4069: Did Somebody Say McDonald's?

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Did Somebody Say McDonald's?

Made by: MichaelSar

Explanation

This strip takes the premise of the original strip and makes it so that it's the McDonald's logo coming up toward Garfield up close; the author's notes explain the reasoning. This strip's title is that of an actual McDonald's advertising campaign; it was the North American English-language slogan between 1997 and 2000.

The author's notes makes mention of McDonald's at one point selling Garfield mugs, and Garfield did indeed appear in commercials advertising them; this promotion happened in 1987 (incorrect attribution of it happening in 1978 tends to appear a lot around the Internet due to a character copyright being mistaken for manufacture date), and the mugs are nowadays infamous for containing excessive amounts of lead and cadmium in their paint.

The author writes:

I think what gave me this idea is that the bird, in the first two panels, is drawn as the letter "M", very similar to that which McDonald's uses as its logo. Heck, had it not been for the fact that Garfield rarely if ever features product placement, this could have worked as an actual Garfield strip (though I think the punchline of the actual strip works well too).

Ironically, at some point Garfield mugs were actually available at McDonald's. Garfield even appeared in a commercial or two.

Original strip: 2017-07-05.

Transcript

{Garfield sees what looks like a bird flying his way}
Garfield: Come closer!
{The "bird" does}
Garfield: Closer!
{The "bird" lands in front of Garfield, and as it turns out it's not a bird at all - it's the McDonald's logo}
Garfield: Uh, too close