Is Garfield supposed to be funny?

[supergee]

The article says, “Unlike New Yorker cartoons, in which, you are actually missing the joke, Garfield is in fact not even designed to be funny.”

First of all, one does not “miss the joke” in traditional (not Charles Addams) New Yorker cartoons; one recognizes that it is a joke, without actually laughing. And Garfield was originally funny. It has merely followed the standard life cycle of comic strips, in which it starts out funny and winds up coasting on people’s memories of how funny it used to be (Peanuts, Dilbert). I suspect there was a time when Beetle Bailey was funny, although I personally do not remember it.

Comments

[mrissa]

It is incredibly sweet and heartening that we live in a world where a substantial enough number of people will think "that's just not that funny" of Garfield that the article you linked could be written. Because the main jokes of Garfield are: Garfield is fat (subjokes: eats too much, lazy). Odie is unintelligent. Jon is from a farm and therefore unsophisticated/unintelligent. Jon's family is still on the farm and therefore even more unsophisticated/unintelligent.

And there was a time when even people who didn't really find that stuff to be their brand of humor would have recognized it as Officially Funny. When "that person is fat" was all the punchline you needed to officially be Making A Joke.

I am really, really happy to have hopes of moving toward a culture where "that person is fat" is an observation like "I have brown eyes," where nobody will respond to that with "HAHAHA SO BROWN-EYED" but just: yep. So?

[supergee]

Good point.

[johnpalmer]

It's interesting - Garfield wasn't always *funny*, it was sometimes just cute or amusing.

Peanuts was actually one of the first strips that *tried* to be funny - many comics were straight serials. But yeah - try to do anything for 50 years and you won't be as fresh and original as when you start.

I remember BC being funny once - now, for a long time, every time I've seen it, it's been All Christian Whininess, All The Time which wouldn't bother me so much but for the name of B, you know, *C*.