The Filthy Easter Egg That Sneaked Into A 'Garfield' Movie

Garfield Gets Real is a pretty bizarre and unusual entry in the Garfield Cinematic Universe, for several reasons. For starters, it acknowledges that Garfield isn't just a comic strip character, but one who is repetitive to the point of existential despair. The direct-to-video 2007 movie starts with Garfield growing tired of doing the same offensively mediocre gags for decades and deciding to escape into the real world. In fact, he even comes across printed out versions of his classic comic strips, which must be a disorientingly surreal experience ... 

Hey, uh, wait a minute. What's that on the lower right corner? Computer, enhance sectors 203 to 609. Move in. Stop. 

Wh ... why is Jon Arbuckle quoting Samuel L. Jackson's "I'm a mushroom cloud-laying mother #@%&er, mother #@%&er" speech from Pulp Fiction in an official Garfield strip? Because that's not an official strip, and that isn't even the most shocking panel here: that would be the ones in which a sexually frustrated Jon threatens to sodomize Garfield if he doesn't help him pick a tie for his date. 

The fan-edited comic is known as "Jon snaps" and was posted to the internet shortly after the publication of the original strip in 2005, probably in some site ending in "chan." Since then, it has been the subject of other animated tributes, but none as high profile as being used in an official Garfield production (one written by series creator Jim Davis himself, no less). On the off chance that any of our readers don't have the Garfield Gets Real DVD at hand to verify the Easter egg by themselves, here's the scene in question. Pause at 4:25: 

Hell, that moment even made it into the trailer. Nobody seems to know how the foul comic ended up in the movie. Was it a disgruntled animator? Did Jim Davis specifically write "USE FILTHY FAN COMIC IN THE BACKGROUND HERE" in the script to symbolize Garfield's growing disdain for the quality of his own material? Or did someone just write "Garfield comic" into a search engine and copy the first one that was long enough to use in that spot without even reading it? We might never know, but it's probably the last one. 

Then again, this wouldn't be the first time a fan creation painting Jon as mentally unbalanced is inducted into the canon by Davis. The edited strips in the popular Garfield Minus Garfield website ended up being published as an official book, and really, is this any more shocking than Davis endorsing a bonkers Garfield-themed restaurant that ended up turning into an opportunity to sell deranged, somewhat Garfield-related NFTs? It's only a matter of time before he signs up for a horror movie based on those creepy "I'm sorry Jon" fan and admits that the "Jon drinks dog ejaculate" theory is 100% true. 

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com. 

Top image: 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment, Paws Inc