animals is it's often

7:20

you just name it the opposite of what it

7:22

is. Like this is the yeah,

7:24

this is the long neck shrewe, and

7:26

it just doesn't have a neck at all. It's very

7:28

straight. It's Australia. They have a lot of listens, just

7:30

like also, just checking info is hard.

7:33

It's like, what are you expecting every scientist

7:35

to look into the mouth of every animal

7:37

that they name based on their mouth color.

7:40

Give me a break. I

7:43

feel like every biologist

7:45

wants to look into the mouth of every animal

7:48

to be honest. So

7:51

they are very lazy

7:53

homebodies. They just want to

7:56

sit in their little burrows all

7:58

day long. In fact, they are much home

8:00

bodies. They were thought to be extinct

8:03

up until the nineties when they were

8:05

rediscovered because they spend almost

8:07

all of their time in their burrows hanging

8:10

out, so they're very hard to find

8:12

out in the wild. And when I

8:14

say they're burrows, I actually mean

8:16

a burrow that they've stolen from

8:19

spiders. They're too lazy to dig

8:21

their own burrows, so they live in empty spider

8:24

burrows. And what they like

8:26

to do is wait at the entrance of

8:28

their burrows for prey to walk

8:30

by, and essentially waiting for the prey to just like

8:32

fall into their mouths. They will

8:34

snap at prey as they walk by.

8:37

It is called ambush predation.

8:39

In this case, I think it's just

8:42

pure laziness, though. It is

8:44

these lizards waiting for an insect

8:46

to be unlucky enough to basically crawl

8:49

across their nose or mouth and then

8:51

they just snap them up. On a scale of one

8:53

to Garfield, how much how many

8:55

field garfs does this

8:57

rate at? Garf garves g

9:00

P I garves per. I'm going

9:02

to base my Garfield rating on three equally

9:05

very important factors. One

9:08

do I think that they hate mondays? To

9:10

do I think they could put down a whole plate of lasagna?

9:13

And Three do I think they could kick an odi off

9:15

a table? So, you know, like going into

9:17

you know, using those ratings. Looking at this blue

9:20

tongue skink, I feel like, based

9:22

on the look at this animal's face, I think

9:24

it's a ten out of ten on hating mondays.

9:26

I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it a

9:29

solid garf for just looking like it hates mondays.

9:31

It doesn't even approach mondays. It's stage

9:34

by that. It's like, yeah, like mondays are

9:36

a foreign concept to this thing. It dislikes

9:39

it so much. Do I think it could put down

9:41

a full thing of lasagna? I

9:43

mean probably not, Like

9:45

it's just it's kind of small. It's like I'm

9:48

not sure, you know, like if it ate, I

9:50

feel like you could probably eat a piece of lasagna,

9:52

but like not like a not like a pan of

9:54

lasagna. And that's like a very important

9:56

thing that I looked through for any Garfield one

9:59

out of ten on the on the eating a panel

10:01

las on your writing. So that's like a just

10:03

a not a full garf. And then,

10:05

um, do I think it could kick an ODI off

10:07

a table if it was like a tiny ODI?

10:10

Maybe, but like probably not like a full sized

10:12

odie. So I think I'm giving the pigmy

10:14

blue tunk skink just just one

10:16

garf, just one garf, just

10:19

one garf. Okay, yeah, no that's

10:21

fair. What do you think, Conna? Since Joey

10:23

covered a lot of the specifically

10:26

you know, solely Garfield aspects, Um,

10:28

I'm gonna go a bit on do people own

10:30

this? I may go on a John scale here, I

10:33

see on a John scale. Yeah, that the John

10:35

scale. I don't think people own this.

10:37

This is very rare. I don't

10:39

know of it being owned as a pet, at least not

10:41

responsibly. So

10:44

it's a terrible pet to have. Well,

10:46

I mean, let's let's toss ethics

10:48

right out the window. We are talking Garfield

10:51

here. Ethics boy, Yeah, and we

10:53

are talking John who. Yeah,

10:55

John like allowed his brother to I

10:58

think die in his basement, right, is like

11:00

they're used to he used to have a brother. Seriously,

11:04

why when he mysteriously disappeared was probably

11:06

killed and eaton by Garfield. And John

11:09

does not just over his dog, yeah,

11:11

right, turns a blind eye to all of Garfield's

11:14

crimes. So I feel like ethics were

11:16

as much as I care about being ethical, John

11:19

certainly doesn't. Yeah,

11:22

it is. It is actually cannon in Garfield.

11:25

There was a Garfield um point and click

11:27

adventure game that came out in the nineties

11:29

or early two thousand's. It

11:31

was like Garfield's Halloween Quest or something like

11:33

that. And um, there is an easter egg

11:36

where if you go into Garfield's basement you do see

11:38

Lyman's skeleton chained to a wall.

11:41

And it's definitely definitely so

11:44

you know, I mean, like, look, this isn't anything I need to tell

11:47

you know, the two of you, we get it. But yeah, so in

11:49

canon, Lyman is chained

11:51

to the basement, to John Arbuckle's

11:53

basement. John probably did it John

11:56

probably did it. Okay, this

11:58

this is actually telling me nothing. I'm just going to get

12:01

two girls, all right. Onto

12:03

The next girf contender is

12:06

the starfish. Now, there's

12:08

a reason that marine biologist

12:10

and creator of SpongeBob, Stephen Hillenberg,

12:13

portrayed Patrick Star a starfish

12:16

as a lazy, brainless Now. I love

12:19

SpongeBob. I very much

12:21

missed Stephen Hillenberg. He was a wonderful

12:23

creator because he was actually a marine

12:25

biologist and a lot of the things in SpongeBob

12:29

had references to marine biology

12:31

that we're really charming. Um, But

12:33

yeah, the Patrick star is actually

12:35

a pretty accurate depiction of

12:38

what an anthropomorphic starfish would

12:40

be like. Starfish are radially

12:43

symmetrical kind of dorms, which

12:45

are related to sand dollars and sea

12:47

urchins. They have no brain,

12:50

but they do have a radial nervous system.

12:53

They have very limited sensory

12:55

organs. They have simple eye

12:57

spots on each arm, and they are

12:59

able to respond to touch and smell

13:02

and light and dark and that's about

13:04

it. So they

13:07

can move very

13:09

very slowly with the help of

13:11

many rows of tiny tube

13:13

feet called podia on

13:16

each arm. So each of those arms

13:19

have all of these little tiny

13:21

they look like little tentacles or like

13:23

fur or something, but these are all little

13:25

moving arms, and they actually

13:28

move with the help of a complex

13:30

hydraulic system inside the

13:32

starfish. Uh. And

13:35

so it's like the starfish is this really

13:37

interesting machine of hydraulics.

13:40

And the each of the little podia,

13:42

the little tiny feet, has adhesive

13:45

chemicals in it that allows it to cling to

13:48

substrates. So it's actually mechanically

13:50

very complex in terms of its ability

13:53

to think not nothing

13:55

really going on there. So another

13:58

interesting thing, and as a lot of people actually

14:00

do know, they can digest externally,

14:03

so they can avert their stomach,

14:05

which basically means spitting out

14:07

their stomach inside out, you know, like you take a sock

14:10

and you turn the sock inside out. They

14:12

do that, but with their stomach outside of their

14:14

mouths. And why they do

14:17

this is that once they spit out their stomach

14:19

like that, it's still attached their body.

14:21

But by averting it,

14:24

they allow all these digestive

14:26

enzymes to spill out over their

14:28

prey and dissolve the prey externally,

14:31

so then it can suck up prey that

14:33

would be too large to ingest.

14:35

Through its mouth without turning it into

14:37

like a smoothie. Uh So

14:40

one trick that they do. I've actually

14:42

have a video on here if you guys want to look at

14:44

it, is this is a sunflower starfish

14:46

prying open a bi valve,

14:49

which is like a clam, and

14:51

it pries open those those shells,

14:53

spits its stomach out uh

14:56

into the bivalve, and then it

14:58

can dissolve it it's in sides and then

15:00

suck them back up. So that's one way it

15:02

feeds. It's just yeah,

15:05

it's surprising to think of these guys

15:07

as predators because when you see them, they don't

15:09

really move that much. They almost don't seem

15:11

like a living animal. You can only

15:13

really see how they move by speeding

15:16

up camera footage of it and seeing that

15:18

they do move around in chase after

15:20

prey and prey after

15:22

other slow moving animals. Another

15:24

interesting thing about the starfish is they

15:27

have gonads on each of their arm

15:29

tips, and with mating, like

15:31

everything else, they are rather passive and

15:33

lazy. Most species do actually have

15:35

separate males and females, even though they're almost

15:38

completely identical. They just have different

15:40

like male and female gonads on their

15:42

arm tips. And typically

15:45

what starfish will do is they release

15:47

the egg and sperm into the water for external

15:50

fertilization, and then these fertilized

15:52

eggs will hatch and become

15:55

zooplankton tiny larval

15:57

starfish. In some species

15:59

there is internal fertilization

16:02

and in other species,

16:04

like it's not that common, but females

16:06

may even brood their eggs, so sitting

16:09

on their eggs like a chicken or keeping

16:11

them inside a special brood pouch. The

16:14

cutest mating ritual between

16:17

starfish is pseudocopulation, so

16:19

they don't actually have to copulate

16:21

like a lot of other animals where there's you

16:24

know, insertion of genitalia and

16:26

this. They are just like the male gets on

16:28

top of the female and they link their arms

16:30

together like they're holding hands and

16:32

then do external fertilization.

16:35

So there's no real reason for them to get on

16:37

top of each other other than to sort

16:39

of encourage each other to release

16:42

their gonads into the water. Then it is

16:44

externally fertilizes in you

16:46

know, the beautiful,

16:49

wonderful process. So the reason

16:51

I'm nominating this as a garfield is

16:53

its ability to eat things larger

16:56

than itself by literally spitting out

16:58

its stomach and digest staying

17:00

externally and sucking it back in. It's

17:02

extremely laid

17:05

back in lazy attitude towards

17:07

romance, like you know how like Garfield

17:09

has been dating Arline for years,

17:12

but it's just always so like he's so passive.

17:14

It just seems like he's waiting for

17:17

something to happen, but it never does happen.

17:20

And also it's very slow and

17:23

sometimes orange. So that those are

17:25

my reasons for nominating the starfish. I

17:27

would say that the only downside

17:30

to the starfish is that I don't think Garfield

17:32

is stupid. I think he chooses not

17:34

to use his brain, like it's an active

17:36

choice, like he could think if

17:38

he used a hundred percent of his brain, it would

17:41

actually turn out he's like a super genius.

17:43

He just elects not to think

17:45

that hard about things. So what do you guys

17:47

think? I was actually going to ask

17:50

if Garfield because

17:52

of the Garfield and Arline situation,

17:54

because we know Garfield and Arline do have

17:57

gon ads on their arm tips, but right

18:00

do they?

18:03

I think it again, it's like an external

18:05

fertilization situation where

18:07

they kind of like maybe it's

18:10

like they externally fertilize.

18:13

Garfield then absorbs the

18:15

eggs into his brood sack, and

18:18

then the brood erupt from, like we

18:20

said earlier, from his lasagna

18:22

bloated carcass and feed off of him

18:25

uh in their sort of early larval

18:28

stages. And that's how we get a

18:30

new Garfield. Okay here there have been a

18:32

lot of like, you know, really great biological

18:34

thinkers on the Internet who have also hypothesized

18:37

the question of if Garfield takes

18:39

and you know, I mean, like, I like, I've done

18:41

a lot of research googling Garfield on

18:45

the Internet, and you know, some images

18:48

come up that like, really, I think, just

18:50

show that, you know, it shows some good info

18:52

there that I think just like shows. It's like documentaries,

18:54

you know, it's beautiful. I

18:57

was looking at the image earlier today of uh,

19:00

Garfield totally act

19:03

his research for this. I was looking at an imagin

19:05

earlier today of Garfield holding a baby

19:07

that he made with Sonic the hedgehog. So

19:10

you know, he's yeah, yeah, he was

19:12

capable of He's capable of having brood

19:14

outside of a species too. I I

19:16

think that there, once again, you're going back to my three

19:18

factors. I think if you look at the starfish,

19:21

you know, the ability to put down a plate of lasagna

19:23

or pan a lasagna. I think this starfish has

19:25

got that in spades. That's a solid tan. Of course,

19:28

you know, ability to kick Odie off a table.

19:30

I'm gonna say, I think that this starfish

19:33

could probably do that. Um, I think,

19:35

you know, it's like, it's probably not gonna be very fast, but it

19:37

looks like it's got enough mass that could pull it off.

19:40

It could probably set off like a Rube gold

19:42

device that kicks Odi off

19:45

by sort of like slowly crawling over,

19:47

lulling ODI into a sense of security,

19:49

and then setting off the Rube Goldberg machine

19:51

that kicks Odie off into a box that

19:53

gets mailed to Australia or something. I

19:56

buy that that's within the Roman possibility. So once

19:58

again going to give that a perfect ten. You

20:00

know, do I think that the starfish hates Mondays?

20:02

Honestly? You know, like you said, it doesn't

20:05

really have a brain. So I don't think that the starfish hates

20:07

the Monday hates Mondays. So I'm gonna

20:09

give a zero on that. But there is one, one, one

20:11

additional important factor I think with thinking about a replacement

20:14

Garfield in um number

20:16

of gonads, and as we know, Garfield has

20:18

a sexually reproductive organ on the tip of

20:20

each of his appendages. Classic

20:23

Garfield fact, right each of his classic

20:25

Jim Davis fact that just you know, that's like why you made

20:28

the character. So I'm gonna give this character a three

20:30

guards, you know, three three out of four. Yeah,

20:33

that's solid. It's a good number of garths.

20:35

Hanna, do you concur I do? I think

20:37

on the on the John scale,

20:39

which I'm gonna abandon after this because it's it's

20:42

it's a mess. Who about John anyway?

20:44

But in terms of a starfish,

20:46

John would absolutely own this. He would wear

20:48

it on his lapel. He would try to

20:51

impress ladies that

20:53

works. It would be stuck to his

20:55

face and slowly digest one of his

20:57

eyeballs. I agree, yes, that would

21:00

also absolutely happened while he's

21:02

hitting on the vet. Who, by the way,

21:04

take a class at the learning

21:07

annex about hints. Yeah, also

21:09

like way to say, yeah, let's trash talk to John. Liz

21:12

is just doing her job, She's just at

21:14

work. Why would you just I

21:16

don't know. I also could

21:18

definitely imagine John going to

21:21

Liz with Starfish

21:23

Garfield. Garfish um

21:26

on his face, it eating

21:28

one of its eyeballs by averting its stomach

21:30

into his I sock it, and

21:33

then he quips to Liz, I

21:35

guess we just don't see eye to eye

21:38

and Liz is going, oh my god, John,

21:40

how did you Why is there? Oh

21:42

my god, your eye You're gonna be blind

21:45

John, and he's He's going,

21:47

I guess we just don't see. I

21:51

I feel dizzy. She's

21:53

also just like, did you think that this would get me

21:55

to say? Yesterdating you? What? How

21:57

did your brainwork? You

22:01

definitely just wrote a Garfield

22:03

strip that is canon.

22:06

I'm gonna say it has to be. I feel

22:09

like, after this episode end, we need to just write

22:11

a book of Starfield Garfield

22:13

short right Starfield Sharfield

22:16

strip number one rights itself. I

22:21

just wanted to give a quick honorary mention

22:24

to one of the world's most lovable lazy

22:26

animals, the manatee. Manatees

22:28

are a mammal that lives an entirely aquatic

22:31

life. Their closest living

22:33

relatives are elephants and hieraxes.

22:36

Hieraxes being an African

22:38

mammal that looks a bit like an overgrown

22:40

gopher combined with a guinea pig. But

22:43

manatees are wildly different in their behavior.

22:45

Namely, they're very lazy. They

22:48

spend half their day snoozing in the water,

22:50

surfacing for air every twenty minutes

22:52

or so. The other half of their day they

22:54

spend grazing aquatic plants. And

22:57

that's about it. That's the manatees life.

23:00

They swim at only about three miles

23:02

per hour five kilometers

23:04

per hour, They only breed once

23:06

every couple of years and give birth to a

23:08

single calf. And they're

23:10

not necessarily stupid. They seem

23:12

to have long term memory and can learn

23:14

to associate events. They can

23:17

also live quite a long time, up

23:19

to sixty years, which

23:21

would allow it to actually live as long as the comic

23:23

strip has been running a little over forty

23:25

years. When we return, we're going to

23:28

rate animals based on another Garfield

23:30

characteristic, their ability to eat

23:32

a lot. Garfield

23:38

loves lasagna, So should you feature Kitty

23:41

a big old tray of the Italian treat. Sorry,

23:43

folks, but only in your cat's dreams.

23:46

Lasagna often contains onion and garlic

23:48

in the seasoning, which is very toxic

23:50

to cats. And dogs too. Sorry

23:52

Odie. The carbohydrates aren't

23:54

great either, nor is the dairy content,

23:57

as cats are generally lactose intolerant,

24:00

so it'll give them even more tummy troubles.

24:02

I wonder why there's no Garfield strips

24:04

all about the awful garf farts that

24:07

are almost certainly inevitable. So

24:09

we've talked about some lazy

24:12

animals who I think could

24:14

embody that aspect of Garfield.

24:17

That's like their strongest I think correlation

24:19

to Garfield, although the Starfield

24:23

or garfish I

24:25

think is strong

24:27

also in the eating category, which

24:29

is what this section is all about. So we're gonna talk

24:32

about animals that eat enough,

24:34

and I think these are going to get a tin out

24:36

of tin on the entire tray of

24:38

lasagna eating capability.

24:40

So first let's talk about the gulper

24:43

eel also known as the pelican

24:45

eel, which is basically

24:48

a mouth with a tail, which

24:50

I think, again, like Garfield,

24:52

has changed over the years, he's gotten

24:54

more simply drawn, sort of like bigger

24:57

eyes, smaller body. I think,

24:59

just get out of the body. I think, just be a

25:01

mouth with a tail, like a mouth, eyes

25:03

and a tail. So the

25:06

pelican eel is a deep sea

25:08

eel with a long, thin, blackish

25:11

brown body about two and

25:13

a half feet in length, which is like point

25:15

seven five meters, But it's

25:18

mostly a giant set of

25:20

jaws with tiny needle like teeth

25:23

a pair of little beady eyes connected

25:25

to the eel part of it, which it's

25:28

technically not all tail, but it's

25:30

it basically looks like a tail. It's

25:32

just it's body like imagine an eel, but

25:35

the eel part is pretty small relative

25:37

to the head, which is just got just

25:39

a big mouth. I've got

25:41

a we all have a photo up right now. What's

25:43

that on the on the but end

25:47

of the tip, I want to say, but it's

25:49

the end of the tail. I

25:51

think that might be a biouminescent

25:54

bulb was going to be it was

25:56

a little bit of design here, yeah,

26:00

I mean, looking at this balcony eel. I

26:02

don't know how many garths to give this thing, because

26:05

there's just this is a perfect garfield right

26:07

here. It's like it's got a giant mouth,

26:09

looks like it's real mad at everything, not

26:11

just mondays uh.

26:14

It looks like a love crafty and horror thing, which

26:16

we all know was Jim Davis's

26:18

original goal for Garfield was for him to be

26:21

like a Lovecraft horror monster. I

26:23

think there's a book called Garfield

26:25

in his Nine Lives where Jim Davis draws

26:28

different styles of Garfield in different stories,

26:30

and one is very

26:32

horrific and similar

26:35

to this but more subtle. But no, I agree.

26:37

I think goulper eels are a very strong

26:39

contender. Oh and also, Hannah,

26:42

I did look it up. That bulb on his tail

26:44

is indeed a bioluminescent bulb, and it

26:46

glows pink, which is cute. That

26:48

is cute. I guess what I'm saying is looking at this pelcon

26:51

eel when I close my eyes and think of Garfield,

26:53

this is definitely what I see. So you know,

26:56

one thing that the goulper

26:58

eel does is it uses its giant

27:00

mouth like a net. It can

27:03

suck in huge gulps of water and

27:05

take in crustaceans and invertebrates,

27:08

anything that can like fit in in there,

27:10

and then it can get Basically,

27:13

its stomach is like a balloon that can

27:15

expand and hold this food.

27:18

It doesn't usually eat like that big

27:20

of prey, but it's capable

27:23

of it. So you know, you

27:25

don't know what it's capable of, essentially,

27:28

and it turns itself into

27:30

a water balloon, so sucks in a huge amount

27:32

of water until it literally looks like a water

27:35

balloon with a tail, and then it can push

27:37

all of the excess water out of its

27:39

gill slits and keep

27:41

the food in its stomach. Uh.

27:43

And there is a video. I'll include all

27:45

of this in the show notes, but you guys can look.

27:47

It's of a gulper eel uh

27:50

in water ballooon form. And

27:53

marine biologists are watching this on a deep

27:55

sea cam and they're losing

27:57

it there. It's so funny

28:00

to hear researchers

28:02

lose it overseeing something and they're like, what,

28:05

it's a muppet. It looks like a muppet.

28:08

One question I had about the Pelican eel

28:10

that um is it's very

28:12

important for me and kind of like helping decide

28:15

the future, Garfield is do you think

28:17

that this Do you think a Pelican eel could survive

28:21

swimming in a cup of coffee?

28:26

M hmm, this is an interesting

28:28

hot cup of coffee. Oh,

28:31

I don't think too hot. No, maybe,

28:34

Like I mean, first of all,

28:37

it's a deep sea fish, so bringing

28:40

bringing it up to the surface

28:42

to put it in coffee is probably gonna

28:44

kill it. I think if you

28:46

have somehow have like a cup of

28:48

coffee in the deep sea, which is

28:50

gonna be hard because again, if you have it

28:52

in a styrofoam Starbucks cup,

28:55

it's gonna get crushed. So

28:57

I think introducing this eel

28:59

to coffee is either going to

29:01

destroy the coffee or destroy the

29:03

eel. I'm not sure you can have these

29:06

two things exist at once in the

29:08

same dimension. In

29:10

that case, I mean,

29:13

I think, how are you thinking

29:15

this would be? I need to

29:17

know, like, how would this work? Like? Is Garfield

29:19

known for swimming in commun Oh? Yes,

29:21

I mean there are a lot of you know, looking at

29:23

the original texts of Garfield, there are definitely a lot

29:25

of a lot of clips of him,

29:27

you know, on a Monday sitting in a giant cup

29:30

of coffee like it's jacuzzi, And

29:32

you know, I guess I just want to make sure that the future

29:35

Garfield is capable of, you know,

29:37

it was capable of living his true life, you

29:39

know, right,

29:41

Yeah, I would say unfortunate. I have

29:43

to be honest about each

29:45

candidate also because I am

29:47

concerned with their welfare. I don't want to cast

29:50

an animal as a garfield and

29:52

have the new garfield be in danger

29:55

by being in a giant, uh

29:57

sort of kitty pool sized cup

29:59

of hot coffee and have that

30:01

hurt them. Although I would say

30:04

again for most of these animals, I would

30:06

say, boiling coffee is not gonna work. It's

30:08

gonna have to be a tepid coffee.

30:10

I think I'm okay with Like, doesn't a boiling

30:12

just like room temperature, you

30:15

know, just like the coffee part's important,

30:18

right, if you can get that down to

30:20

the bottom of the ocean, it

30:23

maybe it'd be fine. Sure,

30:25

why not? But probably like if you

30:27

want it to be floating in a cup of coffee,

30:31

like a comically large cup of coffee on

30:33

the on the surface, sort of like with sunglasses.

30:37

I don't know. I don't think. I'm

30:39

not sure about that. I can't honestly say

30:41

I think that would work. Okay, I'll

30:43

keep that in mind in my in my uh,

30:46

in my decision, I think analysis,

30:49

how many garths, Hannah do you think?

30:52

Um mouth ten?

30:55

Lasagna ten, swimsuit

30:57

competition ten, personality

31:00

ten, So four

31:02

garfs, four gars We got

31:04

a solid four garfs that's good.

31:06

What do you think, Joey say, I'm

31:08

going to say four garfs

31:11

with the asterisk of I

31:13

would if they're like so far, this

31:15

animal is very much in the front running. But

31:17

if there's another animal with an equal vote to that,

31:20

can't that can swim in a giant cup of

31:22

coffee, I'm probably gonna have to lean toward the other animal.

31:24

Okay, okay, Also kicking Odie

31:27

off the table, like he could definitely

31:29

swallow Odie hole, he could

31:31

swallow Odi again something you shouldn't

31:33

google, and then I think sped him

31:36

out off the table. Oh

31:38

okay, yes, yes, that's that's

31:40

that's a valid that's I

31:42

guess like with that, I think it

31:44

does. For kicking Odie off the table, as long as

31:47

he's bringing harm to Odi, I think it's okay.

31:49

So if he swallows and eats Odi, that's like the

31:51

same. Yeah, it's it's a similar,

31:53

right. It's sort of the inverse of the kicking

31:55

off the table maneuver, but just as

31:58

potentially lethal. First issue of hell

32:00

can Eel Garfield is him swallowing

32:02

odeon then spitting up his bones.

32:08

Oh and the yeah, I love that with the cartoon

32:11

bones, where like it's literally the outline

32:13

of the dog and the ears are just giant

32:15

earbones, right and please this

32:17

is going to be called garfiel fiel

32:20

yea. I like it. I like it. Our

32:25

next candidate is the Tasmanian

32:27

Devil, who is a

32:29

carnivorous marsupial from the Australian

32:32

out Back. They don't really look

32:34

like the Loony Tunes taz.

32:36

They are little black

32:39

and they usually have like a white

32:41

stripe on their chest. Furry

32:43

little critter that looks like

32:45

the cross between a bear and a squirrel.

32:48

Uh there, About the size of a small dog.

32:51

They have a thick furry tail they used to

32:53

store extra fat, and they are extremely

32:55

carnivorous and they have

32:58

a voracious appetite and a bad

33:00

attitude. They can eat up

33:03

to their own body weight

33:05

in one sitting, so much

33:07

that they can sometimes struggle to walk

33:09

and they have to waddle or rest. And

33:12

relative to their size, they

33:14

have the strongest bite of any

33:16

mammal. Their bite relative

33:19

to their body size is stronger than

33:21

a tiger and they can easily

33:24

crush bone. In terms of their

33:26

behavior, they are pugnacious. They're

33:28

not I think their reputation

33:30

is maybe a little bit. They're

33:33

not necessarily territorial, but they

33:36

do fight over food. So most

33:38

of the fights between devils is over

33:40

food. And sometimes

33:43

they wrestle each other too, like they all stand

33:45

up on their hind legs and shove at each other.

33:47

That I think that this the

33:50

Tasmanian Devil really encapsulates

33:52

garfields love violent

33:56

love for food. I would say,

33:58

um, yeah, I think that this Garfield. You

34:00

know, I get the impression that that that Tasmanian

34:03

Devil Garfield, Tasmanian Devil Feld would

34:05

um very much hate mondays

34:07

in the same way that probably hates everything else. I feel

34:10

like it could probably put down a an

34:12

entire Panamlasania and probably also eat

34:14

the pan um. You know. I

34:16

guess that my my my

34:18

concern on Tasmanian Devil Garfield

34:21

is you know, like I know, I know that louning

34:23

tunes are not a documentary, but I feel like

34:25

the Tasmanian Devil and Looning Tunes is very active

34:27

and it's not particularly lazy. So

34:29

I guess that my concern on Tasmanian Devil felt

34:32

would be like, is he lazy? Is he capable

34:34

of sleeping in a box? Forets

34:36

a day. Um, you know, that's

34:39

that. I think that that's that's my I

34:41

would like to like put forward to the group. The

34:44

modern day drawing of Garfield definitely

34:46

also stores fat in his tail, so

34:48

that's that's that's true. That is

34:50

another comparison. They don't necessarily

34:54

hibernate seasonally, but they do

34:56

um during the day have

34:59

sort of a mini ibernation called torpore

35:02

where they just sort of go into

35:04

a mega sleep where they conserve

35:06

their energy. One that's

35:08

adorable to Oh

35:10

thank god, I was gonna have to disqualify them.

35:13

But they are very active at

35:15

night and at dusk and down,

35:17

which is called being cripuscular. So

35:19

they're they're a mixture between being c puscular

35:22

and nocturnal. So I

35:25

think we don't but we don't see Garfield

35:28

like we do see sometimes the comics

35:30

where we see Garfield at night are

35:33

sort of more I think

35:36

demonic. Yeah, just

35:38

a similar thought. Do you

35:40

think that John has toxoplasmosis from

35:42

Garfield? Absolutely?

35:45

Definitely. Toxoplasmosis

35:48

is the when you're infected by

35:50

T. Gandhai, which is a

35:52

small um micro organism

35:55

that lives in cat poop. Basically,

35:58

it can infect rats it in

36:00

their brain and infect them so that they are

36:02

no longer afraid of cats, and

36:04

so the rats will get eaten by the cats. The

36:06

toxoplasm Magondhia then

36:09

completes its mating cycle inside

36:11

of the cat gut and then gets pooped out

36:13

and then humans. If you handle cat

36:16

poop um gross. Also

36:18

you can get toxoplasmosis,

36:20

which generally, unless you're pregnant,

36:23

doesn't have too

36:25

too many symptoms, but

36:28

there is a theory that it could make

36:30

you horny for cats or something.

36:32

I'm not sure. I mean, that does make

36:34

sense that Garfield would be riddled with parasites.

36:37

I buy that. Yeah, yes, yeah,

36:39

it explains the cat people phenomenon.

36:41

So how many how many garths Hannah,

36:44

Yeah, it has many? Devil should get

36:46

I think the crepuscular thing is the

36:48

one hitch in bonnet.

36:51

That's not a phrase. It sounds like a

36:53

phrase Jim Davis would use, but it's not a

36:56

phrase real. It's something John would

36:58

say, A real hitch in my bonnet. Yeah, I pry

37:01

the Tasmanian devil Garfield off of his

37:03

face. Bout that and that is definitely

37:05

the first and last Tasmanian Devil

37:07

Feld stripped would just be ge

37:10

John opening the box and being

37:12

like, welcome to your new hope. Next

37:15

strip attached to face following

37:17

strip, John is a skeleton

37:19

and Tasmanian Devil ad um right

37:22

yep rips his whole entire face

37:24

off. Maybe not quite Garfield material,

37:26

like, I don't think this, I don't think I think

37:28

this could be a Garfield substitute, like sub

37:31

in for a few strips, but maybe not in the long

37:33

run. Definitely a contender,

37:35

though, although although the

37:37

Tasmanian Devil would be up early in the morning

37:40

without coffee, which is not a

37:42

Garfield trait, everything

37:44

else seems to be fairly on point.

37:47

I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna give five guards

37:49

five Garfield. This is a very on point.

37:51

This is like gritty reboot Garfield, and

37:54

I'm gonna agree with that. I think five gars Is. I think

37:56

that's an accurate number for this. This

37:59

is like gar Field being played

38:01

by Bruce Willis. Yes,

38:06

just really get very much into the spirit of

38:08

Garfield. Our next

38:11

contender is the reticulated

38:13

Python. So

38:16

the reticulated Python is the world's

38:18

longest snake. It grows up

38:20

to twenty feet which is about six

38:22

and a half meters and weighs up to

38:25

a hundred and sixty pounds. They

38:27

are found all over South Asia,

38:30

and pythons are a family

38:33

of non venomous snakes who

38:35

throttle their prey and swallow them

38:37

whole. The reticulated python

38:40

is called what it's called because

38:42

they have these little squares

38:44

of pigment that almost looked like pixels,

38:47

like you printed this python with sort of

38:49

a pixelated coloration, And

38:51

they are quite gorgeous animals.

38:54

They have these stripes and patterns,

38:56

and they can also be bred to have more

38:59

unusual holo morphs, including

39:01

being orange. So I'm

39:04

just gonna put it out there. We could get a Garfield

39:06

branded reticulated python for

39:09

sure, with the characteristic orange

39:11

and black stripes. I

39:14

would say, I do have to be honest.

39:17

Unfortunately, reticulated

39:19

pythons do kill people occasionally.

39:22

There are only a few recorded cases

39:24

of people being eaten by reticulated

39:27

pythons. So, you

39:29

know, John maybe okay

39:32

if he keeps snake Field

39:34

fed, but reticulated pythons

39:37

would have no trouble eating an entire

39:39

pan of lasagna in one bite. They

39:41

can eat entire pigs small

39:44

deer alligators. They can eat

39:46

prey that weighs as much as they do,

39:48

if not more. Their jaws

39:50

just can completely open wide

39:53

enough to swallow

39:55

a human being if they want, which they

39:57

have occasionally done. Uh.

39:59

And another interesting sort of to me garf

40:02

like aspect is that they can go weeks

40:05

between feeding, just lazing around

40:07

and digesting, and a

40:09

particularly large meal can actually

40:12

last them several months at a time,

40:14

So they could eat john and

40:16

then chill out for like several

40:18

months, which I feel

40:20

like, it's very garden It's it's this one's

40:22

got a few things going for it. It's

40:24

got the garfield could be orange,

40:27

orange and striping. In fact, I've included

40:29

a few images of these are domesticated

40:32

ones are not domesticated really just pet

40:34

ones. There's no way that they have

40:36

not been domesticated. They would still eat you if

40:38

they got the chance. They

40:41

are really beautiful

40:43

sort of orange with dark brown

40:45

and black stripes and patterns. Other

40:48

than looks, they also just like their ability

40:50

to eat and to be lazy

40:53

is very garf esque.

40:55

Yeah, I do think that.

40:58

Um, I mean, as

41:01

we talked about earlier with um, you know, uh,

41:03

the unfortunate passing of lineman. Garfield

41:05

has taken a life before, so you know, so the

41:07

python so snake Feld, you know,

41:10

having no problem taking a life.

41:12

I don't think is a deal breaker when thinking of a new

41:14

Garfield. You know, you do want somebody who's

41:16

you know, cold blooded, has like a you know, a thirst

41:18

for blood that Garfield has. Smells through

41:20

his tongue. Y smells through his tongue like Garfield,

41:22

Like we all know Garfield, does you know? I think that

41:25

he can unhinge his jaw and eat a lot of lasagna.

41:27

That's the really good thing going for him, that they can have orange

41:30

coloration. I think that that's um, that's a really great

41:32

candidate for a future Garfield. I

41:34

guess that like he the

41:36

way that he eats, is it possible?

41:39

Does he have to strangle era? Does

41:41

he have to strangle every bit of

41:43

prey? Or if he just saw play

41:45

of lasagna, would he try to like wrap

41:48

around it and coil around it first before eating

41:50

it, or would he just go for it and eat that lasagna?

41:53

That's a good question. The purpose

41:56

of the strangulation is to get the prey

41:58

to stop moving and sicking around

42:00

so it can engulf the

42:03

prey. And eat it. So I feel like

42:05

with the lasagna, as long

42:07

as snake field understands

42:10

the lasagna is

42:12

not going to move or resist

42:14

being eaten, I don't think it would

42:16

necessarily need that would be overkill

42:18

to sort of strangle it. Only one question,

42:21

where's its butt? Well, snakes

42:24

have what is called a cloaca,

42:27

and that is usually near

42:30

the end of the snake. Now, imagine

42:34

the evolutionary history of a snake is that it

42:36

was essentially like a lizard with

42:39

legs, and then it got longer and lost

42:41

its legs. So a lizard's

42:43

kloeca is right near

42:46

it's like, right at the base of its tail, and so snakes

42:49

khloec is also right at the base of its tail.

42:51

It's just its tail looks a lot

42:53

like just more snake. So it's

42:56

actually does have a tail in

42:58

addition to the rest of its body. To you, it's

43:00

just it's hard to tell the difference

43:02

between it's it's caudal vertebrae

43:05

and and region and just the rest of

43:07

it. Okay, Well,

43:09

given that, um, I'm gonna say this is

43:11

a pretty good contender as well in

43:14

terms of mentality, I'm not now

43:16

hang on, hon, I do want to back up because

43:20

I do want to know why

43:22

you needed to know where it's but is in

43:25

order to rate it on the guard scales, And

43:27

I feel like I feel like Garfield's butt location

43:29

is a very important factor when trying to figure

43:31

out the new Garfield. Garfield is

43:34

maybe not a maybe

43:36

not purely a cat, but

43:39

in his quest to upset

43:41

and discuss John in every

43:43

way possible, he would probably do

43:46

that cat thing right, putting the butt in the face.

43:48

That's a that's a very good point. And

43:50

yes, a snake could could in theory

43:53

do that, and it's at the base of his

43:55

tail, just like Garfield's presumably,

43:57

so that that's that's

43:59

a. That's a good sign. Um. I made

44:03

this up because I'm just very but I just wanted

44:05

to know one thing. Snakes very

44:07

rarely. They don't typically pass gas,

44:10

but they can, and when it happens,

44:12

it's very funny. I just thought you should know

44:14

that. That's good to know. I

44:16

don't know if I've ever seen a script where

44:19

Garfield does, but yeah,

44:21

I don't. I think that that Jim

44:23

Davis really doesn't like going into

44:25

the far territory, which I think is a shame.

44:28

I think it's he's fine to go into

44:30

the dog cub territory though. It's right, he's okay

44:33

with like there being a jar of dog

44:37

gam meats liquid dog gam meets that

44:40

Johnny drinks slips right down.

44:42

But you know, Garfield farting

44:44

is I'm sorry. I feel like I brought

44:47

us down to no. No,

44:51

it's worth it's worth examining. And I think

44:53

that, you know, I think that Jim Davis, I

44:55

think that he's he is very inconsistent in what

44:57

he thinks is appropriate for Garfield and not appropriate

45:00

for Garfield. And I think that that's, you know, I think

45:02

that that's a worthy conversation

45:04

to have. I mean, if you get into like the

45:07

you know, extended Pausing universe

45:10

with pet Force and all of that, there's

45:12

there's a lot more room for a

45:15

lot of stuff. If you get into Garfield

45:17

and Friends, there are actually a lot of adult jokes

45:19

there, so and and a

45:21

lot of I don't remember if there were farts,

45:23

but I'm going to guess there were farts, right, I

45:25

remember Garfield and Friends where Garfield

45:28

just has a big set of honkers. Yeah,

45:31

we all remember that episode. Yeah

45:33

that was a good one. Yeah, classic classic

45:36

episode. So

45:39

how many garths would you give the reticulated

45:41

Python. I'm

45:45

I'm sort of torn because I still

45:47

feel like attitude wise, maybe not

45:49

perfect. But I felt the same way

45:51

about the Tasmanian Devil. So I'm going to give

45:53

another five five garls.

45:55

That's solid. Yeah, I agree with the five

45:57

garths number. I think I guess that. My

46:00

concern is that I hope that he doesn't

46:02

put too much effort into eating

46:05

lasagna. You know, I'd be concerned if we cast him as

46:07

Garfield and he felt the need to strangle

46:09

of lasagna every time at a certain

46:11

point, because like, Garfield is not gonna put that much work into

46:13

every lasagna. He's just gonna put his hands in and

46:15

go gobble, gobble. So you know when you

46:17

give a snake like one of those

46:19

frozen mouse embryos, they

46:22

just gobble them. Yeah,

46:24

I think they know. I think they learned. They

46:26

know that if it's not moving, there's

46:29

not really a need. You can

46:31

just get put that right there. So I heard agree,

46:33

five garfs. I think that's I think that's the right the right

46:35

number for this folid. Not

46:42

everyone is a fan of Garfield. There

46:44

was a two thousand and six scathing opinion

46:46

piece published in the Journal of American

46:48

Academy of Pediatrics called

46:51

Sleeping with the Enemy. Garfield

46:53

and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood

46:55

Institute apparently the National

46:58

Center for Sleep Disorders Research of

47:00

the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

47:03

ran a sleep Well, Do Well Star

47:05

sleeper campaign featuring

47:07

Garfield as the spokescat based

47:10

on his renowned ability to nap, but

47:12

the author of the takedown slammed

47:14

Garfield for his unhealthy eating

47:17

habits, writing quote, Garfield

47:19

is a poster child for cardigo vascular

47:22

risk. Although I have no knowledge

47:24

of his family history, he is clearly

47:26

obese and sedentary. I shudder

47:28

to think what his blood pressure and lipid profile

47:31

are given the quality and quantity

47:34

of the diet he consumes.

47:36

Similarly, if he is not yet frankly

47:38

diabetic, Garfield is certainly

47:41

at risk of developing type two diabetes

47:43

and may already exhibit impaired

47:45

glucose tolerance. Sorry,

47:48

Garfield, you're canceled doctor's

47:50

orders. When we return, we'll talk

47:52

about some animals who look like they're ripping off Garfield's

47:55

trademark style. Garfield

48:11

is a trademark bright orange. So why

48:14

did Tiger's plagiarize Garfield's

48:16

look. It seems like a silly choice

48:18

for an ambush predator like a tiger whose

48:21

best bet is to remain camouflage before

48:23

pouncing and biting down on your neck like

48:25

a tray of lasagna. But it turns

48:28

out those bright orange and black stripes are

48:30

actually excellent camouflage to

48:32

their preferred prey, deer

48:34

and bore. These prey animals

48:36

are red green, color blind and

48:38

struggle to see the difference between green

48:41

and orange. So a tiger's

48:43

orange striped fur is going to blend

48:45

in very well with green vegetation,

48:48

especially in a lush, shadow streaked

48:50

forest where tigers live. No

48:52

wonder tigers have risked the wrath of Jim

48:55

Davis and pass Inc To steal that trademarked

48:57

Garfield orange glow. So

49:01

now I just kind of want to talk

49:03

about like the aesthetics

49:05

of Garfield and these

49:08

animals that, even if they

49:10

couldn't be cast as the new Garfield,

49:12

I think that they show that

49:15

they're at the very least Garfield fans

49:18

with their aesthetic choices. Our

49:21

first animal is the golden

49:23

pheasant. Now I'm gonna be completely

49:26

honest with you. I'm not sure this animal

49:28

would be a good Garfield

49:31

replacement. I just admire

49:34

the fandom that they display, the sort of

49:36

the Garfield they they

49:38

understand the Garfield brand, the Garfield

49:41

aesthetics. So golden

49:43

pheasants are sort

49:46

of like an aristocratic version

49:48

of Garfield, Like you take Garfield

49:50

and add some like diamonds

49:52

and jewels, you know, deck Garfield

49:55

out. Golden pheasants are a pheasant

49:57

native to China's forests and mountains,

50:00

and they are very striking looking. The

50:03

females are just sort of a

50:06

ashy brown color,

50:08

so they're not that exciting, but

50:10

the males have the striking orange

50:13

and black feathers sort of

50:15

like sideburns that

50:17

are almost like an umbrella around

50:20

its cheeks and that

50:22

are striped black and orange.

50:24

They have orangey red bellies

50:27

and an orange cape which is a

50:29

fan of feathers on its back that it can spread

50:32

during mating. And I just I just

50:34

appreciate the esthetics of this bird.

50:36

I feel like this is a Garfield

50:38

fan that uses is Garfield

50:41

fan boy is um to try to impress

50:43

its mates. Yeah, I think that.

50:45

I think the golden feather and I get what you're talking about

50:47

in that, like his um.

50:49

There's coloration on his feathers that

50:52

definitely definitely exudes

50:55

Garfield. It definitely definitely

50:57

feels like, you know, it's like a Christmas tree

50:59

if Garf it was a Christmas tree. I'm

51:01

not sure if I would want this animal to be the replacement

51:04

Garfield or the new Garfield because

51:06

like, you know, like I'm not sure necessarily, like how

51:08

much Lasagna could he couldn't kick odief

51:10

table, how does it feel about Monday's.

51:13

But I do think that, um, the coloration

51:16

shows that he would be a welcome addition to the

51:18

Garfield universe. You know, I think that like,

51:20

if you look at it, it definitely feels like, oh,

51:22

this is a symbol of the Garfield prophecy. This

51:24

means that Garfield is coming, and that's something that

51:27

Yeah, it's like it's like a Garfield

51:29

omen. So we don't even have to

51:31

rate this. I think I think we should just name

51:34

this the official Garfield omen. So.

51:36

You know how if you have a bunch of crows,

51:38

that's an omen I guess of the devil

51:41

or something. The golden pheasant

51:43

showing up is an omen of Garfield

51:46

cometh. He approaches You saw Avengers

51:49

endgame it's like those guys that came in advance of

51:51

Thanos, and like we're like Thanos

51:53

is coming. It's like this feels like this bird is that

51:55

for Garfield, the Harold Harold of Garfield.

51:58

And he's like, bring out your lasagna, I and tremble

52:00

and I do our

52:07

next candidate. Now that's

52:09

what I think could actually potentially

52:11

pull off being Garfield. This

52:13

is the milkweed tiger moth caterpillar.

52:17

So adult milkweed tiger moths

52:19

are sort of plain looking moths

52:22

with brown wings, but if you look

52:24

closely, you can see a bit of orange and black

52:27

stripes on their abdomen, which is a faint

52:29

memory of the glorious Garfie

52:31

caterpillar they once were. So

52:34

these moths and their larval

52:37

stages, the caterpillars are found all over

52:39

North America, just like Garfield.

52:42

Caterpillars are the

52:44

larval forms of moths and butterflies,

52:47

and they have one mission to

52:49

get thick by eating

52:52

as much as possible, so they

52:54

eat neat neat. We did read that

52:56

important seminal novel

52:59

as children, The Hungry Hungry caterpillar very

53:02

accurate. Caterpillars exist

53:04

to eat as much as they can, so

53:06

that they collect as much nutrients to fuel

53:09

their metamorphosis into adults.

53:12

The milk weed tiger moth caterpillar

53:15

has fuzzy black and orange

53:17

stripes just like Garfield.

53:20

So I think this is a real

53:22

good like they've got this,

53:24

they have the look, they have the Garf look.

53:27

Another cool thing which I do think is similar

53:29

to Garfield is they have toxins

53:31

that they've acquired from plants that they

53:34

can use to cause heart

53:36

problems in predators if they attempt

53:38

to ingest them, just like Garfield

53:40

does. Yes, m M makes

53:43

a lot of sense. That is very true of Garfield. Yeah,

53:46

I do. Yeah, I love the cardiac

53:49

toxin that Garfield

53:51

has and exudes, and that I mean,

53:54

that's one reason that John is always

53:56

so stressed looking is he is

53:58

just getting a lot of art palpitations

54:01

just by being around Garfield

54:04

and trying to eat him. John may try

54:06

to kiss him, but then he gets some of that

54:08

that cardiac talks in on his lips,

54:11

and that's just one of many Garfield's

54:13

tools of torment. Caterpillars

54:15

in general, I think are very Garfield like

54:18

because of how voracious they

54:20

are. And so I think the milk weed tiger

54:22

moth caterpillar is perhaps the

54:24

one that looks the looks the most like Garfield.

54:27

But the monarch butterflies caterpillars

54:30

are so

54:32

voracious even though they don't look that much

54:35

like Garfield. I think they encapsulate

54:37

the spirit. More so, they um

54:40

eat two hundred times their

54:42

birth weight within two weeks, according

54:45

to Texas Butterfly Ranch quote.

54:48

Imagine a seven pound newborn

54:50

child consuming one thousand,

54:52

four hundred pounds of formula and

54:55

a two week period. Does sound

54:57

like Garfield? Yeah? That does sound

54:59

like gar Field. Did they

55:01

ever do a baby Garfield? Was there like

55:03

a Garfield baby? Only in my dreams?

55:07

Um? Yeah, you know. I mean originally

55:10

when you showed me this, when you showed

55:12

me a milkweed tiger moth caterpillar,

55:15

my initial impression was that ain't

55:17

Garf. But now that you've described it to me

55:19

in a specially using terms of the hungry, hungry caterpillar,

55:22

I'm honestly very on board for a milkweak

55:24

tiger moth. Felt. Yeah.

55:27

Yeah, I'm gonna go with five

55:29

Garves on this. Five gurps. That's solid.

55:31

What about you, Hannah? I'm gonna go with

55:33

stunt double nice.

55:36

This could be a stand in for Garfield,

55:39

right, um indistinguishable? Right

55:41

when when like they need to do another

55:44

take of Garfield eating lasagna,

55:46

but Garfield's already eaten five hundred

55:48

pans of lasagna and he simply can't

55:50

eat anymore. You get the stunt Field

55:53

in who can continue

55:55

to eat take after take more and more

55:57

lasagna. But first, first,

55:59

you take that the Garfield that could only eat five

56:01

pans of lasagna, and you fire him, and

56:04

you say Garfield

56:06

is supposed to eat infinite lasagna,

56:10

and the line get out of here.

56:13

I gotta send that gar Field out to

56:15

past. Oh God, is that

56:17

White John's parents own a farm? Is

56:20

that like all the all the old Garfields,

56:23

us AC is built on the

56:25

bones of all of the dead Garfields,

56:28

of forty dead Garfields.

56:32

They check them into a juicer and that's where we

56:34

get orange juice. Oh, I mean, I do love orange

56:36

juice. That makes a lot of sense. Our

56:39

last candidate to replace Garfield

56:42

is the Krrion Beetle. Now,

56:44

I'm actually quite fond of this,

56:46

and I want you to hear it out, because

56:49

not only are Karen Beetles

56:52

got the look of Garfield, I

56:54

think I don't know. They're

56:56

they're almost more friendly

56:58

friendly version of Field if you really

57:01

think about it. Hear me out. So, there

57:03

are many species of carrion beetle,

57:05

but the one I want to focus on is called Nicrophorus

57:08

vespilo, which has

57:11

orange and black stripes in

57:13

sort of a cartoonish squiggle that

57:16

looks like the characteristic squiggly

57:18

pin strokes of Garfield

57:21

the cartons. So I think

57:23

they already have the whole Garfield mood

57:26

just drawn on their shell. It's

57:28

a fun and festive look for a car in

57:30

beetle. And I guess the

57:32

only downside to the carrion beetle is

57:34

maybe they're too good of an animal

57:37

to be Garfield. I gotta say they're they're

57:39

sweet, kind, wonderful

57:42

undertakers of the animal kingdom.

57:44

They eat dead

57:47

bodies. This is true. I

57:49

think this is a good thing, much like Garfield.

57:52

But the difference is they don't generally

57:54

kill the dead carrion

57:56

before they eat it. It's it's scavenging.

57:59

These dead carry and so one thing

58:01

they do is they will

58:03

come across like something like a dead mouse

58:06

or something, and then they will bury the

58:08

body underground, create

58:11

a din. Usually sort of using

58:13

the fur of the of the dead animal

58:16

to line their dinner, and they will lay their eggs,

58:19

and when their eggs hatch, their

58:21

larva can feed on the carcass,

58:24

and both mom and dad

58:26

will stay with the young and

58:29

feed them. They will eat

58:31

up little bits of the carrion, and

58:33

the adults also eat maggots, So if

58:35

you're grossed out by maggots, these

58:37

adults will eat the maggots

58:40

of other species of of insects

58:43

and use them to feed their own cute little maggots.

58:45

Another thing is that they are helpful in

58:48

solving murder cases, so

58:50

carrion beetles are useful for

58:52

forensic entomologists. Forensic

58:55

entomologists are people who study

58:58

the different stages that in sect

59:00

maybe at in their development in

59:02

order to help determine the time a daver

59:05

has been dead. So you're like, oh, I

59:08

recognize how old this beetle

59:10

grub is, so I know that

59:13

this body has been dead for like a

59:15

week or something. And so again,

59:18

these garf beetles help solve

59:20

crime, which I think is great. Another

59:22

cool carrying beetle fact is

59:24

that some species of carrying

59:26

beetles have noxious but secretions

59:29

that they can use to ward off predators,

59:31

which I think would be in a real fun addition

59:34

to sort of the garf. The

59:36

Garfield franchise would

59:38

be like Garfield excretes

59:41

a plume of noxious fluid

59:43

and John you know, makes that eek

59:45

face that he makes and like passes out,

59:48

and as the readers were all like, oh,

59:50

Garfield, your evolutionary

59:53

defense mechanism is so fun. Now

59:55

that you bring that up, I kind of can't

59:57

picture a Garfield without that. Um,

1:00:00

you know, I feel like, yeah, I feel

1:00:02

like having noxious but fumes

1:00:04

is definitely you know, that just screams

1:00:06

Garfield to me. I feel like this

1:00:09

is the pet John was trying to get,

1:00:12

Like he he's just like he

1:00:14

went to the pet store and forgot what forgot

1:00:16

the word for beatle. Yeah, this is what he thought

1:00:19

he was buying. Yes, Um,

1:00:22

it's way too helpful to be Garfield.

1:00:24

Yeah, I guess that. That's My main takeaway is

1:00:26

like Garfield ain't no snitch, you know. Yeah.

1:00:28

Not only that, this this beetle could be Garfield's

1:00:31

downfall. Yeah, like if this if this beetle

1:00:33

found Lineman, Garfield would be done.

1:00:35

Yeah, this beetle would help solve the murder

1:00:38

of Lineman. I think this is

1:00:40

like, this is sort of the Flanders

1:00:42

to Garfield, you know what I mean. Flanders

1:00:45

in the Simpsons was created to be

1:00:47

a direct um opposite

1:00:50

of Homer, you know, in

1:00:52

every way personality and physique,

1:00:55

And this beetle is, while

1:00:58

it has the Q orange

1:01:00

and black stripes of Garfield, it

1:01:03

is such a better creature

1:01:06

than Garfield. It probably would be

1:01:08

kind to Normal the kitten.

1:01:11

It would feed Normal, it would,

1:01:13

you know, only and like

1:01:15

if Normal was killed, then

1:01:17

it would discreetly bury Normal's

1:01:20

body in a very respectful way

1:01:22

and then use Normal's body

1:01:24

to raise it's young, which I think is

1:01:26

beautiful. Could

1:01:29

I picture a world where Garfield is a

1:01:31

Carrion Beetle? Yes? Do

1:01:34

I want to live in that world? No? Yeah?

1:01:37

And also if if the carrion Beetle

1:01:40

is the Flanders to Garfield, then

1:01:42

who is Normal standing for capitalism?

1:01:49

I was gonna say Bart, but no, it's not

1:01:51

rascally enough to be Bart, Like Normal

1:01:54

is okay, So

1:01:56

if Flanders is

1:01:59

is Homer's opposite, um,

1:02:02

I feel like Normal is Krusty the clown,

1:02:04

and that he is Homer at

1:02:06

his ideal um or

1:02:08

Garfield is an ideal. Yes,

1:02:11

like it's that was actually um when

1:02:13

The Simpsons was theoretically only going

1:02:15

to go for one season, they were going to end the

1:02:18

season by revealing that Homer

1:02:20

is crusty, and it's just like that's

1:02:22

why the characters like ours design so similarly,

1:02:25

looks so similarly. They just thought it would be a fun

1:02:27

twist if like Bart's hero was his dad, and

1:02:29

like Bart didn't even know it. So I

1:02:31

think that, you know, I think that that's you

1:02:34

know, this carrying beatle is. I think the ideal

1:02:36

of what John wants Garfield to be helpful

1:02:39

considerate noxious butt fumes

1:02:42

gets rid of dead bodies much more effectively

1:02:44

than Yeah, yeah, you gotta take the bodies

1:02:46

into lasagna first to get Garfield to eat

1:02:48

him, which is just too many steps, right.

1:02:51

I mean Garfield just left Lyman's whole

1:02:53

skeleton in the basement. That's real

1:02:55

easy for the cops

1:02:57

to find. And I mean there's like a door

1:02:59

down Aaron, it's just like chained to a wall. It's like

1:03:01

not hard, right. I mean, I love

1:03:04

that carrying beetles could be on both sides

1:03:06

of the law, Like you want to get rid

1:03:08

of a body, like the carrying beetle can

1:03:10

help you, but like you want to solve them murder,

1:03:13

the carrying beetle can help you. It just it depends

1:03:15

on what you can do for the carrying beetle.

1:03:17

It's a double edged beetle. Yeah, it's

1:03:19

it's just the duality of man, really, the

1:03:22

duality of carrying beetles. Yeah

1:03:25

so maybe not so, maybe this wouldn't be Garfield.

1:03:28

This is a good Garfield uh

1:03:32

duter agonist or anti I

1:03:34

don't know what are or

1:03:36

like a parallel universe where John gets

1:03:39

a good pet into the garf

1:03:41

verse. This is like the Miles morales

1:03:43

of Garfields, like a kinder, better

1:03:46

version of Garfield. I also want

1:03:48

to see an entire Garfield series. That's

1:03:50

just the alternate universe where he got a good pet.

1:03:53

It's just like a very normal

1:03:56

and very normal sweetcat. He's

1:03:58

in just a healthy relationship with a him

1:04:00

and that he didn't badger at her work. He's

1:04:02

a functional adult whose life doesn't

1:04:04

revolve entirely around his cat.

1:04:06

I take that back. There are plenty of functional

1:04:09

adults whose entire lives revolved

1:04:11

around their cats. It's okay, so what

1:04:13

what what are we going? Let's make a judgment, who

1:04:16

Who's Who's your Garfield? Pick a Garfield?

1:04:19

You don't You guys don't have to pick the same Garfield,

1:04:21

but you gotta pick a Garfield. Don't

1:04:23

think too hard, just like, let it be your gut

1:04:26

reaction, like who is garl like think like

1:04:28

just like who's Garfield? And let it come

1:04:30

out pelicanel Okay,

1:04:33

we got Palcaniel. I was actually also going

1:04:35

to say Palconio. I feel like the Palconio did

1:04:37

it is It's the closest to what

1:04:39

I think Jim davis Is original intent for Garfield

1:04:42

is is a giant sea snake with

1:04:44

a huge mouth that looks terrifying. So

1:04:48

so Garfield, Garfield. We've done it.

1:04:51

We did we great, We recast

1:04:53

Garfield, and we're

1:04:55

gonna get some really fun I

1:04:57

think new fresh comics

1:05:00

from it. I think I love how we've been

1:05:02

so in sync throughout this whole thing. I

1:05:04

mean, I expect nothing less of the three

1:05:07

Garf sketiers. But yes, yeah,

1:05:09

I think we've I think we did it. I

1:05:11

think this was a really good brainstorming

1:05:14

session, and now

1:05:16

we just gotta kick start it and

1:05:18

make our own series of Garfield.

1:05:21

Step aside, Jim Davis we've got

1:05:23

the new Garfield and he's an Yo.

1:05:29

Well, thank you guys so much for

1:05:32

joining me today. This was so fun. This

1:05:34

is like my dream to talk to my

1:05:36

fellow Garfield philosophers.

1:05:40

I'm gonna say philosophers doctors

1:05:42

of philosophy of Garfield on

1:05:44

the show. Let's have you guys plug

1:05:47

your stuff. So Hannah, let's

1:05:49

start with you. I currently

1:05:52

working on things that are

1:05:54

not out. Um, but my

1:05:56

Twitter handle is at h

1:05:58

A N A M I S H E L S.

1:06:01

I gotta spell my name and I am sorry. It's

1:06:03

it's a long series

1:06:06

of Ellis Island decisions and

1:06:10

Joey, you got anything to plug? So

1:06:12

you can follow me on Twitter at Joey Tainman. You

1:06:14

follow me on Instagram at Joey Clift

1:06:17

and some stuff started dropping before

1:06:19

then. I'm um, you should check out Comedy

1:06:21

Central's Instagram stories. I'm Indigenous

1:06:24

People's Day because I'm doing a takeover for Indigenous

1:06:26

People's Day to uh yeah,

1:06:28

it's gonna be a bunch of jokes and things about

1:06:30

native stuff. And then I'm I'm doing it to promote

1:06:33

a list of twenty five Native American

1:06:35

comedians you should follow in I'm Native

1:06:37

American. There are a lot of funny Native Americans.

1:06:39

I'm one of them, hopefully. Uh

1:06:42

so I'm not on the list. I helped write the list,

1:06:44

but I'm hopefully in the category of funny

1:06:46

natives. So yeah, check that

1:06:48

out. Follow me on Twitter, Mark the Comedy cent drum

1:06:50

stickum Stories, follow me on instad and thanks for having

1:06:52

me and bes always excited to talk about carb Yeah,

1:06:55

thank you guys so much for joining me. This was

1:06:57

this was a fun trip into the gar First,

1:06:59

you can you follow us on Instagram at

1:07:01

Creature Future Pod on Twitter at

1:07:04

Creature Feet Pod. That's f E A T,

1:07:06

not feet. That is something very

1:07:08

different. If you're interested in my Katie

1:07:10

thoughts, just at Katie Golden k

1:07:13

A T I E G O L D I N.

1:07:15

And as always, I am

1:07:18

at pro bird writes. Uh

1:07:21

definitely not a sentient flock

1:07:23

of birds trying to subvert

1:07:25

social media to convince humans to

1:07:28

accept us as their overlords. Thank

1:07:31

you so much to this Space Classics for their

1:07:33

super garfi song. X Alumina.

1:07:35

Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio.

1:07:38

For more podcasts like the one you just heard,

1:07:41

visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast

1:07:43

or Hey guess what where have you listen

1:07:45

to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday,

1:07:49

not Mondays because Mondays.

1:07:52

Yeah I was about to say, like a good thing, it's

1:07:54

Monday. Now

1:07:58

we all eat our full

1:08:01

plates of lasagna that are sitting just out of

1:08:03

camera and with our bare hands. Yeah.

1:08:07

Yeah, it's an audio medium,

1:08:09

but we promise you no silverware

1:08:12

track lasagna.

1:08:15

Some more