As some of you may know, I was the Supervising Producer of The Garfield Show, which is seen all over the globe. I'm still not sure what a Supervising Producer supervises but I wrote a lot of the series and directed the voices and did various producer-like chores. We did…well, I'm not sure if I should say four or five seasons. Seasons 1-4 consisted of approximately 26 half-hours each. "Season 5," as they called it, was four 11-minute episodes that could also be described as one four-part story.
The 78 half-hours that comprised Seasons 1-3 have been running for many years in the United States on Cartoon Network and/or Boomerang. Both channels are owned by the same company and they've sometimes run them on one or the other or for a while on both, usually four half-hours a day, seven days a week. They have run these over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
They do quite well in the ratings, which is why they run them over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Though they've had Season 4 and "Season 5" sitting on the shelf for a long time, they haven't aired them because Seasons 1-3 do so well as they run them over and over and over, etc. 4 and 5 have been broadcast all over the world; just not in the U.S. of A.
Right now, the shows from Seasons 1-3 air on Boomerang Monday through Friday at 10 AM, 10:30 AM, 10 PM and 10:30 PM. On the weekends, Boomerang has them at 2 PM, 2:30 PM, 10 PM and 10 PM. These are all Eastern Times I'm giving you.
And starting tonight, there's an additional half-hour every Tuesday night which will be airing the never-before Season 4 and (I think, later on, "Season" 5). This half-hour airs on Boomerang at 8:30 PM Eastern and then the same episodes air at 11:30 PM. Now, here's where it gets complicated…
Each half-hour of The Garfield Show contains two 11-minute episodes. Some of the 11-minute episodes in Season 4 are standalone 11-minute stories and some of them are 11-minute chapters of five-part stories. Tonight, for example, they're airing Part 1 and Part 2 of the five-part story, "The Lion Queen." Next Tuesday, you get Part 3 and Part 4 and then the following Tuesday, you get Part 5 of "The Lion Queen" and…well, I'm not sure. Maybe one of the standalone episodes or maybe Part 1 of another five-parter.
This is not the way I'd have chosen to air the shows but I do want to recommend them to you anyway. These episodes feature some of the best CGI animation I've ever seen on television and I was real happy with how the stories came out. (There are also songs; I wrote the English lyrics for tunes written by others in France.) "The Lion Queen" also has a superb voice cast: Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert, Jason Marsden, Julie Payne, Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, Misty Lee, Laraine Newman and Stan Freberg.
I'm not comfy plugging my own work so this is as much as I'll say now. I hope you enjoy them and I hope one of these days soon, they run all five parts of a five-parter, one right after the other. I really like them that way.