In honor of Mount St. Helens being bitchy lately (oh, I'm sorry, suffering from seismic insanity), I thought I'd do a feature on a volcano-related topic. Like... this! Garfield In Paradise, a 1986 CBS special, has got it all -- volcanic sacrifices, vintage cars, and, of course, that fat orange cat -- back when he was still, omg, funny! The story goes like this: John Arbuckle has been saving his nickles since the age of twelve in peanut butter jars. 115 jars later, John is finally able afford a vacation. He packs his suitcase, dresses his cat, Garfield, like a little schoolboy, and boards a plane to Paradise. Yeah, Paradise. No, not Hawaii. "Paradise World." It's an island and a tourist trap all in one! Jon is, by no stretch of the imagination, traveling on a dirt-cheap budget. He has to fly third class, a section so far down on the luxury scale that it doesn't even offer its passengers seatbelts. Garfield: "Whoever said getting there's half the fun should be drug out into the street and shot." Garfield's a smart enough cat to know they're going to the cheap version of Hawaii and whines about the fact, but earns no sympathy from Jon. Jon's got an obnoxious gung-ho attitude and he's convinced they'll have a wonderful vacation, despite the fact that they got the $12-a-night hotel room. Jon: "By the way, which way is the beach?" Desk Clerk: "What beach?" Jon: "Beach. You know -- sand... with water along... this IS the Seaside Motel, isn't it?" Desk Clerk: "Mr. Arbuckle... what's in a name?" Jon: "This isn't exactly what I bargained for." Garfield: "Oh you bargained for it, all right." After checking into the Crapsville motel, things go from bad to worse. Garfield opens Jon's suitcase to find Odie inside... why, he stowed away! "What a happy surprise!" says Jon, but Garfield knows better. Meanwhile, the motel's pool has no water... then Jon falls off the diving board and suffers injury. The boys decide to drive to the beach, so it's off to the rent-a-car place... but alas, there's only one car. But when they see it's a vintage beauty, they're thrilled. The rent-a-car guy warns them that the car has a few "personality quirks", but Garfield & co. don't care. It's a car! It's red! It's shiny! So off they go. They drive to the beach, singing on the way. (These Garfield specials always seem to involve singing.) The song is part Ode To The Beach, part Lament About The Fact That Jon Has No Girlfriend (it's his usual complaint). At the beach, Odie pretends to be a shark, and Garfield buries Odie in the sand. It isn't long before the animals are ready to depart the sand and surf. (Garfield: "It's too warm here... hey, you'd be warm, too, if you had to wear a fur coat to the beach!") So after tickling Jon to make him agree, the three hop in the car and drive off in search of some "action." (Insert ominous-sounding music here.) Here's a random piece of trivia: In addition to singing, Garfield specials also contain an element of scariness. Not scary to an adult, perhaps, but deathly frightening to a little kid. I know I was petrified of the old man in the Halloween Garfield special and the panther in Garfield In The Rough, even though I now find said Large Cat quite comical. In Garfield In Paradise, the element of scariness is the... VOLCANO!! Yes. There is, in fact, an active volcano on this island o' fun. And as soon as it starts rumbling, Jon's shiny red rental car starts doing funny things. Oh no, they can't control it! (Why does Odie look happy?) Uh so anyway... the car has a mind of its own!! It veers off the main road and drives to the smack center of a village before coming to a sudden halt. The villagers gather around the car and begin to worship it. Once they figure out the villagers are worshiping the car, not them, Garfield and the gang are kind of disappointed, but also kind of confused. Luckily, the village chief takes pity on them and explains the situation. Apparently, forty-odd years ago, a man came to the village with a car that looked JUST LIKE THAT ONE and saved the village from certain doom when he drove the car into the volcano to appease the gods or spirits or whatnot. Now his story is passed on from generation to generation. Now you might be asking, what the heck does this bizarre story have to do with anything?? Yeah, I dunno either. One thing's for certain -- that volcano's upset again. But meanwhile, the chief wants Jon and Garfield to have some social shenanigans, so he sets them up with his daughter and her cat. Odie, who evidently is not worthy of female companionship, decides to help the local mechanic fix the car. The mechanic's been told that if he doesn't fix it, he will be properly killed. Doesn't that just sound like fun? Jon, Princess Awooda, Garfield, and Awooda's cat take a walk. Then Jon and Awooda burst into a song about how they'd found love at first sight and all that jazz. Could it be...?? After all these years, has Jon finally found true love, in paradise? Has he met the woman he will spend the rest of his life with? Eh, not if the volcano has anything to say about it... Now it appears that the volcano is insanely angry about something, and it's threatening to erupt, soon! Awooda knows just what to do -- she offers to sacrifice herself, along with her cat, to the volcano. This is the longest date Jon's ever been on, and it's ending in its usual way... But alas, Awooda's self-sacrifice is not meant to be! Seems the volcano... uh... doesn't want her. That crazy volcano! It wants the car! The chief declares that the car must be tossed into the volcano. "There goes my deposit," says Jon. The volcano is getting madder by the minute, but the car still won't start! At the very last second, Odie manages to connect a wire that gets the car going and he and the mechanic quickly drive the car up the mountain. But they are going too fast and, oh! They don't have time to jump off!!!! And in one lousy second, Odie and and the mechanic plummet into the volcano. It erupts. And then, from the ashes comes... Um... okay. Anyway, so James Dean the Sequel flies away in his sports car, and the villagers, Jon, and Garfield go to the edge of the volcano to mourn the loss of Odie and the mechanic. As they peer over the edge, they pay their respects and then turn sadly away. In a scene oddly reminsicent of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (though let's not forget, this Garfield special came first), just as the onlookers have given up all hope, the heroes are seen climbing out of the crater! Hurray, Odie lives! Oh, and yes, the mechanic lives, too. Everyone is totally happy, man! You know, even when I was a kid, I always wondered why they ended the show, here. I mean, how do Jon, Garfield, and Odie get back to the hotel, now that they have no car? And won't they have to pay for the car and stuff? And how come, in future Garfield shows, we hear nothing about Awooda? Was that just a one-time fling? Did said fling give Jon the confidence he needed in the dating world? Well... probably not. And who knows what they did about the car. I think the message we're supposed to pull from this is: Gee, it's great to just be alive. So remember that, kids: even if you can't afford any better than the crappy third-class tickets on a trip to a place that's not quite Hawaii, you can still have a good time and, you know, save a village and stuff. First published: 10/18/04 Last updated: 2/17/05 Leave a message in the guestbook to comment on this article. :) (c)2004 AlligatorJuice.com.