628: Garfield on Cable TV

|< < Prev Comic #628 (February 6, 2011)

Garfield on Cable TV

Made by: Manyhills

Explanation

This strip satirizes two particularly annoying television practices, the first of which being the frequency of commercial breaks on cable TV. The original strip, three panels long and easily read in less than 30 seconds, is now broken up by two ad breaks between each one. Not helping this is the presence of both a "coming up on..." sequence and a more traditional recap sequence, which are unnecessary given the brevity of the strip and only serve to utterly ruin the pacing and flow of the joke. Making this even more evident is the author's note, which remarks that in reality there would likely be another commercial break right before the end credits.

The author writes:

I am being slightly facetious, of course - there would normally be an ad break just before the end credits too.

Original strip: 1997-04-09.

Transcript

Title card: Garfield
Jon: We need some action around here!
Title card: Coming up on Garfield
{Garfield wiggles his ears}
[ad break]
Title card: Previously on Garfield
Jon: We need some action around here!
{Garfield wiggles his ears}
Title card: Coming up on Garfield
Jon: Wiggling your ears doesn't count.
Garfield: Then you think of something.
[ad break]
Title card: Previously on Garfield
{Garfield wiggles his ears}
Jon: Wiggling your ears doesn't count.
Garfield: Then you think of something.
{end titles}
Garfield
Series creator: Jim Davis
Writer: Jim Davis