Garfield’s Reason for Hating Mondays Is Shockingly Bleak

Garfield the cat is lazy, sardonic and hopelessly addicted to lasagna. So naturally, the fit, peppy, lasagna-hating Chris Pratt took over the role for the new animated Garfield movie, which is simply titled The Garfield Movie. Is there some sort of President of Hollywood Animation who’s being blackmailed by Chris Pratt? I mean, he’s not even the best former Parks and Recreation cast member for the part. 

At this point, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to find out that Chris Pratt’s very favorite day of the week is Monday. After all, another of Garfield’s most defining characteristics is his passionate hatred for Mondays. Which really makes no sense when you think about it. It’s not like Garfield is holding down a 9-to-5 job, he just spends his days sleeping, mainlining Italian cuisine and being a dick to Odie for no reason. Why should he even care that the weekend is over? 

During a 2014 interview, Garfield’s creator, Jim Davis, was asked about this exact logical inconsistency, which clearly torpedoes the believability of a comic strip about a super-intelligent cat. Weirdly, Davis’ answer was somewhat upsetting. Instead of just admitting that Garfield’s “I hate Mondays” vibe was a brilliant scheme to sell coffee mugs, T-shirts and novelty calendars, Davis elucidated that this character trait was born out of an all-consuming existential malaise.

“Garfield does not have a job, Garfield does not go to school, and every day is the same,” Davis admitted. “Nevertheless, every Monday is just a reminder that his life is the same old, same old cycling again, and for some reason even though his life is pretty much the same every day on Mondays.” 

Yup, Mondays aren’t upsetting to Garfield because they represent the start of the workweek, but rather, because they represent the unchanging monotony of our slow, ceaseless march toward an inevitable death. 

Davis also explained that “specifically, awful things tend to happen to him physically” on Mondays, which sounds pretty ominous, but presumably, Davis was referring to how Garfield sometimes gets into slapstick scrapes. For example, the very first instance of Garfield vocalizing his hatred for Mondays occurred back in 1998, when he accidentally got rolled up in Jon’s window blinds. But for some reason, Garfield’s takeaway from this experience wasn’t “I hate blinds.”

Davis noted that the Monday-themed Garfield merch was so popular because it allowed people to vent without having to actually express frustration themselves: “The very first products done had lines like I Hate Mondays, I’d Like Mondays Better If It Started Later and things people did not want to say themselves but they would let Garfield say it for them. It is the attitude that people gravitate to because he is such a great escape for that.”

So Garfield, operating as a sort of surrogate complainer, became very lucrative for Davis. Somehow “I hate drinking cups of dog semen” never took off in the same way. 

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