Following on from
Part I.
Ten years after the original Lasagna Cat web series, a very big
surprise came to be where when a new season abruptly appeared, beginning with a
trailer in February 2017. This trailer showed a considerable jump in production
since the 2008 web videos, in which Garfield is secretly a Terminator robot and
Jon Arbuckle (and viewers) were requested to call a call connected telephone
number for a survey, where you would provide your name and how many sexual
partners you have had.
The episodes were recorded not
that long after the original series in truth, sat in Fatal Farm's archive until they decided now than never to release
them. In that time, however, they grew considerably in reputation. Season One,
as mentioned before, caught the attention of the likes of Adult Swim, and onwards they created the likes of music videos, commercials,
and various odds and sods. There is also Our
RoboCop Remake (2014), a unique anthology of individuals remaking scenes from
Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987) in idiosyncratic ways. Fatal Farm remade the scene where RoboCop shoots a would-be rapist
in the penis, multiplies in their many to multiple would be rapists and many
(now explicit) exploding penises. It is also the sign of how Fatal Farm improved in that, whilst they
are still low budget filmmakers, they are technically accomplished and a
resourceful pair, as their segment involved finding a hardcore fan that had an
accurate RoboCop suit and police car.
The second season of Lasagna Cat also shows the same
considerably darker and bolder sense of humour. The structure is the same as
before - how the Garfield strip is
replicated exactly, followed by the original for comparison, and followed by a
musical tribute to Jim Davis, which
are significantly more elaborate in most cases than before. Immediately out of
the gate for example, you got 10/20/1984
- same as before, new background colour and a change in music cue
notwithstanding, about Garfield mistaking Odie in a picture frame as a mirror.
Only this time it turns into a shot-by-shot remake of a famous scene from Michael Mann's famous TV series Miami Vice. Specifically a notable
scene using Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight, the one song just
by itself which does defend Collins'
solo career whatever your opinion on it. Re-sung by Justin Roiland, pre-Rick and
Morty, the recreation even with cardboard boats and background buildings is
incredibly accurate. This does open
an issue where half the joke does not work without the reference, which could
post as a criticism of the short, but creating a visually accurate depiction of
a very sombre and intense scene with Garfield is funny in itself, and if you do
know the reference (or see the shot-by-shot comparison), it is exceptional
right down to Odie having actor Philip
Michael Thomas' earring on the costume.
The jump in production also means
that the musical choices I would argue are also more ambitious. Some obvious
choices, like 50 Cent's In Da Club for Garfield's debauched
birthday with a mouse stripper, but even Kenny
G is used in a perfect way, over a pleasant tableaux of Jon on the
telephone, and idyllic scenes of hunky Garfield, in respect to their creator.
Possibly the best, excluding the big epic episode using Philip Glass and the Miami
Vice parody, is Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, played over the tale of
Odie becoming a fashion icon for wearing a paper bag on his head...only to get
into scandal, become depressed and commit suicide, and not be permitted into
Heaven because of the paper bag, thus ending up in a hell populated by Jon
Arbuckle-man scorpion hybrids. That is probably one of the darkest tributes,
and there are a few, but the unconventional music choice is striking too,
making the fact it is in copyright infringement sad as unless the license was
paid for, this could easily be compromised, thus marring a visual-audio
combination which works exceptionally.
Interesting only one was ever
problematic, another deemed too extreme for YouTube. Of all the possible controversial
decisions, it was including the address of Garfield's owners Paws. Inc. and asking to contact them
about "having breakfast with Garfield", using an altered version of
the Deep Blue Something song about Breakfast at Tiffany's; that video is
available online but usually with blurring and not on YouTube, which is a shame because it is one of the most distinct,
Jon in a breakfast themed world with houses and suburban life made from food
before a giant Garfield sneezes it all away. Fatal Farm with these episodes were willing to spend money on work
they could never gain financial revenue from, which is a shame but also
admirable in their creative choices and that they clearly did this out of
passion.
This is an important point to
make, that it was with passion. With these segments there is also a drift away
from the original joke, namely to take the piss out of Garfield as a property. One still refers back to the original
point, turning into a 1920s set tribute of Jon playing a loop to loop joke for
way too long in front of a bored audience, but we have to consider how Fatal Farm's attitudes might have
changed when they have worked for so long in this world. They willingly combed
through strips for two weeks for the shortest, a parody of a 2008
meme called Colin's Bear Animation,
an animation project from a third year Game Development student at Ontario Tech
University, where it is recreated with a CGI Garfield moving, dancing, and then
a play on the famous dismissal of the original to the teacher "Thanks for
nothing", which Fatal Farm
willingly spent a long time in trying to find a newspaper strip with that line.
The jokes may have gotten certainly darker, but at this point, the level of
devotion to the work they did not need to do show their views of Jim Davis and his famous characters
having clearly softened. If it had not changed, no sane person would spend two
weeks for this joke*.
The banned YouTube video for example, stemming from a joke about Jon being a
"madman" for wearing socks in bed and, set to Fergalicious by Fergie,
has him in an asylum in the tribute, smearing on the wall (and eating) his own
faeces, and getting a lobotomy with a drill. But it is not a joke at the
creation, but just a dark joke, a juxtaposition of something you would never
witness. Likewise there is the shampoo bukkake, which is arguably the most
ambitious alongside the Miami Vice
parody as, between the many additional elements these shorts had (a Twitter
account for Odie or a fake porn site for this one) to co-creator Jeffrey Max having to speak phonetic
Japanese among Japanese actors, it is impressive. Admittedly that short is,
yes, a recreation of a fetish stemming from Japanese pornography only with men
in loin clothes violently shaking shampoo over a receptive and grateful Jon
Arbuckle, with even pixilation of the bottles for effect. Who knows what the
extras were probably thinking acting this out, but set to a Prince song, it is a memorable eyebrow
raiser for sure. It is not a short that insults the creation however, which is
important to consider.
In terms of what they actually mean,
the truth for me is that Lasagna Cat
has always been a joke first, as with the Ducktales
parody and others, Fatal Farm finding
the humour in juxtaposition. The real message if any is the subconscious
changes, that in spite of the darker content and occasional mocking, the
episodes are less glib, more lavish and with little of the expense of Jim Davis' artistic work. Even the
Breakfast with Garfield controversy was a light hearted joke that was
accidentally too effective. There is one major episode I have not mentioned,
not Sex Survey Results, but the
original intended finale for the project which is a one hour piece and does
leave on an actual message for the series. This however deserves its own review...
To Be Continued...
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*) Listen to the podcast HERE, an interview with Fatal Farm, where this entire change of heart of explained in detail from themselves.
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