Garfield peaked and bottomed out decades ago with Garfield and Friends, the Saturday morning cartoon that was actually better than the original strip. Since then, the purifyingcorpse of the strip and the merchandising behemoth behind it have somehow kept the fat cat alive, as if he was buried in the Pet Semetary. And lo, someone is raising the corpse once again as Viacom has entered a “definitive agreement” to acquire the Garfield IP and will subsequently be launching a new cartoon series on Nickelodeon.
Garfield has long been run by its creator Jim Davis, who will continue to write the strips that repeat the same joke every other week, but this is a whole buyout, with Viacom not only getting the rights to make the show but the rights to merchandising control as well.
I mean, good news for Jim Davis who is now even richer, I suppose. Probably good news for Garfield fans in general. Nickelodeon does some great animated work with franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it can’t get any worse than those mid-2000s films, right? Oh god, please say it can’t get worse.
‘Garfield’: Viacom Acquiring Classic Cartoon Property; Nickelodeon Preps Animated Series [Deadline]
